Month: June 2016

The 16th Schwing Stetter Ashridge Park Tournament in association with Amazon Filter, Blueprint Fitted Furniture and Pacific Life

The Schwing Stetter Plate is perhaps not the most widely known or revered football competition, even in Wokingham, but you have to credit Ashridge Park with some business acumen. Their tournament is sponsored by one of the bigger concreting equipment companies, founded in 1934 by Friedrich Wilhelm Schwing, a mechanic from the Ruhr who innovated with concrete slabs and truck mounted boom pumps. He even devised a tower crane which could be transported without having to be dismantled. Their slogan for the tournament is ‘Achieve Your Concrete Goals!’

Don’t be under any illusion that the sponsors are derived merely from the world of Big Concrete though. Amazon Filters produce Side Stream Filtration Systems and maximise membrane life; their blog suggests they have a role in shaping the future. Kyocera are Ashridge’s shirt sponsors and Pacific Life add a degree of background glamour as the biggest sellers of universal life insurance in the world.

With all this professional expertise to draw upon, why was a tournament designed in which 7-year-olds are asked to play five 10 minute games in 4 hours? Did they think that the players would:
a) Sit nicely and chat between games.
b) Run around whinging, nagging, crying, knocking people’s drinks and bags over, being general menaces and tripping over guy ropes while their parents wisely left the coaches in charge.
c) Collapse in a dehydrated mess
d) Kick the crap out of each other and anyone else they could find.
e) Generate an absolutely intolerable mix of all the above.

Chris Coleman has reassured his Welsh team that they won’t have to suffer from ‘cabin fever’, confessing that ‘if any of the boys want to go out for a coffee for a change of scenery, I haven’t got a problem with that, but we won’t be going out in the evenings. There are times when they know where they need to be.’

Good for you, Chris, but have you ever had to deal with what can only be described as the opposite of Agoraphobia? The boys and girls from Wokingham suffer ‘Agoraexpansionism’, ‘Agoraexpressionism’, ‘Agorarampage’, ‘Agoracomfort’, Gabby Agorabonlahor: anything that means the ability to use space to find the one most irritating and inappropriate activity. Yet on the pitch, when a bit of freedom and riotousness was needed, would anything be left in the tank?

First Circle (Limbo)
Binfield Tornadoes 3 Wokingham & Emmbrook 0

The first game was an unmitigated disaster. We started with our weakest team and our weakest goalkeeper – it was an Excel directive. As the nominal away team, we were also at the wrong end of a sloping pitch. Binfield Tornadoes were well organised, nicely shorn a respectable step or two short of Kim Jong Un, but nothing special. Three goals flew in shortly after kick-off and the tournament was irretrievable, a lost cause.

Second Circle (Gluttony)
Bracknell Cavaliers Saints 1 Wokingham and Emmbrook 0

Bracknell had shorter haircuts and louder parents than Binfield, massed together and well apart from the mixed throng of Wokingham, Binfield, Newbury and Ashridge parents who had succumbed to the herd mentality of Gustave La Bon.

I immediately warmed to the Bracknell parents because of this; they were loud, imposing, unafraid to stand apart but also friendly when you ‘got in amongst them.’

This was generally a more compact performance from Wokingham, albeit one which was undone by a horrid defensive mix-up after the goalkeeper rolled the ball out, leaving Amelia to deal with three attackers on her own.

Evan went on a jinking run down the wing. There were glimpses of light but the game would end in futility after a player, who shall remain nameless, executed a ‘Beckham flick’ and left the pitch in tears, distraught.

Third Circle (Fraud)
AFC Newbury Colts 2 Wokingham and Emmbrook 0

Does Newbury have its own moral microclimate? Is it such a bland, nowhere location that life operates according to a different ethical framework?

It’s hard to think of a less inspirational town, though it’s true that Jonny Joy emanates from there. But he’s a person I associate more with the hinterlands of Surrey or the brownfield sites of North Hampshire: a working lunch at a fried chicken restaurant on the outskirts of Hook. The road to Winchester. A sanctuary named after beloved St. Mary. He’s not defined by Newbury.

The crucial moment in this game was a Newbury free-kick in which they decided to ‘put a man on the goalkeeper’, i.e. to stand directly in front of him or her in order to block their line of vision: a shoddy West Berkshire stratagem.

Fourth Circle (Heresy)
Binfield Rebels 0 Wokingham and Emmbrook 0.

Can’t remember anything about this at all.

Fifth Circle (Treachery)
Ashridge Park 0 Wokingham and Emmbrook 0

Well at least this game provided a little bit of comic relief. The Ashridge Park manager is the strangest coach I have ever seen, bar none, inclusive of Joe Kinnear. Like a mindfulness meditation gone sadly wrong, he yelled ‘BE PRESENT!’ ‘PRESENCE!’ ‘AARON! BE PRESENT!’ ‘ENERGY!’ ‘FIRE!’ ‘ICE!’ ‘EUAN! ICE! FIRE AND ICE! NOW! WHAT DID I TELL YOU, JACK? JACK! JACK!! JACK , LISTEN!! CULTURE! ICE! FIRE AND ICE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! ICE! ‘EUAN, GET BACK ON FIRE!’ IT’S NOW! BE HERE! NOW!’

So that was a laugh, but apart from Connor hitting the post in one game, ultimately this was a tournament of five games and no goals, and a lot of misspent energy, albeit with a relatively nice burger and ice cream at the end of it.

Twyford Comets 4 Wokingham and Emmbrook 4 (Mulvaney 2, A. Mulvaney, Saynor) La Bambonera

‘See the canyons broken by cloud.
See the tuna fleet clearing the sea out.
See the Bedouin fires at night.
See Woodley Precinct at first light.’

Yet according to Bono it’s still possible to perceive a beautiful day. And why wouldn’t he? It’s not as if he’s a salaryman who commutes to Bracknell’s Southern Industrial Area, inner city Nagoya or Vodaphone on the outskirts of Newbury. Last week – 6-0 down at half-time – it didn’t seem so easy to adopt his perspective.

Wokingham & Emmbrook didn’t need a change of tactics so much as a total revolution of mind and body, as per my favourite overheard line from The Archers: ‘Julie doesn’t need a mentor; she needs a brain transplant.’

For most of us, if we’re honest about it, the options for change seem sadly limited. This is perhaps best encapsulated by Yoga Magazine’s current promise of ‘healing and evolving through subtle breathwork.’ Is that all that can be hoped for? A bit of deft breathing? It’s no mean feat, perhaps. Maybe you can change your vibe, but nothing of seismic importance in the world around.

That said, in Wales last week we decided to deviate significantly from the script written by the FA and endorsed by most coaches. West Wales is as good a place as any to shatter pretension. ‘Fair play’, as an end in itself, would have to go on the back burner for a while. There are other qualities that can’t be found in a coaching manual, and it was essential to cultivate them forthwith.

In the last few matches Evan’s carefree spirit seemed to have evaporated, in stark contrast to early September when – late for the first game of the season and having missed the warm up entirely – Evan strolled onto the pitch, McManaman locks flowing, and nonchalantly swept the ball into the corner with one of his first touches.

It was time for some Chumbawamba parenting (I get knocked down, but I get up again, are they ever gonna keep me down?). I would play tough and put my boot in while observing a notional line between realistic contact and the potential for harm. He would go to ground and concede goals, yet ultimately win, only to complain – sometimes through tears – that I shouldn’t have played my best. Coach Peter also took Evan out with Connor for a separate training session, complete with cones and goals. He’s never content to rest on the premise that what will be will be.

Evan’s goal today was straight off the training ground; Connor was poised over the free-kick, noticed that Evan had withdrawn to the edge of the box and passed the ball beautifully into his path: ‘Look, look, he’s going to shoot!’ I couldn’t keep it in. Evan curled it into the left corner and the keeper got a touch but couldn’t stop it.

Scoring a goal is one of those experiences which tends to clarify and minimise all preceding time. Your regrets shrivel to nothing when the ball hits the back of the net; all time is funnelled into that point. It’s similar in principle, though obviously of lesser magnitude, to having a child. Whether it’s an unfortunate situation on Unthank Road in 2002 or a regrettable interlude in Shepherd’s Bush 2009: forget it. The comment made to you outside Wokingham Bowling Alley: it doesn’t matter anymore. The look that dry cleaning operative gave you: irrelevant. All those unorthodox or unfortunate moments led, however indirectly, to the present.

And If something unwelcome still slips through the net, as it probably will, then at least you can fall back on some concentrated breathwork or even – as advertised by Jason Oslar – book some hacking or lunging lessons on the bridlepaths of Barkham.