Wilderspool Causeway

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’

I’m ambivalent about sports days (particularly the competitive/non-competitive debate) so wonder what other people think about them. Evan’s was good fun, with many of the typical inversions of reality:

– rapturous applause for questionable accomplishments (e.g. someone slows down to alter their hairband and drifts to an irreconcilable distance from the rest, but decides, on balance, to finish the race anyway and receives a delirious reception.)

– Headteacher wearing Lycra