Wilderspool Causeway

The motto ‘Carthage Delenda Est’ should have told us all we needed to know about Rotherfield. Not being much of a Latin speaker, though, I was grateful to club historian Patton Cuddie who’d travelled down from Charlbury at an early hour to make preparatory notes over Lavazza Intenso in the foyer of the Goals Centre, Woodley.

‘Carthage must be destroyed’ he explained, happy that he was no longer the bar’s sole occupant. ‘That’s our philosophy: we hold and give, but do it at the right time. We can be slow or fast, but we will get to the line. I’m quoting John Barnes there, of course. In the final third, a Rotherfield side will try to punish you. In defence, we’ll close ranks.’

This was a cup game and we were two divisions below. Last season’s 7-7 draw against Hector, Horace, Auberon, Ernie and Stan would count for nothing. According to Cuddie, Rotherfield had strengthened in the summer window. They now had Ptolemy, Manfred and Helmut to draw upon too. Furthermore, they had a new management duo: Toland Waldeck from Cerne Abbas (former special adviser to the Bundestag on youth football in Dorset) and Ward Holstein, on sabbatical from the English School of Cologne.

In the warm up, they stroked the ball around with simplicity, at Ward’s behest, while we seemed distracted by textile impedimenta – the snoods, base layers, gloves and hats of darkening seasons. Rotherfield played nonchalantly, as if presented with a sub-eleven plus Maths problem, while we struggled not to clatter into the advertising boards. Before the first rotation, however, Wokingham had resisted them very well through the skill and force of Josh, Evan and Connor.

A watching Bracknell Town coach observed that Evan’s ‘a different player this season. Completely different.’ I wasn’t sure about the ‘completely’ part, but as other family members would testify, Evan now plays with total determination to win the ball, whether in the air or on the floor, with a valid tackle, arm tussle, studs-up lunge or any means necessary. He also hectors and harangues his own players to a point which borders on the extravagant; he’ll drag the goalkeeper to the near post or yell instructions from the sidelines. Last season, he played more like a young cross between Berbatov and McManaman. He would rarely, if ever, tackle or defend but was often deft and clinical in attack.

Perhaps his recent passion for defending is inspired by a topic he initiated early in the morning and returned to as his final question before walking to the pitch: ‘Dad, who were the most famous wrestlers of your time?’  was the first one. I struggled to think of any, but eventually popped out Hulk Hogan. Secondly, ‘When you were alive, dad, did The Rock used to say “wake up and smell what’s cooking?”‘ I’m not old enough for ‘old dad’ sentiments, surely, but such were his thoughts before the game.

After 10 minutes, it was level at 1-1. The aforementioned W&E trio were withdrawn by spreadsheet dictat and by 20 minutes, at half-time, we were 7-1 down and out of the cup.

With the hardcore from Wokingham and a bumper crew from Oxfordshire, there were almost as many spectators as it takes to compose one of Hillary Clinton’s tweets. It was getting stranger. Every time we attacked, a cry emerged from our Oxfordshire brethren: ‘Hannibal! Hannibal ad Portas! Hannibal!’ along with a stray ‘Helmut! Eingeschlossen! Einfall! Einfall!’ Normally a font of all knowledge, my friend Andrew looked quizzically at the opposition ranks. There was nothing for it but to search out Cuddie again. ‘Hannibal at the gates!  You Carthaginians will not prevail!’ I now felt sure they were a boarding school in disguise, and he was on the payroll. Fed up with being educated by someone in Jermyn Street weekend wear, I thought I’d look up the German later.

Elias asked if he and Thanasie could have a lift home. On the way back, there was much hilarity on the back seats. ‘Thanasie: you look that way and I’ll look that way.’

‘What are you doing, boys?’ enquired Elias.                                                                               ‘We’re looking for weird and unexpected things’ replied Evan, as he and Thanasie laughed at pretty much everything they saw and we pulled up alongside Winnersh’s electronic cigarette specialists ‘Berkshire Vapers.’

When a toddler’s in close proximity to a canine, what’s your first thought? And what do you say? I expect it depends whose side you’re on, or if you’re just a disinterested observer. As a parent, I think ‘Go on then, reel off the dog platitudes’ and as an owner, maybe you just launch into them: ‘she’s harmless; just trying to say hello; loves children; bred as a sheepdog so probably just trying to round you up a bit; big softie; too stupid to hurt you; it’s men she doesn’t like.’

But what if something in the nature, breed or behaviour of your dog/human defies this nonsense? You could have a psychotic child or a rottweiler in the midst; there’s a sudden, imminent threat and you won’t be patronised into ignoring it. In this case, I loudly said ‘Don’t worry Iris, it’s only a pitbull off its lead’, hoping the owners might show some genuine understanding and actually catch up with it. To their credit, they reneged from the dog apologist role and offered a limp and disturbing  ‘Say hello nicely, Poppy!’ instead. A further two pitbulls were to surface today – one near Jubilee Avenue and one among the pumpkins outside Waitrose – but for now we were in a pitbull-free enclave for a drizzly game in Woodley.

Wokingham Cougars – drawn largely from the historic houses of central Wokingham – play in a lower league to us having spent most of last season learning the rudiments of the game under the guidance of their  floppy-haired manager. At one point in last season’s match, we agreed to a goal being disallowed after his protestations: ‘Typical Klopp, always making excuses’ exclaimed one of their own fans before we went on to win 5-2, with Evan scoring a penalty.

This time, one of the Cougars’ coaches volunteered to officiate in the absence of an independent ref. ‘I’m not happy about this; we’ll be watching you’ said a concerned parent (me). ‘Well I’m a FIFA registered ref so, er…any brown envelopes?’

We were back in the comforting environment of the Amsterdam Arena. Whereas at previous matches we tended to congregate at the Heineken Music Hall end of the ground, this time we were on the Boris Pasternakstraat side. Half-term seemed to have taken its toll; last season, the Cougar aristocrats brought a large and vociferous crowd (the guys who boasted about dancing on Karl Marx’s grave in Highgate Cemetery and laughed about knocking my coffee over), but this time they were thin on the Amsterdam ground.

Evan, too, seemed a little thrown by time and place. Yesterday, he woke up on Ribena Hill (spelt Rhiwbina) on the outskirts of Cardiff, wondering where on earth he was, and then again between hedges on a lane just north of Newport where we saw an unbelievable sign put up by estate agents who know exactly who they are: ‘Crook and Blight.’

Furthermore, just before the game Evan ventured to some of the farthest reaches of nonsense, to regions where there seem to be only one or two outlying villages of truth. He envies Year 6 their annual trip to ‘Manor Boxing Arena’ which they visit every year because ‘there’s a highly professional medical area there. It’s highly professional. So when they get hit, they can just go there and be healed.’

The first goal Wokingham & Emmbrook scored was one of the best we’ve seen, setting the tone for a commanding and destructive performance. Xanthoulis pinged the ball along the floor to Dance who controlled it brilliantly before driving a perfect ball through to Jack Parry who turned and side-footed it into the corner. There was much laughter and exclamatory stuff from the Boris Pasternakstraat side. When Jack scored with an excellent strike 2 minutes later, eyebrows were raised.

‘What on earth did Jack have for breakfast?’ Elias and I wanted to know, so Andrew went at it both barrels: ‘Breakfast was a nightmare! He wanted rice pops and Cheerios, but the flavours were disturbed so then he asked for rice pops on their own, which he wouldn’t eat. In the end I just gave him toast.’ Andrew and Jack are Wolverhampton Wanderers fans and vegans who won’t buy a Wolves shirt due to their dubious sponsorship, so instead Jack attends training bedecked in the luminescent greens of Forest Green Rovers, a pro-vegan (‘Vegan do it!’), progressive club who are sponsored by Sea Shepherd, another favourite of the Parries as they support the disruption of Japanese whaling, and rightly so.

The landed gentry would not go gently into the Woodley night, though. They prodded a neat volley home from a corner and generally sought to withstand the motley rabble from the railway side of town. However, they were intriguingly stretched by none other than Amelia ‘Rensenbrink’ Mulvaney who clung to the far left wing as the widest middenvelder in Woodley, niggling away at them and executing Cruyff turns in desolate cul-de-sacs of Cougar territory as the clock eroded their chances.

The entrance of her cousin, Connor, would effectively end the match as a contest. As a substitute, he’s like one of those contractors hired in on a short term basis with the most advanced equipment on the market. In Wales, they’re called ‘contract shepherds.’ When your common shepherds can’t find their flocks, or have to rely on archaic equipment when they do, they call in the contractors. They even have online forums which we can peruse. One contract shepherd said their best customer is ‘a lady with 6 ewes, good cake and cold beer. £80 + VAT. Pity I only go there 6 times a year’ to which another big hitter responded with  ‘That probably says something about you’ and left it at that. The conversation went on, but it’s probably best to post a link rather than go into it in too much detail: http://farmingforum.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?6227-Contract-shepherding-man-dogs-and-prattley.

The point is that for us, sea shepherd, pitbull or contract shepherd, Mulvaney’s the man, but he only sealed the win today; every player had one of their best games of the last year or so, a fact reflected by Michael’s inability to hand out an individual man of the match award, but to give it to the whole team or ‘the group’ as Brendan Rodgers would say, no question.

Canada geese: in late afternoon formation over Woosehill, arrowing above and then flattening out at speed towards Emmbrook. What mockery. They have no manager to silently humour, spreadsheet to dictate their rotation or vanishing spray to tell them where to be, yet they offer us a lesson in being available for each other while keeping a sensible distance. True, they also remain largely untroubled by predators on these shores as they tend to commandeer artificially constructed lakes in woodland dotted with ‘millennium trails’, stainless steel sculptures, visitor centres and other follies. Unsurprisingly though, their lives are a little too blessed for the taste of The Daily Mail’s Robert Hardman (June 4th 2008) who suggested that if they were human they would ‘claim every welfare benefit in the book’ because they ‘loaf around at home, laying waste to our public spaces’ while causing a form of colonial resentment among our hardworking native greylags.

Suffering with suspected atrophy of the olfactory bulbs, I withdrew my voice from the sidelines and entered the purgatory of silent observation; the coach had made it quite clear that parental injunctions – regardless of how sane or well meaning they might be – were not required. Complicating this, however, was his need for practical help in the absence of his co-manager. So, yet again, I was to be the dumb timekeeper, patient sleeve unraveller, committed laceman and mute enthusiast.

This time, though, it wasn’t only me who was silenced. As our players’ actions became increasingly difficult to comprehend, more parents fell foul of the gagging order, the super-injunction of suspended thought. Even the most innocuous comments, such as ‘Get a little bit closer, Thanasie!’ were met with rejection by the manager. If he was a top electrician, he would want his apprentices to create explosions rather than be habituated into correct wiring. If you help players cultivate the difficult skills alongside the basics, allow them to choose what to do and then demonstrate your respect for them by praising the effort and ignoring the error, you develop confident, skilful players who take responsibility for their decisions rather than playing like robots.

This philosophy stands in stark contrast to that of Wokingham Rangers, our neighbours from the ribbon development extending towards Hurst. Their assistant manager simply said: ‘I want to see lots of passing and no fancy skills.’ They put this plan into action, overcoming a 2-1 deficit in the first-half to exploit an Oranges performance which had long left Farce behind and was now approaching a checkpoint on the outskirts of Tragic, the ultimate sign of which was when our centre-back (who we’ll call Sol Padeine) ran futile circles around 3 attackers, lost out to a 4th and conceded a goal, which our manager clapped, without irony: ‘Well done, Sol: great skills!’

The paradox at the heart of the game, though, was the fate of our general wunderkind, Connor Mulvaney, who seems to have finally shrugged off the last of this year’s christenings. While everyone else attempted the skills of Old Ronaldo, the one player capable of consistently deploying them played as if in strict accordance with the Scandinavian socialist concept of Jantelagen: the team comes first. His perplexing interpretation of this was to play a series of limp passes to the serially ineffective, all of which were met with ‘Good pass, Connor!’ from the manager’s dugout. Mulvaney, whose presence is normally as reassuring as allotment smoke rising through a winter dusk, looked ill-at-ease, uncertain as to how to conduct his talent.

As parents, though, we were brought closer together; the lone voice of the visionary prophet in a tracksuit who offers praise before advice had given us something to talk about, much as those on the beaches of Weston-super-Mare must have huddled together against the drifting trips of ladybirds in the summer of 1976.

As yet more silence was called for, the carbohydrate shelter beckoned us: a time of hibernation, the ‘dark bee months’ of Saturday lunchtime. Kiera’s dad (way, way beyond – long ago and for ever more amen –  any serious concern for the game; sometimes he spends the whole thing in the foyer) was determined to get the coffees in. I was grateful, but couldn’t even scramble an answer when asked how I liked it: ‘OK, I’ll just get all the stuff in – the milk and the sugar.’ Thanks, Ian.  The beauty of the simple gesture, like contraband revels in the cinema, offered a platform for us to move on. He was in the manager’s camp, and I was less so, but in our small scale  version of ‘the seat reserved for beer by the boys from Abercarn: beer, pontoon, crisps and fags and a croakin’ Calon Lan’, it didn’t really matter. Sharing our ideas with the coach or players would be about as meaningful as projecting immigration narratives onto geese anyway.

As Caversham Kites emerged from the mists rolling in off the Kennet, leaving Sonning Lock behind them for the descent into Woodley, we prepared for the possibility of Evan being dropped to the bench after a decision he made last night when faced with one of the perennial dilemmas of life itself, never mind football: do I go training or do I go clubbing?

Would he opt for the path of freedom, and hedonistic abandon, or submit to a tackling drill –  designed primarily for him – on the ill-lit astro turf of Maiden Erlegh?

And which careful, euphemistic words would I text to Coach Michael when, inevitably, he chooses the darkness of the local night spot and the neon of the dancefloor lights at the school disco?  I opted for ‘event at school’ – to radio silence from the manager. Evan’s sleeve-pulling and two footed lunges would have to remain unremedied this week.

Word had got round the parents: ‘At least he didn’t tweet about it!’ offered Andrew with reassuring grace. Fears regarding Coach Michael, however, were to prove unfounded for he had made a choice of his own. ‘Can you help me today, Alex?’ asked Coach Peter in supplicatory scouse. ‘Yeah, sure. Where’s Michael?’

‘Oh, he’s off at the races. Last day of the flats. Big day, I think.’

Due to a trauma in the mid mandibles, however, I couldn’t talk much, or shout, and was on a high dosage of painkillers: it was probably just as well after last week’s public reprimand for overslabbing the instructions.

My role was reduced to glove fitter, shoelace man, sleeve reverser, coffee boy, nonsense fielder; I was to keep totally quiet about everything else.

FA censorship would cast its totalitarian spell, even to the extent that when the ref definitely misrecorded the final score (in our favour), I and the Caversham managers were powerless to persuade both him and the league official that it was a draw rather than a Wokingham win.

By way of an aside, Evan experienced another benign form of censorship this week when his class were asked to write a sentence about Donald Trump. ‘He’s an inappropriate man, but he did apologise’ wrote Evan before being asked by his teacher to cross out the second part of his sentence.

With Connor Mulvaney back from a string of christenings, we were hopeful of success against the Kites – until, that is, they soared into a seemingly unassailable 3-0 lead within 10 minutes while Connor, Mark and Evan were roistering on the sidelines.

After a triple substitution, we were soon heartened by the reality that Mulvaney is to football what Muller is to yoghurts: he will always find something special and put it in the corner.

By half-time, however, we were sinking like a Fenland fruit farmer in his East Anglian schloss. It was 4-1. We were in the silt and they were nonchalantly circling above. Or had they merely risen like ghosts whose graves and ‘monuments shall be the maws of kites?’ Could we deem them phantoms and send them down to a footballing slumber?

Could we fire some vanilla choco balls into their corners yet? Almost as soon as Connor had halved the deficit to make it 4-2, however, a freewheeling Caversham lad with a straggly bob executed a limpid strike into our corner, compromising the script.

With Coach Peter having been away on the christening tour with Connor, Evan’s performance seemed to be an enigma to him. Last season, Evan’s tackling had become tentative. This season, in Peter’s absence, it has become bold and obtrusive. So when Peter says ‘Tackle, Evan! Keep going!’ he is effectively asking him to up the intensity from impassioned to potent/dangerous rather than – as he might have intended – from limp/misguided to accurate and effective. As a result, Evan absolutely steamed into a tackle at full-pelt and with both feet off the floor (a straight red in any other game). ‘I don’t know what to say about that’ Peter said quietly to me, with – I think – concealed pride.

So, at 5-2 down, Evan managed to commit a legal tackle and won the ball in his own half before going on a run, eventuating in him outwitting three or four of their players before shooting past the ‘keeper to make it 5-3 to Caversham. Pride and emotion was duly suppressed for the benefit of the FA. With Connor now off the pitch again, Wokingham & Emmbrook counter-intuitively went into ‘park the bus’ mode, playing so deep it was almost philosophical. Peter tried to force them away from their own goal: ‘JACK! Push Evan out! He’s supposed to be attacking! Push him out!’ Eventually, forward momentum resulted in man of the match Jack Parry prodding it home himself to make it 5-4 before Mark Sexton added insult to Caversham injury by outfoxing their AWOL goalkeeper to level the scores right at the end.

As a curious postscript, there was total disagreement about the final score among all parties. I approached the ref  (having assiduously kept a record and totally sure that it was 5-5) who said: ‘It was 6-5 to you.’ I then approached the Caversham managers who thought that it was 6-5 to them and canvassed their players, all of whom confirmed it was only 5-5. I told them the ref had marked it down as 6-5 to us but that I would correct him, to which they said: ‘Yeah, it was 5-5.’ But the league official and the referee himself would not be moved, despite my protestations and insistence that there was no way that we had won the game and it was definitely, definitely 5-5 and a draw.

Sometimes (most of the time) we can’t win and sometimes – it seems – we can’t lose. Today we couldn’t even draw. The official result was 6-5 to Wokingham but for the record books I make it 5 apiece and a brilliant game.

As the Caversham Trents commenced their groggy amble from the minibus which had delivered them from their base near the Nottingham Holme Sluices,  it was difficult to perceive in them any traces of the violent Royalists who trashed Wokingham back in the 1640s. They had a short blonde boy with glasses – who seemed too clever to be a Cavalier – and a lad called Roman who thought he could mouth off all over the place because he had a silly haircut and an aggressive dad. So, a garish little jabberer and a Hogwarts extra would be leading the line for this northern outfit who were otherwise well pruned.

Before the game, Evan quizzed me about Francesco Totti: ‘What – he’s 40 and he plays modern day football? Is he super-good? I wish you could do that. Why don’t you go on an exit trial?’ Life is an exit trial, I tried to say (whatever that is), but the topics were changing now with bewildering rapidity: ‘When I go to America with James, we’re going to go for two months. We’re going to watch the Copa America.’ What? This sounds like a Post A-Level trip, saved up for by a summer temping behind the cufflink counter, rather than the strategems of  7-Year-Olds. ‘Can I come with you?’ Mooning about in South America with Evan and James: sounds like a contrast to Winnersh.

The Caversham manager (one heck of a unit) stood imposingly in loose shorts and a hoodie, like a militant localist surfer on a beach full of tourists. Perhaps the shorts were there to hide a case of Winchester Goose, or were simply a statement that he and his assistant couldn’t care less if we thought them slubberdegullions; they will be who they are without reference to style or opinion. In this climate of free thought and expression, the players and managers thrived whereas the spectators were subject to an FA gagging clause which I would fall foul of later in the game.

Soon after the match started, the Royalists took the lead; we were fairly well-drilled after a training session which emphasised a set shape and passing pattern, while they were inevitably more cavalier, exploiting moments when our rhythm faltered. A few moments later, Evan played a long pass through to Jack who managed to control the ball and fire it into the corner. Then, a superb goal from Evan. When I later asked him which was his favourite goal of the season, he said ‘today’s because I thunderdrummed it into the goal.’ Great description.

Frustratingly, the game deteriorated while tensions along the Rua Joao De Freitas Branco side of the ground rose. Just before half-time, Evan was hacked in midfield and the Trents scored. The accepted wisdom is that parents should be quiet and trust the decisions of the ref. Behind the green railings, we may as well have been Lord Craven, away in Bohemia while his house was confiscated and turned into a prison for the king. But he was still able to raise 50k on his friend’s behalf and send it back to Caversham. As parents, one metre away from the action, we could do and say nothing to express what we thought.

With two minutes to go, Evan was alone in defence with two attackers bearing down on him. I could see what was going to happen, and as Evan attempted a Maradona to get past them, I yelled ‘No!!’ and one of the Trents nicked the ball away and slotted it past the ‘keeper to win the game. I wandered away from the railings with my eyes closed, then turned around, walked back and opened them to see Coach Michael’s face in front of mine and all the parents in silence: ‘he was allowed to try that skill. It doesn’t matter that he lost the ball and it doesn’t matter that we conceded a goal.’

The Hurricanes must have visited the finest linen draper’s in the precinct. In splendid sky blue against Wokingham in orange in black, it must have been the most attractive spectacle in Woodley this morning, by far, but it was also deeply wet and miserable.

The weather forecast had helpfully predicted ‘wind, rain and sun’ after the revelation of roadworks on a trunk road north of Crewe, and it was as difficult as ever to find any semblance of meaning or purpose in the world around us as traffic queued for Halford’s, Homebase and The Oracle, yet again.

The Woodley teams point to some specific moments of historical note, however, as they’re named after the local aerodrome as well as the factory which produced this country’s first major batch of Biros: hence we have Woodley United Hurricanes, Woodley Spitfires, Headley Road Internal Ink Reservoir Rovers, Drover’s Way Tungsten Carbide Quick-Drying Brass Sockets FC and the Sandford Lane Jotters, all of whom unfortunately play in a different league to us.

As kick-off drew nigh, Coach Michael was running perilously late, leading to 8 of us gathering around a wet and bedfuddled group of Wokingham players in an attempt to decide who would play in goal and who else would play where. The Hurricanes were lined up in perfect formation while we scrabbled around in the drizzle, managerless.

With the ref not wishing to stay in the rain a moment longer than necessary, he delayed the kick-off for a maximum of 2 minutes, allowing Michael to emerge in an orange daze and boom out a couple of imponderables before the game started. When it did, Wokingham played with passion and intent while Woodley looked as though they were still celebrating Quaker Week.

Jack prodded and probed, eventually managing to tackle a defender and slam the ball into the corner. I was reminded of what surely has to be the question of the week from Evan: “You know when you’re in bed and there are a pack of blue people around you – what are they called?”

Surgeons.

Well, Wokingham transcended the opposition as if under a beneficial influence: Josh shifted the ball onto his favoured left peg and let one fly, drifting the ball into the top left corner. Evan joined the action as goalkeeper for the remainder of the half, but was powerless to stop a low Woodley drive before Jack Parry restored the two goal lead with a clean strike after a typically tenacious forward run. As the curfew bell sounded to signal the end of the first half, it was 3-1 to Wokingham & Emmbrook Oranges.

The problem was that the curiously armless (I say that because they seemed tucked within rather than absent – or maybe he has sensitive hands. I don’t know because it was really wet and difficult to work out) coach of Woodley really ‘went after them’ at half-time, not in a vindictive way but as if to appeal to the deeper ideals of what Brendan Rodgers would call ‘the collective.’

“We look indisciplined; we look a mess; we look out of control.”

“No, we’re not” shot back a mini Hurricane.

“I’m saying that’s what it looks like, and it needs to change.”

And change it did. They came out like The Bow Street Runners while we seemed to emerge from a Sonning chapel-of-ease. They had a forward with a sharp barnet, and looked revitalised.

The momentum seemed to switch to Woodley, but it was difficult to analyse as minor ailments – a bad jaw and ear after being whacked by a ball at close range in my own game, as well as a bulbous shin and wet feet – left me anxious and ill-tempered.

‘In fairness to Wokingham’, as Mark Hughes would say, they did hit the post, Evan was unlucky with a dipping long range free-kick which just went over, and a few other chances fell victim to indecision or slight misjudgement. Woodley added 4 goals without reply, but their fully armed co-manager graciously admitted we should have left with at least a point, when what we actually left with was only an ongoing search for one.

The minor saints: I was hoping a few of them might be congregated around the end of a celestial continental breakfast buffet table this morning, willing to hear all manner of requests for intercession while they ate their croissants and jam; I couldn’t help but send a prayer up: Wokingham & Emmbrook were due to play Reeves Rangers, a team they lost 14-3 and 8-0 to last season. What was more, Connor Mulvaney – he of 59 goals in 24 games last season – was off with the Beavers.

So please, we’re not expecting to latch on to an apostle, a Catherine of Siena or a Francis of Assisi, but maybe this kind of footballing prayer could be considered as AOB by, say, a random group trying to get at the Nutella: Pope Leo the Third, maybe, Deodatus of Nevers, Conrad of Constance, Stephen Harding, Thomas Becket, Edward the Confessor, Margaret of Watford, Maccaroni of Galliati, Ravanelli of Perugia, Pogatetz of Graz, Ugo Ehiogu of West Bromwich, Jonathan Greening, Stuart Downing, Mark Schwarzer, Gareth Southgate: someone help us. Fling a bit of the south wind to Woodley. Make us to wade through the river, dry-shod.

Thankfully, we also had material, human presence of the highest order. Linda Heppolette had struck forth from her Windsor home to be here, armed with formidable purple Asics running shoes, an attentive eye for detail and, supremely: grandmaternal love with the promise of a restorative Sports Direct/McDonald’s trip afterwards; a foray into Bracknell.

Perhaps it was Reeves Rangers who had contacted the angels: a second into the game, their striker ran through the Wokingham defence with the nonchalance of Adelaide of Italy savouring a sliver of Lady Baltimore Cake at the inaugural Winnersh Triangle Arts Festival, somewhere in another time.

Our goalkeeper played as if suffering the after effects of a bad afternoon on the Pepto-Bismol, as though a dodgy consignment of the stuff had compounded the stomach issue it was designed to relieve. The mind was elsewhere when it needed to work in harmony with the body; in the first half, the keeper’s role resembled that of a supermarket alcohol superintendent at checkouts manned by teenagers: always summoned, never in command.

Maybe the saints were distracted, or stuck with a ponderous volunteer at the latte maker as they lined up for coffee. Either way, we needed some thoughts to be sent further up the chain of reference because things were rapidly going from bad to worse, interspersed with glorious skill from Evan.

He could outwit any of their players with Cruyff turns, graceful rotations, a sudden step to one side to throw the striker off balance, and mazy dribbles down the wing. There were few outlets in the final third, however, and only an irregular rhythm in the passing. As a mixed team, Wokingham fare well but were sometimes outmuscled here by the brute force of the boys. Evan fought back with some crunching tackles and tussled with them continually: a real turnaround from his more reserved approach last season.

The teams faced each other at close quarters as the second half was about to start, and a disagreement ensued, with Evan at the forefront. It was one of those moments in any crowded setting when the quality of the air seems to change. ‘Ref, you need to get a grip here: it’s going to kick off!’ I shouted. He took this as his cue to blow the whistle for the game to restart. Tensions were now diluted in space, rather than concentrated in a brawl, but they bubbled away and boiled over nonetheless as the game descended into a string of niggly lunges and opprobrium.

It was scrappy: the Wokingham players were vocal and combative as they sought to limit the deficit, but the Reeves parents were gracious in victory, applauding Evan as he emerged from a thunderous tackle into the boards beneath them. He was unscathed, fortunately, in contrast to a friend who told me last night that after one tackle back near the Millennium ‘there was a period of five months when I only left the sofa to change the peas.’

In the chaos, I could only cast my mind back to the silence of yesterday’s library lesson with Year 8. Choosing my moment, I broke the spell and spoke up: ‘Has anyone in here heard of Vincenzo Montella?’ Croissant silence. No-one. I did the Montella Aeroplane Dance (L’Aeroplanino), confusing them further. Sometimes there are moments of incomprehension like this, and we might as well accept it. Iris had one this morning when, after she was sick for most of the night, I perhaps left her to play rather too long on the iPad. Eventually she approached me in tears: ‘It’s gone outcharging daddy. It’s gone sleep.’

Well, Wokingham had ‘gone outcharging’, that’s for sure. As the game reached its disordered conclusion they were left with the satisfaction and marks of having stemmed the tide, limiting the damage to 10-1. Yes, it was punishing, but as we lined the Autoroute du Nord side of The Stade de France, Woodley, and listened to the warm closing words of Coaches Michael and Peter, all I could feel was pride in Evan’s attitude and determination, and gratitude for the opportunity to witness it.

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.

On the now familiar territory of La Bambonera, Woodley, we faced our old foes from Twyford: the people of the crossroads. I use the word ‘foe’ loosely. Their genial coach – dressed as if having taken his fashion cues from the staff of municipal swimming pools – wandered over to wish our girls and boys the best of luck; not that they’d need it, I thought, despite all prior evidence to the contrary.

What does surface geniality count for, anyway? For all we knew, he could have been ‘the self-professed saviour of the dim right wing with respiratory problems and a mason’s ring.’ Theresa must have her henchmen, after all, and he lives in her constituency.

The game began in drizzle and darkness. No shafts of morning light illuminated the precinct or water tower. One of our supporters, tanned from Iberia, in a move suggestive of guts and genius, arrived with a step ladder from which his youngest would be able to see the game. He wouldn’t be disappointed.

Wokingham lined up with Saynor and Dance in defence, Mulvaney and Butler up front and Sexton in goal. In their vivid orange kits, they shone as brightly as Ronan Keating’s muse must have done to inspire such impassioned crooning. They even managed to put a few passes together before a moment which will always live in the memory, and may remain unsurpassed this season.

In a near-exact parallel of the first game of last season, Evan picked up the ball on the halfway line and curled it into the corner, making him the first goalscorer of each season, with near-identical early-September goals.

I was astonished by this, and relieved. There were times last season (reflecting with Coach Peter over pints of Beck’s and Lager Top on Friday night), when it seemed as though Evan had become a ghost of his former self, that he’d lost ‘the force’ or whatever you want to call it. It’s good to know you can get it back.

Connor soon added a second goal before a very odd display of goalkeeping in which our incumbent, static as a starfish, allowed Twyford to hit back, twice. It was as if his mind contained a perimeter fence dividing sanity from madness, and he’d hopped over it.

‘What began as drizzle had now become torrential.’ More strangeness ensued. Just after half-time, Twyford were awarded a free-kick. Instead of forming a wall, Wokingham decided to stand a milliner’s yard from each other, constructing what was, in effect, a fence. Twyford scored.

But it didn’t matter because in the last ten minutes, as rain relentlessly fell, the whole team – including the subs – seemed to will a victory, almost as if moved by deeper currents than those generated by Coach Michael’s half-time team-talk.

Twyford’s passing consisted of increasingly redundant avenues of enquiry; they were met with resistance and belligerence at every turn, as if something immoderately northern had crept into Wokingham’s understanding of the world. Twyford’s football, now firmly in the realm of the bland, found further potential for futility as it began to trespass into regions of terminal inconsequence. Einwerfen after einwerfen and play after play, as the Americans say, offered itself as a worthy nominee for the British Academy of Pointlessness in Woodley Awards 2016.

That’s slightly harsh. They had a brilliant goalkeeper (whom we’d like to sign if ever the transfer window opens) and some useful players, but no-one could contend with Connor Mulvaney, to whom all the cliches apply: he’s a force of nature, a whirlwind, he ‘takes the game by the scruff of the neck’ – and then some.

He scored a hat-trick in the last ten minutes, and there would be no need for premeditated consolation of the sort sometimes offered by Uncle Malcolm at Fulham games. Following Fulham away from home is, by its very nature, fraught with the potential for dark feelings, but sometimes Uncle Malcolm and accomplices would encounter darker scenarios than most: a 0-0 draw away at Wigan with no shots on target, for example, or the Nightmare of Old Trafford 2005 when after a 7 hour coach journey and a thorough frisking, we finally entered the ground only for Rooney and Ronaldo to score 4 goals in 19 minutes.

At this point, Uncle Malcolm – always with something up his sleeve – delved into his portable pantry to produce smoked salmon, cottage cheese and other carefully chosen items. Once, when we found ourselves in the purgatory of Westfield after a January game was postponed due to ice, Uncle Malcolm bought everyone ice creams by way of mitigation. In my case, today, the crumpled Milky Bar contingency remained unnecessary; Evan won the Skills Trophy and we had a Rollover hot dog for lunch before whacking on the Party Anthems – from London to Ibiza or something – on our way into town.

Songs referred to: Blur  ‘Mr Robinson’s Quango’

The Divine Comedy  ‘Geronimo’

Jennifer Lopez  ‘On the Floor’