Wilderspool Causeway

There were rumours of problems on the A78 to the West of Kilmarnock. You would also have to watch yourself if you were out and about between Middlesbrough and Stockton-on-Tees, just to the north of Danish Mercia. Traffic issues seemed to abound between Strathclyde and Northumberland, dominating the kitchen soundscape while phones were abuzz with updates as to where Evan’s rearranged match would take place. To complicate matters further, ‘Energy in Northampton’ followed the traffic update, in homage to a town where aliens can find freedom.

It transpired that we would be playing in a constructed reality on the edge of Bracknell: an island of mud and ‘bright hygienic hell’ called Montague Park. We were supposed to be playing Purley in the BYDL Cup – not the Croydon Purley, but the Purley-on-Thames Purley who base themselves somewhere near Mapledurham or wherever. As with The Champions League, if you are dumped out of the BYDL cup you are placed in a lesser tournament: the ‘Plate.’  It’s always mildly embarrassing to play in the Plate, so teams seem to interpret it as a refiner’s fire from which they hope to emerge stronger than ever before, purged of vanity yet tougher and purer of collective spirit. So it’s often a blessing in disguise to lose a cup match and be bumped off into the Plate. But what if you lose in the Plate too? How would shame reassemble itself in a completely new competition, and why not keep the tableware theme going? How about the Binfield Saucer, the Sindlesham Mill Napkin holder or the Hogwood Industrial Estate Ornamental Gravy Boat? The White Waltham Jug? ‘We’re in the Pangbourne Cake Fork this week lads. Let’s show them we mean it. Better play well or we’ll be in the Bagshot Vital Rectangle next week.’  And why not involve colanders?

Everything should just keep going with teams bombed out all over the place until they win a trophy. It’s always meaningful to win something, however obscure. My favourite example in the literary world is that of J.L. Carr who set up the Ellerbeck Literary Award in 1972 ‘consisting of a non-transferable meat token for one pound of best steak and a copy of Carr’s novel The Harpole Report. The prize was awarded at ‘infrequent intervals’ and sent to writers he admired – but they would have to travel to Kettering to redeem the token.

By the time we got to the dodgy new development, it was difficult to form coherent thoughts; I’m sure this applied to everyone who was there. To make matters worse, I was also asked to ref the game in the absence of an official. I did an FA refereeing qualification as a youngster, but only passed ‘in theory’, i.e. though I passed every element of the test I was not eligible to be a referee in practice. I remember taking 5 minutes to make an offside call on a board of magnets and the assessor saying, perhaps as an improvised prophecy: ‘You’re not actually looking to referee matches, are you? You just want to learn about the game, don’t you. You won’t actually be reffing – it’s not for you, is it. In a real match you’d have to be a little bit quicker with the old decision making my friend.’

Anyway, reffing Evan’s game was deeply frustrating, particularly as it transpired that we were not actually facing Purley but another team from a higher league, and Evan’s peers: Wokingham & Emmbrook Rangers. There is no team you want to beat more than one made up of friends and peers. The game would live on in the playgrounds and dining queues of Emmbrook. Crisp weekend walks would be fraught with danger; Cubs would be awful. Dads you used to be on nodding terms with would look away in anguish. But to referee a game like that? A prophet is without honour in his own country: a terrible ref, even more so.

I could feel the Rangers’ parents eyes on me: ‘Why the f*** is he reffing, they seemed to say. My philosophy was to ‘let the game flow’, partly because I wasn’t exactly ‘fresh’ from watching Gareth Richards’ excellent performance of Idiot Wind the night before and partly because there are so many strange rules at this level that I couldn’t remember them. The thing I could remember for sure was that when someone scores, you blow the whistle and point to the centre circle to confirm the goal stands. At other times, ‘letting the game flow’ backfired – wincing is not the same as blowing the whistle. My first mistake occurred when peripheral vision alerted me to the prospect of a slumped Ranger labouring over his shoelaces. Rather than stopping the game to let him finish – which I thought would be silly – I allowed him to plough on, fingers losing out to wet laces. Eventually he was back up and in the game, but then Evan’s laces fell. What could I do? There was no way I could stop the game now I’d set a precedent, so I had to whisper ‘Evan, just stop and do your laces up’, but he wouldn’t,  instead offering a subtle nod towards the Rangers goal as if to ask how exactly he would score if he was down among the threads. Then, an opposition dad (a Brentford fan but a fine man ) shouted ‘Alex, Evan’s laces are undone.’ Thankfully, the laces of the recently slumped Ranger had relapsed, meaning I could blow the whistle and the teams could re-tie in tandem.

Meanwhile, one of the opposition dads was really annoying me. He’s a ‘pillar of the community’ type to whom nothing is more objectionable than a conspicuous display of skill. ‘Keep it simple. No flashy skills’, he’ll say. His guiding principle is that of ‘mucking in.’ But if you muck in too much, or too little: look out. He ‘mucks in’ to the optimum level: enough to be the leader while keeping the ‘humility box’ well and truly tricked. All bases covered in life. ‘Not sure about this, not sure about that, not impressed by the other, stay down, don’t be showy’, but when his own son takes it around two players and  sticks it in the top corner? Have a death stare, ref, strolling around in the middle like you’re the big man.

As far as the game went, it was hard to assess while watching the ball and scanning the laces. I would much rather have been in among the brethren who have watched upwards of 70 games together (Andrew, Elias, Claire, Ian, Clive and Jane), where at least a few honest words can be said by now. Objectively speaking,  it was a good win against a supposedly better team but I was much more concerned with the social climate of the game which seemed to dictate that in no circumstances should anything of real feeling be expressed verbally. It made me wonder if sports gatherings and organised events of many types are primarily forms of censorship, suppression and distraction  though I admit that might be slightly too Marxist an interpretation of an Under 9s football match. It would have been much better to stay home and listen to traffic reports. Roll on the vintage tea trolley and the bone china.