Wilderspool Causeway

Orchard tractors and rotary tillers rumbled down the A33 from old water meadows and Osier beds low in the valley of the Kennet, signalling a suspension of agrarian practices for the people of Burghfield as they prepared for a morning meeting with Wokingham & Emmbrook on neutral territory.

Phlegmatic. Standoffish. Emotionally unavailable. The Burghfield manager seemed destined to connect with us only on a superficial, ‘footballing’ level. What makes him tick as a person and the currents which brought him to where he is today would remain largely unknown, buried beneath West Country dialect.

What he did bring with him, though, was a sense of the vast open spaces of Wessex, suggesting an affinity with the Magnas, Abbases and Regises to the west of the county rather than the Homebases, Kwikfits and Lidls of the middle.

Burghfielders circumvent the urban, where possible, with rare trips to Reading following the path of the Holy Brook rather than the becalmed traffic of the A329. It was little surprise, then, to hear the Prime Villager enjoin our manager to embrace the Baltic expanses of the 7-a-side pitch at the far end of the Bulmershe: “Alright me babber? We don’t want to be on no small pitches today mate, right? All that bloody narration from that spanner from the league about what pitch we’re on’s proper done me ‘ead in mate. And it’s a quick handshake ahfter as I’m off to Banjo Island to see the Gas.”

West Country riddles aside, we wandered towards Russia in the hope of transcending the frigid tactical landscape of last week’s 2-2 draw with Wokingham & Emmbrook Rangers, a game in which both sides stumbled on the foothills of their hopes, failing to inhabit the enlarged dimensions of the pitch with sufficient authority to signal much evolution in footballing style.

This week, the auguries were better. Our defence, usually about as safe as a Mongolian mineshaft, lined up 3 strong for a change and failed to concede until the 19th minute, a fact which Connor Mulvaney seemed to interpret as a personal slight before descending on Burghfield like the Mistral sweeping down from the Ardeche off the Vivarais Marsh, hammering home an equaliser on the stroke of half-time.

In the second half, Evan played up front and with the score at 1-1 latched on to a Mulvaney through ball before angling a left-footed strike across the goal and agonisingly wide. He later capitalised on slack defensive work to create a goal for Connor and engaged in a slick one-two with Jack Parry which earned both players a share of the post-match awards, all of which, frankly, was scant recompense for a moment in the game which divided onlookers and put the match beyond Wokingham’s reach.

Before Euro ’96, pitches had character, part of which derived from the unique goalposts and nets which existed at every ground. Stamford Bridge, Wembley and Craven Cottage housed my favourite posts, with ricochets off the nets and stanchions enhancing the character and feel of each goal scored. There were times when the ball would nestle in the corner gently, bounce dramatically back out off a stanchion or barely reach the net at all. Now, the nets are supported by external posts to minimise the ball’s movement once a goal is scored. How many iconic Wembley goals (or Wembley goals at all), can you remember post ’96? Does this have anything to do with the generic nets? I think so.

With the score poised delicately at 2-1 to Burghfield, one of the villagers saw the ball drop on the halfway line and executed what I can only describe as a ‘venomous lob’ towards our goal. The ball bounced and rose towards the crossbar, hitting (impossible in today’s uniform goals) a mixture of net and bar. The Burghfielders immediately went into raptures, creating scenes of jubilation around the scorer of the ‘goal’. The ref paused for a moment, surveyed the unbridled joy and, without the benefit of technology, awarded a goal.

It would be churlish to deny the lad his moment in the sun, I admit, and the characterful goal nets had done their work, sending the villagers back to The Teg with three points and some stories to tell in Great Auclum’s dark country lanes.

For us, the future’s different; hopefully, we’ll follow the wisdom of Slavisa Jokanovic: ‘We keep possession for to create goals.’ Simple game, really.