Wilderspool Causeway

After much debate about the nature of the moon this week, chiefly between Evan and his friend Sophie, we arrived in the Silesian portion of Woodley on a day supposedly destined to see the moon in its full glory.

‘Look’, observed Sophie. ‘It’s a full moon!’
‘No it’s not’ replied Evan, patiently. ‘It’s a waxing crescent.’

I had no idea if it was waxing or waning, but it certainly wasn’t full. Further enquiry confirmed this – it was waxing gibbous.

As a welcome change, we were back at the Woodley Goals Centre where Evan has played the bulk of his games so far. His sister Iris is generally thought to offer good vibes and motivation, but unfortunately she had made herself unavailable for today’s outing due to a clash with Jethro’s party. When I saw the invite, I imagined her on the road to Truro, ready to celebrate the great Cornishman. It transpired, though, that the Jethro in question is an associate from pre-school and that instead of an odyssey to the west of Bodmin, she was bound for Junglemania.

As mentioned, Evan’s game happened to be in Woodley’s Silesia, awarded to Poland after the Potsdam Agreement of 1945. To enter an outpost of Slavia is a real privilege. There should be more international enclaves in Berkshire, celebrating allies and former enemies in equal measure. The Lower Sorbians call the area Slazynska, while the Slovaks call it Sliezsko; the Polish Slavists stick with ‘Silesia’, believing the word to be directly related to the Old Slavic words ‘sleg’ and ‘slag’, meaning ‘dampness.’  There are also Czech Silesian Slavs who no doubt have their own interpretation of where they’re from and how to say it, but perhaps that’s a question for another day. I could mention Pavel Nedved, but he’s really from the Northern Austro-Bavarian dialect area of East Franconia. It would be nice to think that Wokingham would be playing on land known  to Karel Poborsky, the ultimate Czech flair player, but he’s from South Bohemia, near the Vltava river.

This morning, tactical architect Coach Peter circulated a memo of almost transcendent indecipherability, recalling the prodigious exploits of Will Hunting alone with a blackboard, if not the deranged collages of mathematician John Nash in ‘A Beautiful Mind.’ He studies the game academically and as a tax specialist, has a baffling knowledge of formulae. As a player, he scored in AFC Wimbledon’s first ever game and as a 5-a-side player he is perhaps the most direct I’ve played with, combining physical aggression with great deftness of touch. When coaching, though, he offers options, encourages mistakes, provides routes to recovery, prefers creativity to safety and would rather the team play high quality football  and lose than win by gambling.

On a newly resurfaced pitch, Calcot played agriculturally. They placed a big lump of a lad up front and a hefty chap in goal as the twin poles of their play. Simple reference points would guide their progress through the game. That’s not to say they were a bad side: their game had been distilled. Why complicate the game? Why take 10 steps to get to the opponent’s goal when you could take 3? Some would argue that it’s because you need to take the extra steps in order to develop good technique: the counter argument is that the definition of skill is ‘minimum effort for maximum effect’, so why not be direct?

Wokingham  play the purist’s game, albeit very impurely at times. The first two Ikea goals resulted from catastrophic defending linked to the principle of ‘playing out from the back.’ The first one was an own goal after the goalkeeper’s pass bounced off a defender and the second was a crazy, entirely avoidable defensive misunderstanding: that’s the price you pay for never launching the ball through the air. Is it a price worth paying?

Hayden Harris then scored two very good goals to level the scores before possibly the worst refereeing decision I’ve seen at this level. Thanasis Xanthoulis found a winding route across the opposition penalty box, as if he was a contestant on Blockbusters, before side footing the ball into the goal as he was pushed over by a reckless Calcotician. So he scored, but was fouled in the process. And what did the youngster with the whistle do? Award a penalty. And did we score it? No. Calcot then went down the other end and scored a goal themselves: 3-2 at half-time. I know the refs are learning, but when they’re being paid £40-50 to do so then it’s not unreasonable to expect a degree of alertness. Too many of the lads seem to roll out of bed and mark time, barely seeing the action through their perms.

With Evan and Connor introduced in the second half, Wokingham continued to dominate possession and were resilient when roughed up, scoring from two set pieces as they pushed forward in numbers. My highlight of the game arrived when Evan received the ball on the right hand side and scored one of his best goals ever as he unleashed a thunderbolt across the goal and into the top corner.

Ultimately, thoughtful football prevailed over the pragmatic offerings of Calcot. It could have been the other way around, though, as best exemplified by the most direct teamtalk I’ve ever heard, delivered to a team who were trailing 2-0 but went on to win 4-2: ‘See those posts over there? Kick the f***ing ball through them.’ How you get there’s up to you. Silesia, gibbous moons – whatever.