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?
Wilderspool Causeway 