Wilderspool Causeway

Solomon Barnato ‘Solly’ Joel: apparently there’s a race named after him at Newmarket called the ‘Joel Stakes’ which has been won by Premio Loco, Ordnance Row and Soft Falling Rain. Another of Sol’s legacies is a small park in Earley with poor accessibility. He’s also associated with a pub called The King of Prussia and a cricket tour to South Africa in the 1920s. I feel that he would be both pleased and unimpressed by what’s now going on in his name. He’s still associated with sport, but on a bobbly surface suggestive of limited groundsmanship. The whole area, while scenic, is inhospitable to visitors. Parking safely is all but impossible – not great for a public park. Touring South Africa suggests questionable morality, but does that mean the treatment of his name is somehow unimportant?

This was the second of back-to-back games against a Caversham Arrows team who travelled over a bridge and down through the mist bands to abandon cars haphazardly in East Reading. Researching the history of the club is problematic, yielding x-ray photos of swans and Canada geese shot by crossbows near Christchurch Meadows. Lots of quotes from Wendy Hermon of Swan Support pop up, revealing that whenever a swan has been troubled in Berkshire, so has she –  and rightly so.

There have been changes over the summer, the most notable one being Amelia Mulvaney’s transfer to Reading FC and her dad’s resignation as Head Coach. This means that Coach Peter – Connor’s dad – has taken the lead role while I’ve become his No. 2, having gone through the relevant CRC, first aid, safeguarding and general suitability checks as well as several e mails back and forth with 1st team club chairman Steve Williams, culminating in a visit to the deliveries area of Intersurgical on Molly Millars Lane to collect the all-important club jacket.

Anyway, back to the game. Sometimes you just want to retreat to a remote corner of Wessex or the Cambrian Hills with the proceeds of your business/life: a vaping consultancy on the Winnersh strip, for example. This was one of those games: the second part of a frustrating double-header. Yes, we’d gone up a few divisions and are now at ‘Championship’ type level: we have players who aren’t a million miles away from the route taken by Amelia (who recently appeared in a 5-5 draw against Chelsea), but so do the other teams in the league. AFC Caversham play with real maturity, popping the ball about rather than relying on self-appointed Maradonas. There’s an intelligence about how they move the ball and tend to dominate the space while keeping a watertight defence, reminding me of AFC Bournemouth at their best.

We had several chances today, but last season’s prolific new signing had, er…  ‘one of those games’ unfortunately.  His first strike was a golden chance to score but ended up so high and wild that it caused a 5 minute hunt for the  whereabouts of the ball. His next shot – another good chance – went out for a throw. If you don’t know much about football, slicing the ball out for a throw is the footballing equivalent of something highly inaccurate in the world at large.

In pre-season training Coach Peter gave everyone a word at the end of the final session: our new striker’s was ‘composure’. He just needed to realise he had time to take an extra touch. Overall, despite positive signs, Wokingham & Emmbrook just seemed to forget what football is essentially about – getting the ball to the striker(s) so they can put it in the net or accidentally blaze it off to Maiden Erlegh: everything else is a means to an end. They spent too much time faffing about in wide areas – what happens out wide is so often boring and inconclusive. Caversham dominated the midfield, were more direct and won due to impressive teamwork: God speed to them as they continue to criss-cross the Thames to achieve their purposes.