Month: February 2016

Burghfield Reds (who play in blue) 5 Wokingham and Emmbrook 10 (Mulvaney 4, Parry 3, Saynor, Sexton, o.g.)

There isn’t the virtual acreage to cover today’s events in full, so like a man or woman condemned to do their weekly shop at the basket checkout (Harry Enfield’s ‘Here’s another 10 items or less, here’s another 10 items or less, here’s another 10 items or less), I’ll try to cover what I can and make economies where possible.

Friday evening was spent discussing pipes which are visible from the M1. Apparently, ‘when you spend 2 years of your life on the M1, you run out of things to speculate about.’ Nevertheless, there is a ‘Purple Pipes Online Forum’ on which people do precisely that, bantering about plumbing anomalies and the significance of colour. Marginal trivia, perhaps, but who could honestly demean those who make it their business to seriously consider the infrastructure of this country, to split the infinitive of a journey to the Lake District?

So Burghfield Reds arrived from the West Country in all their village finery: a blue kit, head to foot. I’m not sure what the significance of this is. Cardiff are called the Bluebirds and played in red for a few years, but that decision had a nationalistic thrust to it which I’m not sure Burghfield share.

The village member who corralled his team into the Estadio da Luz did so public spiritedly, railing his charges in with a squint and some amiable stubble. With the game underway, Evan played as a Libero, a deep lying defender who outwitted the Burghfield attack with nonchalant vision. Lead wolf Connor Mulvaney was on the bench, the Soccer Roster was in full rotation and Jack Parry punished witlessness, firing us into a 2-0 lead early doors.

Soon, the Kaiser was on and two near-identical goals were scored from outrageous angles, yet Burghfield rallied. They scored from a goal kick and an unholy mess in the goalmouth as Amelia back-peddled, mis-coordinating her feet as she tumbled backwards into the goal: she was later to score after a brilliant doppelpass on the konter, liaising with cousin Connor the Kaiser to devastating effect. Yes!

So at half-time, it was quite literally 4-3.

The bestubbled veteran of Burghfield mewed his team together with hope: hope, pride, optimism, self-awareness and more than a smattering of mental health. His assistant was less scrutable: a bald-headed fellow with correct carriage.

Evan was back on the pitch. We were cooped in a rectangle of self-expression. Too many einwurfs (the throw-in, scourge of junior 5-a-side) and so much good play to warm the senior Mulvaney cockles: dragbacks, passing, Cruyff turns, tackles and goals. No elfmeters; limited foul play.

The zweite halfte was less of a football festival, though my highlight was ‘in this moment’ as Pellegrini would say. Evan picked up the ball deep and spied a chasm in the Burghfield mandeckung.

‘Run Evan, Go!’ He was on the ball, never mind the danger, cut loose, bearing down on Burghfield and their goalkeeper: ‘Shoot! GOAL!’ 8-3. Vindication, gegners crushed, a Bombenschuss on the Bolzplatz .

A phenomenal win for Wokingham against our favourite Mannschaft from the countryside.

We were euphoric Satsumas and they, of course, were Burghfield Reds: blue.

Centre Skills 3 Wokingham & Emmbrook 4 (Mulvaney 3, Sexton)

Legendary sports writer James Lawton once described the football authorities as ‘men who know the price of everything in the game but apparently so little about its most precious values.’

This was the most intimidating and unpleasant opposition I can remember since the early 90’s when New Windsor Falcons had to face teams from the grimy Heathrow hinterland. At one such game there were scuffles between parents, one of whom – on our side – was a TV racing pundit resembling Boycie from Only Fools and Horses. He would often light up a big cigar and run haltingly onto the pitch, gesticulating wildly. Where are characters such as this nowadays?

The blandly-named ‘Centre Skills’ had a few, that’s for sure. Wearing sunglasses throughout – not even the light-sensitive ones – their manager stood broodingly on the touchline while his assistant barked out orders such as ‘tackle him harder’ (aimed at Evan, which I wasn’t best pleased about). Coach Peter said that they were doing everything FA courses tell you not to do when coaching children. The problem is that Coach Peter operates at an entirely different moral altitude to me. As I grew increasingly frustrated, I was left in a kind of limboland of repressed anger: ‘Hey, don’t get too excited Alex. Just let the ref deal with it: we’re not going to say anything.’
‘But, but…’
‘Yeah, I know. You’re right, but we’re just going to leave it.’

Centre Skills seem to operate primarily as a business rather than a community football club rooted in a specific place. Is that why it was so important for them to win? Is that why their managers didn’t shake hands with us at the end? Was it beneath them to lose to a less ‘professional’ outfit, even though we’re talking about 6 and 7 year-olds? I hesitate to raise this question, but did the hard men in charge object to losing to a team which contains a girl?

If Coach Peter read this, he would appeal to me to transcend this line of argument, I’m sure, to find an inner tranquility which recognises the good rather than the bad in others: to ‘search for the hero inside yourself’, as M People once recommended.

For the final 10 minutes, Centre Skills were permanently encamped in Wokingham & Emmbrook’s box, defying the stricture that goal kicks should occasion a retreat into the other half of the pitch, a rule the ref couldn’t be bothered to uphold and one which I couldn’t comment on due to Peter’s laudable pacifism.

Somehow, his philosophy worked; Wokingham & Emmbrook were able to withstand pressure with a semblance of rationality while Centre Skills lashed at shots, losing reason as they habitually transgressed the boundaries of sense and fair play. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who you are; if Mulvaney’s banging in the goals and Jack Parry’s defending like it’s the Battle of Britain – inflamed by jibes from their players about the nature of his trainers and ability – and the likes of Evan and others are nonchalantly providing the garnish, then mere aggression will be redundant.

However, while Centre Skills opted for free market brutalism, Evan seemed to allow hazy corporate jargon to infect his post match analysis: ‘They shout at each other and they shout at us. That’s not good teamwork. Teamwork’s one of our core values.’ So perhaps Peter’s right, though I’m not sure I’ll ever live up to it. Though we might aspire to some of the ‘most precious values’, is it best to try to keep quiet in doing so?

AFC Whitchurch 5 Wokingham & Emmbrook 2 (C. Mulvaney, A. Mulvaney pen)

(Apologies to anyone from Whitchurch who may not recognise my somewhat subjective portrayal of their club and village. Match details are accurate.)

AFC Whitchurch were formed when their parent club, Whitchurch United, was bought by an American businessman who pumped millions of pounds into the club before floating it on the New York Stock Exchange. The Whitchurch fans were dissatisfied with this, fearing that investment would threaten their very essence, the nature of what it means to be ‘Whitchurch.’ Rather than expressing their love for grassroots football by choosing another local club to support – Pangbourne FC, Woodcote Caledonian Thistle, Goring Academicals, Streatley in-the-age-of-Aquarius FC – they decided to form their own club, AFC Whitchurch, who would wear gold and green to anchor them to the soul of South Oxfordshire.

As expected for a fan-owned club, Whitchurch packed one whole end of the Estadio da Luz, bouncing up and down before kick off to a raucous ‘Pogo if you love Whitchurch, pogo if you love Whitchurch…’ transitioning into a bitter ‘Where were you, where were you, where were you at Beale Park?’ No-one else knew what they were referring to, but it packed an irrelevant punch, that’s for sure. Discombobulated by the pageantry, Wokingham started the game as if in that most blissful of states: semi-consciousness. Reassuringly, Whitchurch scored within 1.3 seconds of kick off. They scored another in the next few seconds as our gloved and beanied brethren seemed much more focused on sartorial logistics than anything to do with the match proper.

Unfortunately, the pattern continued: Coach Michael is resolute in his insistence that skill, technique, fun and rotation are everything. We rotate so much that we’re all medicated; we’ve all got labyrinthitis. The goalkeeper changes four times per game. That’s the level of rotation. You can’t feel your fingers. They can’t feel their fingers. The Whitchurch supporters fall silent in pity as yet another dog’s breakfast of football management unfolds before them: the numbness of the Assistant Manager’s (me) five minute glove fitting, the manic sleeve inversions of the desperate. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t know what you’re doing!’ It was best just to wave and move on.

Whitchurch scored again. And again. It was 4-0 before we’d even reached garment contentment. Now was the time for Mulvaney. Their experienced Irish coach said ‘Hey, dat nomber 4’s a good player now.’ Yes, he is. First he took on the whole team to make it 4-1, then he won a penalty which resulted in his cousin, Amelia Mulvaney, scoring her first goal of the season. Well done Amelia! Whitchurch then scored a sloppy goal before half time, which for us is merely a textile alteration window, the most dramatic weave being the sudden Pink Gloves of Connor Mulvaney. After the break, we laid siege to their goal. Evan controlled a cross first time, and shot just wide. Thanasie hit the post. We won another penalty, but missed.

As was predictable, the passionate yet precious souls of Whitchurch staged a protest 5 minutes before the end, bless them. The type of fans who invest their whole lives into a club always find something to complain about. The chanting had decreased in relevance as the game progressed: ‘Stand up if you hate Tidmarsh, stand up if you hate Tidmarsh’ and ‘We all dream of a house in Kidmore End, a house in Kidmore End, a house in Kidmore End’ were among the most notable. But events took a much stranger turn when 20 or so Whitchurch supporters walked on to the pitch with a banner calling for ‘Justice for Nettlebed Pete’ and sat down around the centre circle, laying the banner down in the middle. Coach Michael looked at me blankly and the 16 year-old ref was in way over his head. Ciara wondered over and asked me who Nettlebed Pete was. ‘We don’t know, Ciara’ said Michael in his booming Scouse tones, ‘But let’s just let it pass.’

But the people of the bend in the Thames just wouldn’t budge. Eventually we had to call on staff and stewards from the Goals Centre to gather to remove them. Within 10 minutes all manner of officials had gathered round and most fans eventually dispersed, apart from one lady who refused to move. St John’s Ambulance staff tried to sweet talk her off, but eventually she had to be lifted from the pitch, not without a final, piercing shriek of ‘PETE!!!!’ Our momentum was completely destroyed, and all we could hear were cries in solidarity with the clearly deranged: ‘We are Whitchurch, we are Whitchurch, we are Whitchurch from the Thames. We are Whitchurch, super Whitchurch, we are Whitchurch, stuff Cane End.’ They had made an impression, and won. They have a strong identity; we have a strong range of accessories.

That’s life and it was almost as feisty as the Stratfield Turgis v Sherfield on Loddon A33 derby, a real cauldron for the unkempt and over-rotated. Evan’s post match comment was typically tangential: ‘Dad, did you know that a long time ago, Drogba used to be in the top ten Didiers?’

Twyford Comets v Wokingham and Emmbrook. Lokomotiv Stadion, Russia.

(n.b. due to the closeness of the game, the score has been withheld until the end. Evan’s post match interview is also there, so Route 1 here would be to skip. Route 2 will take you through the whole game/ build-up).

What is Twyford? As Assistant Manager for this game, part of my brief was to gauge the temperature of the village, to assess the culture and philosophy of its residents. The only way I know to determine this is to visit the chapel of Our Lady Astride the Crossroads and read the inscriptions on the green sacramental token bins therein. Only then can you gain a flavour of who or what abides in the orbit of Twyford, Central Berkshire’s ring doughnut, the centre of which is an absence, a crossroads. This week there is an appeal for the veterans of this floating world to be granted sufficient means ‘to visit Eastbourne or Weymouth.’ A rival bid is for a group who would like ‘maybe the odd Bingo night’, but my vote went to the Charvil Whatever who wanted to do their thing strictly within the realm of Charvil. So the question remains: what is Twyford?

Perhaps we’ll never find an answer. We do, however, know that an extremely irritating and single-minded nightmare of a human being lives there. Readers of previous reports may remember a lady who turned out in support of ‘Harrison’ when these teams last met. She was here again and in full, shameless voice: ‘Grapple with him, Harrison! Put your foot in there! Get her in a headlock! Pull her plaits off!’ From the dugout on the opposite side of the pitch I could hear her shrieking exhortations from the first minute to the last. To make matters worse, following a neat finish from Connor to put us in the lead, Harrison scored their first goal, taking it past three players before blasting it into the corner. Evan, starting up front, got into some excellent positions and had a few near misses before the game swung with seemingly terminal force in Twyford’s favour. Evan, now in goal, decided to pass the ball out to Amelia who miscued spectacularly, looping the ball back over Evan’s head and into the goal.

Twyford then scored another before half-time, this time through the oddly named ‘Andrew’. I’m not knocking the moniker in itself, but you do seldom hear it nowadays. Not many people introduce Baby Andy to the world. Does this signal yet another bewildering cultural difference between Wokingham and Twyford? I wouldn’t be surprised if Twyford’s ‘Evie quotient’ is also down somewhat in relation to other places, perhaps accounting for just 80% of girls’ names there as opposed to 95% elsewhere?

The second half was a nightmare and I was a jittery mess throughout, partly to do with an excess of filter coffee and partly because Coach Michael made me participate in the warm-up, running up and down and lifting my knees high in the air while wearing jeans and boots. Ridiculous. Harrison’s mum’s report would have identified her double, I’m sure, wondering who the prick in the warm-up was and why he paced up and down the touchline yelling nonsense all game. It’s because it was so painful. We battered them in terms of possession, territory and attacking thrust, but just could not finish.

Amelia played excellently in terms of her positioning as lone striker, carving out several opportunities for herself by finding space – it’s just that she narrowly missed every one of them. Connor Mulvaney was nullified by a detail their coach seemed to have put on him and it was impossible to find a breakthrough until, that is, we were awarded a penalty after a handball in the box. Coach Michael decided that Evan was the man for this, but he was jostled no end by envious teammates. Michael called out that he’d chosen Evan and that the decision was final. The ref said ‘Right, enough of this. Can the penalty taker put their hand up?’ Four hands shot up. Eventually, Evan had a clear run at the ball, the whistle sounded and he curled it high and to the left of the keeper and into the net.

So it was now 3-2 and we continued to exert relentless pressure, but Twyford’s defence was excellent. It looked like it was just one of those games; all that was left was a search for inner humanity, the resolve to walk past Harrison’s mum with one’s head down, mute. But that wouldn’t be necessary. Just as all hope appeared to be lost, and with about 30 seconds left, the ball fell to Mark Sexton who pelted it, lofting the ball high into the net, Steven Gerrard style. I couldn’t restrain myself from running onto the pitch and joining the celebrations, morphing the delirium into yelled instructions for the last seconds, shifting the indefatigable Jack Parry into defence for the final moments, during which they won a free kick. A goalmouth scramble ensued, as did my final injunction: ‘Just hoof it!’ Coach Michael was unimpressed: ‘Alex – ”Just hoof it?” – you can’t say that.’ Point taken, Michael.

After the game, Evan was interviewed about his penalty taking style and approach:

Interviewer: So tell me, Evan, did you decide where to place the ball for your penalty?

Evan: No, I just hit it.

Interviewer: That’s fine, I suppose, as long as you don’t hit it straight at the keeper!

Evan (concerned, sympathetic look on his face) : No, I wouldn’t have done that because he was wearing hearing aids.

The most considerate penalty taker of all time? That accolade probably goes to Robbie Fowler who deliberately missed a penalty he deemed to have been awarded unfairly. The most counterproductive hearing aid in the History of Twyford? The village’s most punishing humanitarian episode? We may never know.

Twford Comets 3 Wokingham and Emmbrook 3 (Mulvaney, Saynor pen. Sexton)