Wilderspool Causeway

Today I made the symbolic journey from Bulmershe, where Evan’s game was and where my friend Geoff taught for 33 years, to Boreham Wood for the unveiling of the Geoff Wickens Scoreboard:  his legacy to the club he faithfully supported since 1971.

I was a bit worried about how to get to Boreham Wood from Woodley, relying only on sat nav, when my overriding memory of the journey was driving in pitch darkness and torrential rain, soon after I’d passed my test, with Geoff talking me through the situation – as he could sense rather than see it – most of the way home.

The theme of the day seemed to be hospitality. Evan and I arrived slightly early, but the Woodley manager incorporated him into their training warm-up, even bothering to encourage and praise his good control and passing.

Aunty Emma had taken Iris out, and would soon arrive to enable me to be Hertfordshire bound. I was a little distracted, as the game started, but benefited from standing next to legendary Emmbrook Maths teacher, and apparent film expert, Andrew Parry. Without wishing to dwell too much on the weather, it was cloudy and bloody cold. Just after the game kicked off, a huge congregation of birds left the adjoining field and ascended into the sky. ‘The Birds!’ exclaimed Andrew. Then, apparently,  Josh went down under an early Woodley ‘reducer’ (a term made famous by Ron Atkinson’s co-commentary) ‘like Willem Dafoe in Platoon.’ Worse was to follow.

It was a physical contest from the beginning, but I couldn’t overreact because I felt grateful to their manager. Woodley took the lead before half-time, denying several efforts from Connor Mulvaney in the process; Evan caught an almighty whack in the face and still has the marks to prove it. He tried to carry on for a minute but then crouched and covered his eyes: he limped off and, with Emma having arrived with a buoyant Iris, it was my cue to walk reluctantly away, beginning my journey towards the M25 and beyond.

I found the journey interesting, for some reason, and it seemed to be going well until I was told to join the A312 slip road to Northolt  (I’m sure Geoff never did that)  before joining single file traffic through Rayners Lane. One thing I realised is that Northolt has a leafy bit: I’d only ever interpreted it as a drab Ikea satellite town. Then the low lights adjacent to Heathrow unnerved me; there always seemed to be a road to Uxbridge, but I needed to get north. I could hear the phone pinging and wondered how Evan and the team were getting on. Thankfully, Emma was able to keep a close eye on both Iris and the game and messengered in a heartening report as I unexpectedly mingled with the directors of Torquay United at half-time, with the score standing at Boreham Wood 2  Torquay United 0.

Geoff’s cousin had a question for the Torquay director nearest us: “So, are Torquay professional?” (The uninitiated may wish to note at this point that about half the teams in the league are full-time – i.e. professional – and half are not) “Yes, believe it or not” replied the director.

“Oh no, I didn’t mean to cast aspersions…” replied Geoff’s thoughtful cousin, conscious of not wishing to cause offence. “Yes, but I did” responded the Devonian before reflecting at great length on how tattoo artists have broken into mainstream culture.

Torquay seem to be the aristocracy of non-league football. The ladies and gentlemen of their delegation were particularly elegant, with all sorts of combinations of yellow and blue on display and some fantastic badges and scarves which I tried to subtly photograph. They were friendly, but also seemed slightly remote, or even haunted: like they’d really seen enough of Torquay but couldn’t relinquish the love. As Neil Finn reflected in English Trees: ‘I must be wise somehow ’cause my heart’s been broken down.’ Or maybe they were just tired from the journey.

I’m grateful to Emma for her perceptive account of the action at Bulmershe, including some choice words from Iris:

‘3-0 when you left, sadly, and moments later it was 4-0 as the ball meandered past the goalkeeper.

The game changed, in my opinion when Evan returned to the pitch after an injury to his eye, about a minute later. Whilst the scoreline was only to get worse, the play improved. After the game I asked Evan how he felt coming back on the pitch after his injury and he said ‘just angry’ … which I think made him more determined. The W&E defence seemed to wake up at this point.

W&E started attacking … Connor won a corner – which Evan took – and the shot on target by Connor was saved. Woodley then attacked, the ball was tackled from them halfway down the pitch by Evan, who passed to Connor, who managed to get a shot on target (again saved) which flew past four Woodley players. I thought this was quite impressive.

Some brilliant play – where Evan hustled the ball off the opposition many times to regain possession for W&E – led to more shots on goal; W&E came especially close to scoring when Connor hit the post.

Evan played really well in defence. I noticed that he was paying enough attention to pick up the free players and mark them, noticing which ones were a danger and could score and marking them out of the game.

There was some really good goalkeeping from W&E keeper, despite his insistence on swinging on the cross bar whenever he had a second, and he must have saved 3 or 4 attempts at goal before the fifth goal went in.

At one point I was worried that the Woodley team were going to score off a corner. It looked like it was going to be a good set play as their coach yelled something to the effect of ‘play the set play’…well, I’m no football expert, but I’m pretty sure there’s not been a set play before that results in the corner taker having the ball kicked directly back to them, next to the corner, and through their legs for a goal kick.

By this point, every time Evan got the ball there were shouts of ‘great football’ ‘excellent skills’ and Iris chipping in with ‘EVAN DARLING’, quite loud (when she wasn’t cheering on the people training on the pitch we were watching from: ‘he did it! GOOD KICKING YOU SCORE’ … they were dribbling around cones). Iris seemed to have listened to our conversation earlier about out of body experiences and taken it to heart. She kept saying ‘you look like Aunty Emma, Darling’ to me this morning.

A last minute belter from the halfway line left it 6-0. Evan won the skills trophy for his ‘good drives back’ and Amelia was Player of the Match. The coach said twice that it wasn’t only because her mum was there. The team talk was good; I like the coach’s style and agreed with what he was saying about needing to focus on speedily getting back on the ball but I didn’t really understand when one of the players put his hand up and said “we’ll be just like Barcelona – like you said.”  Seems a bit ambitious at this point.’

Back at Boreham Wood, the day was a moving tribute to Geoff, with the fans singing his name in the 57th minute and again at the end. The scoreboard displayed a result which only a few years ago would have seemed pure fantasy: The Wood 2 Torquay United 0. We were left to reflect on Geoff’s absence as we gathered under his scoreboard and his image, alongside the words: ‘In Loving memory of Geoffrey Wickens.’ The chairman then gave us dinner and drinks, showed us the pile of letters Geoff had sent,  and hugged most of the family before their journeys to Ipswich, Cirencester, Maidenhead, Reading, Newcastle and Edinburgh.