Wilderspool Causeway

Woodley Zebras 6 Wokingham and Emmbrook 3 (Mulvaney 2, Sexton)

On the way to the pitch this morning, Evan and I walked past two boys who were obviously sniggering at us. The real problem, though, was that in a disconcerting and, in my view, atrociously handled parental intervention, their mother decided to say the following: ‘I know EXACTLY what you’re thinking, Ben, and I’d really rather you didn’t.’

Well thank you very much for that, Ben’s mother: an insipid reprimand which compounds the insult through tacit agreement. Can you think of a worse response? The brats should have been taken aside and told in no uncertain terms to sort their lives out with immediate effect – before either sincerely apologising or going home.

So there was alienation and encroaching ennui long before we’d even negotiated the car park. A glance at the phone wouldn’t help. A text message from none other than my very own sister read ‘#GoZebras!’, for this was a game which would tear sibling unity asunder, opening up wounds which hadn’t been considered since an earlier dispensation, when in the golden era of The Cold War, of Detente, Duck and Cover and The Bamboo Curtain, we learnt Monopoly and the rudiments of psychological warfare.

Hotel on Vine Street ’91, Coventry Street Deterrence Theory, The Pall Mall Bloodbath: these were the strategies and milestones of early childhood and if anyone fancies Monopoly now, be prepared for more of the same: the Whitechapel Counterforce, the Kremlinology of Chance, the Finlandisation of Mayfair…Mutually Assured Derision. The complete runaround.

But now, there was a different source of psychological incongruence: the odd moment when Emma became the Mohammed Al Fayed of Wokingham Within, opting to outmanouevre the council by initiating the Woodley Pact, bankrolling the future of Woodley Zebras in exchange for the right to display her interests and ideas on the lads’ shirts. It’s a classic ‘spanner’ stroke, designed to twist the nuts of council officials into bringing Wokingham and Emmbrook home from their Henley exile: genius.

Today, as assistant manager (or assistant TO the manager, as David Brent would say) I took my place in a slightly odd set-up in which spectators were stationed in a narrow walkway behind a fence: they had no room to step backwards and I had no room to step forwards without encroaching onto the pitch. This meant you could hear/were part of every comment throughout the game, the first of which was: ‘this is great for abusing the coaches!’

I was responsible for the goalkeepers’ attire and overall wellbeing: for glove amendments, snood removal and general upbeat waffle. The heavy rotation policy meant there were 4 changes of goalkeeper in forty minutes and so, with driving rain and confusion also very much present, there’s very little I can meaningfully reflect on in terms of football proper because it really was just a very confusing morning: oppressive, even. Once, when Roy Hodgson and Ray Lewington were at Fulham they popped up over the dugout like a couple of meerkats in response to the debased advice offered from behind, and I can understand why.

With 10 minutes left, it was 2-2 after Connor had brought us back into the game with two absolutely cracking left-footed strikes. After his stints on the bench and in goal, Evan played a useful cameo with some graceful skills and passes; Jack played with characteristic passion and intrigue, his curious cocktail of wild abandon and intellect keeping the scoreline within comprehensible boundaries. The crux of the matter here was Coach Peter’s selflessness.

With his son potentially angling us towards victory, he substituted him to ensure fair pitch time for everyone and the near certainty that the points would rest, in the end, with Emma and the Zebras,
John Redwood’s Duga radar impotent in the background as the upper echelons of the Emmbrook and Wokingham infrastructure pondered a much needed resurrection: some perestroika for the Burghfield Spring.

March 26, 2016

First Days, Wokingham & Emmbrook, Woodley Zebras
Woodley United Scorpions 2 Wokingham & Emmbrook 5 (Dance, Parry pen. Sexton, Mulvaney 2) BYDL Man of the Match: E. Saynor

Woodley United were resplendent in sky blue shirts which promote a local law firm specialising in Cohabitation Agreements (not sure why they would need mediating), Cohabitation Disputes, Grandparents’ Rights and Deputyship Applications, whatever they’re for (Sheriff of Winnersh? Assistant Duty Manager of Greggs? Deputy Head of Bulmershe School? First Mate on the Caversham Prince? Anything else?) Woodley appeared with a style and understatement more usually associated with veteran actresses, or the Queen herself, than a Reading satellite town. It was such a nice tone, it really was.

After some asthmatic weeks, Evan returned to the team rejuvenated, with Dolce & Gabbana oversocks (don’t ask how) to compensate for deficient ankle support.

He was by no means the most eccentrically dressed Wokingham player. Connor – Fresh Prince of Mulvania, architect of our revivals, Maestro of Woosehill – was wearing a snood and mismatching gloves, one of them stripy and one of them plain.

So this was an aesthetic contest as much as a footballing one. We had alice bands and various shades of Nike: no North Korean skin- fade haircuts here. Evan’s MacManaman curls were offset by simple trims, French crops, mop tops, the odd bob. It was the Top Man contest and by virtue of a fortuitous confluence of hand-me-downs and found items: ‘it’s never cheap or cheerful; he’s Hugo and he’s Boss!’

For the first ten minutes, the game threatened to live up to the aesthetics: Evan’s cultured passing and thoughtfully executed skills – along with a pinged half volley – earned him the Man of the Match award. We were 2 nil up when he left the pitch after 10 minutes, and he rarely featured in the latter quarters of the game, having left the pitch to a feeling that his work there was done.

The scorpions rarely found the space to pounce, but were deadly when they did: two goals from two shots in the first half added substance and vitality to the unmistakably dignified tenor of their behaviour.

With the game deteriorating and all but lost to the doldrums, to protracted shoelace stoppages and general entropy, the ball was fired with vigour towards the top corner and saved superbly by a Woodley defender: penalty. Jack Parry strolled up with the nonchalance of a giraffe, stroked it home and then turned and charged in delirious knowledge of victory, throwing himself onto the turf and other players in an action transgressive of health and safety protocol and deserving of a yellow card as surely as the Scorpion lad merited red.

This was a victory of style over style: of clothing, of technical ambition, of bravery. Wokingham have a ‘skills trophy’ which is awarded every week: the coaches are looking for Maradonas and Rabonas, dragbacks and Cruyff turns, improvisation and quality passing. The score is irrelevant to them, and rightly so.

I do wonder what would happen, though, on a tour of the north country. It’s bad enough going by minibus to Berkhamstead: you get off and can hardly move. Imagine stepping off the bus in Darlington or Whitley Bay and facing the locals with all your elegant oddball clobber and a bag of tricks: unthinkable.

March 19, 2016

Wokingham & Emmbrook, Woodley United Scorpions
Burghfield Yellows 9 Wokingham and Emmbrook 4 (Mulvaney, 4)

A convoy of tractors rolls along Woodlands Avenue every Saturday morning, and it’s starting to become frustrating. We play a different team from Burghfield nearly every week, all of them mystifyingly named after a colour which bears no relationship to the shade of their kit. A haven for the colour blind. But the question is, why don’t they set up a league with other teams from the venereal belt instead of troubling us every week? Nately Scures, Preston Combover, Aldermaston Soke, Tutts Clump. There’s a bright future for you, Burghfield, if only you could lift your heads and see it.

But anyway, we had to play them and, reassuringly, they scored after 1.3 seconds, buoyed by fresh farmyard protein: ‘breakfast with the master in the morning, feel the breeze and brush against a cow’s leg mmmm!’ We struggled to support our strikers, big time. It reminded me of when M&S simply couldn’t find a way to support Jeremy Paxman (but the confusing thing about that was, why did he go to the media with it? Why not keep it between himself and M&S customer services?)

Sometimes you need to abandon the game plan. There are days when all you’ve realistically got to offer is a primal scream or the incidental offerings of the degenerate – all meaning is lost, almost before you wake up. Listening to James Taylor and The Dixie Chicks in the evening cannot prevent you from waking up like a man or woman possessed, tearing through the house disgracefully in a bid to leave it.

Wokingham & Emmbrook lost touch with the stratagems of Thursday, as we all do from time to time, omitting to pass or play much relevant or coherent football for the entirety of the game. Evan was bench bound for most of the game with the double whammy of a hand and nose injury.

Connor was superhuman at times but that single-mindedness was a double-edged sword; he was brilliant but sometimes without the added and crucial effect of fostering the same quality in others. All in all it was a good effort but ultimately ‘not right’ as Roy Walker would say, and we were left to ponder one of life’s deepest mysteries: Lower Earley.

Why do we play a different outfit from Burghfield every week, but never a team from Earley, Lower Earley, Maiden Erlegh or any other form of Earley? It’s a big place and just on the outskirts of Woodley. Does it have an identity? Is it the Surrey of Reading, existing only so you can leave it? And where are the Lower Earley landmarks? Where is its spiritual heart? I think of Rushey Way, but ultimately that’s misguided. It’s more of an arterial route.

Lower Earley’s archetypal road, its spiritual touchstone, its ultimate conduit, its calling card, is Kilnsea Drive. Watch it curve in a beautiful arc through South East Reading, uniting its cul-de-sacs with effortless elegance. You could argue that it blends beauty and meaning like no other street in Reading. If we could only tap into that. We wouldn’t need Burghfield, or we wouldn’t need the full batty spectrum of the Burghfield rainbow, anyway.

March 12, 2016

burghfield yellows, Wokingham & Emmbrook
Woodley Wanderers Scorpions 8 Wokingham and Emmbrook 4 (Mulvaney 3, Sexton) Maracana

‘We didn’t lose this game; we simply ran out of time.’ I firmly believe that. In fact, I wonder if something strange was afoot, to be honest. Before the game, Evan said ‘My friend Sophie’s got millions of money. Her dad works for someone who runs his fingers under spoons and bends them.’

OK, we all know who that is. And where resides the Chief Spoon Bender? About half a mile from Woodley. The ball simply would not cross the line: Connor hit the post 3 times, Evan had 2 stunning free kicks (honestly, one of them drew gasps from all watching) cruelly denied and several other shots unaccountably drifted wide. When Woodley scored with their first shot, everyone was shocked. They played Route 1, agricultural Peter Kay style football. Two of their players had the build and demeanour of young Peter Kays. They humped it upfield and hoped for a favourable bounce, which they invariably got. At half-time it was 6-0. I know: you might think my vision’s jaundiced and I agree it could be, but it just seemed inexplicable.

What’s more important, a chaplain or a groundsman? I’m not sure. God won’t cut the grass for you, no matter how many prayers you shoot up. But if you have a personal problem, would you rather speak to a chaplain, a gardener, both or neither? Or are we saying here that chaplains and gardeners need to work collaboratively? Or are they ok in parallel?

Eventually, the scoreline began to reflect the balance of play. The second half was 4-2 to Wokingham, but again could have been far more. I was disillusioned with things by then and went to queue for a bacon roll: £2.60 and overlooking the Maracana. You may not believe me, but they tried to cook the bacon (never been a problem before) and it just wouldn’t cook. 10-15 minutes later, still not cooked, I got my money back while others collected their perfectly done burgers and hotdogs. The server decided to make a phone call about the bacon.

The game ended 8-4, and I’m sure we would have caught them if it was 10 minutes longer. We left baconless, scanning the puddles. ‘Have a look at that one. Look me in the eyes and tell me it isn’t tidal.’
‘What are you boys talking about?’
‘Oh, just like the tides and that. The numinous in the mundane and all that shit.’
Canada geese crossed Bathurst Road – purposefully and in formation – and the spell was broken.

March 5, 2016

Wokingham & Emmbrook, Woodley Wanderers Scorpions
Burghfield Reds (who play in blue) 5 Wokingham and Emmbrook 10 (Mulvaney 4, Parry 3, Saynor, Sexton, o.g.)

There isn’t the virtual acreage to cover today’s events in full, so like a man or woman condemned to do their weekly shop at the basket checkout (Harry Enfield’s ‘Here’s another 10 items or less, here’s another 10 items or less, here’s another 10 items or less), I’ll try to cover what I can and make economies where possible.

Friday evening was spent discussing pipes which are visible from the M1. Apparently, ‘when you spend 2 years of your life on the M1, you run out of things to speculate about.’ Nevertheless, there is a ‘Purple Pipes Online Forum’ on which people do precisely that, bantering about plumbing anomalies and the significance of colour. Marginal trivia, perhaps, but who could honestly demean those who make it their business to seriously consider the infrastructure of this country, to split the infinitive of a journey to the Lake District?

So Burghfield Reds arrived from the West Country in all their village finery: a blue kit, head to foot. I’m not sure what the significance of this is. Cardiff are called the Bluebirds and played in red for a few years, but that decision had a nationalistic thrust to it which I’m not sure Burghfield share.

The village member who corralled his team into the Estadio da Luz did so public spiritedly, railing his charges in with a squint and some amiable stubble. With the game underway, Evan played as a Libero, a deep lying defender who outwitted the Burghfield attack with nonchalant vision. Lead wolf Connor Mulvaney was on the bench, the Soccer Roster was in full rotation and Jack Parry punished witlessness, firing us into a 2-0 lead early doors.

Soon, the Kaiser was on and two near-identical goals were scored from outrageous angles, yet Burghfield rallied. They scored from a goal kick and an unholy mess in the goalmouth as Amelia back-peddled, mis-coordinating her feet as she tumbled backwards into the goal: she was later to score after a brilliant doppelpass on the konter, liaising with cousin Connor the Kaiser to devastating effect. Yes!

So at half-time, it was quite literally 4-3.

The bestubbled veteran of Burghfield mewed his team together with hope: hope, pride, optimism, self-awareness and more than a smattering of mental health. His assistant was less scrutable: a bald-headed fellow with correct carriage.

Evan was back on the pitch. We were cooped in a rectangle of self-expression. Too many einwurfs (the throw-in, scourge of junior 5-a-side) and so much good play to warm the senior Mulvaney cockles: dragbacks, passing, Cruyff turns, tackles and goals. No elfmeters; limited foul play.

The zweite halfte was less of a football festival, though my highlight was ‘in this moment’ as Pellegrini would say. Evan picked up the ball deep and spied a chasm in the Burghfield mandeckung.

‘Run Evan, Go!’ He was on the ball, never mind the danger, cut loose, bearing down on Burghfield and their goalkeeper: ‘Shoot! GOAL!’ 8-3. Vindication, gegners crushed, a Bombenschuss on the Bolzplatz .

A phenomenal win for Wokingham against our favourite Mannschaft from the countryside.

We were euphoric Satsumas and they, of course, were Burghfield Reds: blue.

February 27, 2016

Burghfield Reds, Wokingham & Emmbrook
Centre Skills 3 Wokingham & Emmbrook 4 (Mulvaney 3, Sexton)

Legendary sports writer James Lawton once described the football authorities as ‘men who know the price of everything in the game but apparently so little about its most precious values.’

This was the most intimidating and unpleasant opposition I can remember since the early 90’s when New Windsor Falcons had to face teams from the grimy Heathrow hinterland. At one such game there were scuffles between parents, one of whom – on our side – was a TV racing pundit resembling Boycie from Only Fools and Horses. He would often light up a big cigar and run haltingly onto the pitch, gesticulating wildly. Where are characters such as this nowadays?

The blandly-named ‘Centre Skills’ had a few, that’s for sure. Wearing sunglasses throughout – not even the light-sensitive ones – their manager stood broodingly on the touchline while his assistant barked out orders such as ‘tackle him harder’ (aimed at Evan, which I wasn’t best pleased about). Coach Peter said that they were doing everything FA courses tell you not to do when coaching children. The problem is that Coach Peter operates at an entirely different moral altitude to me. As I grew increasingly frustrated, I was left in a kind of limboland of repressed anger: ‘Hey, don’t get too excited Alex. Just let the ref deal with it: we’re not going to say anything.’
‘But, but…’
‘Yeah, I know. You’re right, but we’re just going to leave it.’

Centre Skills seem to operate primarily as a business rather than a community football club rooted in a specific place. Is that why it was so important for them to win? Is that why their managers didn’t shake hands with us at the end? Was it beneath them to lose to a less ‘professional’ outfit, even though we’re talking about 6 and 7 year-olds? I hesitate to raise this question, but did the hard men in charge object to losing to a team which contains a girl?

If Coach Peter read this, he would appeal to me to transcend this line of argument, I’m sure, to find an inner tranquility which recognises the good rather than the bad in others: to ‘search for the hero inside yourself’, as M People once recommended.

For the final 10 minutes, Centre Skills were permanently encamped in Wokingham & Emmbrook’s box, defying the stricture that goal kicks should occasion a retreat into the other half of the pitch, a rule the ref couldn’t be bothered to uphold and one which I couldn’t comment on due to Peter’s laudable pacifism.

Somehow, his philosophy worked; Wokingham & Emmbrook were able to withstand pressure with a semblance of rationality while Centre Skills lashed at shots, losing reason as they habitually transgressed the boundaries of sense and fair play. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who you are; if Mulvaney’s banging in the goals and Jack Parry’s defending like it’s the Battle of Britain – inflamed by jibes from their players about the nature of his trainers and ability – and the likes of Evan and others are nonchalantly providing the garnish, then mere aggression will be redundant.

However, while Centre Skills opted for free market brutalism, Evan seemed to allow hazy corporate jargon to infect his post match analysis: ‘They shout at each other and they shout at us. That’s not good teamwork. Teamwork’s one of our core values.’ So perhaps Peter’s right, though I’m not sure I’ll ever live up to it. Though we might aspire to some of the ‘most precious values’, is it best to try to keep quiet in doing so?

February 20, 2016

Centre Skills, Wokingham & Emmbrook
AFC Whitchurch 5 Wokingham & Emmbrook 2 (C. Mulvaney, A. Mulvaney pen)

(Apologies to anyone from Whitchurch who may not recognise my somewhat subjective portrayal of their club and village. Match details are accurate.)

AFC Whitchurch were formed when their parent club, Whitchurch United, was bought by an American businessman who pumped millions of pounds into the club before floating it on the New York Stock Exchange. The Whitchurch fans were dissatisfied with this, fearing that investment would threaten their very essence, the nature of what it means to be ‘Whitchurch.’ Rather than expressing their love for grassroots football by choosing another local club to support – Pangbourne FC, Woodcote Caledonian Thistle, Goring Academicals, Streatley in-the-age-of-Aquarius FC – they decided to form their own club, AFC Whitchurch, who would wear gold and green to anchor them to the soul of South Oxfordshire.

As expected for a fan-owned club, Whitchurch packed one whole end of the Estadio da Luz, bouncing up and down before kick off to a raucous ‘Pogo if you love Whitchurch, pogo if you love Whitchurch…’ transitioning into a bitter ‘Where were you, where were you, where were you at Beale Park?’ No-one else knew what they were referring to, but it packed an irrelevant punch, that’s for sure. Discombobulated by the pageantry, Wokingham started the game as if in that most blissful of states: semi-consciousness. Reassuringly, Whitchurch scored within 1.3 seconds of kick off. They scored another in the next few seconds as our gloved and beanied brethren seemed much more focused on sartorial logistics than anything to do with the match proper.

Unfortunately, the pattern continued: Coach Michael is resolute in his insistence that skill, technique, fun and rotation are everything. We rotate so much that we’re all medicated; we’ve all got labyrinthitis. The goalkeeper changes four times per game. That’s the level of rotation. You can’t feel your fingers. They can’t feel their fingers. The Whitchurch supporters fall silent in pity as yet another dog’s breakfast of football management unfolds before them: the numbness of the Assistant Manager’s (me) five minute glove fitting, the manic sleeve inversions of the desperate. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t know what you’re doing!’ It was best just to wave and move on.

Whitchurch scored again. And again. It was 4-0 before we’d even reached garment contentment. Now was the time for Mulvaney. Their experienced Irish coach said ‘Hey, dat nomber 4’s a good player now.’ Yes, he is. First he took on the whole team to make it 4-1, then he won a penalty which resulted in his cousin, Amelia Mulvaney, scoring her first goal of the season. Well done Amelia! Whitchurch then scored a sloppy goal before half time, which for us is merely a textile alteration window, the most dramatic weave being the sudden Pink Gloves of Connor Mulvaney. After the break, we laid siege to their goal. Evan controlled a cross first time, and shot just wide. Thanasie hit the post. We won another penalty, but missed.

As was predictable, the passionate yet precious souls of Whitchurch staged a protest 5 minutes before the end, bless them. The type of fans who invest their whole lives into a club always find something to complain about. The chanting had decreased in relevance as the game progressed: ‘Stand up if you hate Tidmarsh, stand up if you hate Tidmarsh’ and ‘We all dream of a house in Kidmore End, a house in Kidmore End, a house in Kidmore End’ were among the most notable. But events took a much stranger turn when 20 or so Whitchurch supporters walked on to the pitch with a banner calling for ‘Justice for Nettlebed Pete’ and sat down around the centre circle, laying the banner down in the middle. Coach Michael looked at me blankly and the 16 year-old ref was in way over his head. Ciara wondered over and asked me who Nettlebed Pete was. ‘We don’t know, Ciara’ said Michael in his booming Scouse tones, ‘But let’s just let it pass.’

But the people of the bend in the Thames just wouldn’t budge. Eventually we had to call on staff and stewards from the Goals Centre to gather to remove them. Within 10 minutes all manner of officials had gathered round and most fans eventually dispersed, apart from one lady who refused to move. St John’s Ambulance staff tried to sweet talk her off, but eventually she had to be lifted from the pitch, not without a final, piercing shriek of ‘PETE!!!!’ Our momentum was completely destroyed, and all we could hear were cries in solidarity with the clearly deranged: ‘We are Whitchurch, we are Whitchurch, we are Whitchurch from the Thames. We are Whitchurch, super Whitchurch, we are Whitchurch, stuff Cane End.’ They had made an impression, and won. They have a strong identity; we have a strong range of accessories.

That’s life and it was almost as feisty as the Stratfield Turgis v Sherfield on Loddon A33 derby, a real cauldron for the unkempt and over-rotated. Evan’s post match comment was typically tangential: ‘Dad, did you know that a long time ago, Drogba used to be in the top ten Didiers?’

February 13, 2016

AFC Whitchurch, Wokingham & Emmbrook
Twyford Comets v Wokingham and Emmbrook. Lokomotiv Stadion, Russia.

(n.b. due to the closeness of the game, the score has been withheld until the end. Evan’s post match interview is also there, so Route 1 here would be to skip. Route 2 will take you through the whole game/ build-up).

What is Twyford? As Assistant Manager for this game, part of my brief was to gauge the temperature of the village, to assess the culture and philosophy of its residents. The only way I know to determine this is to visit the chapel of Our Lady Astride the Crossroads and read the inscriptions on the green sacramental token bins therein. Only then can you gain a flavour of who or what abides in the orbit of Twyford, Central Berkshire’s ring doughnut, the centre of which is an absence, a crossroads. This week there is an appeal for the veterans of this floating world to be granted sufficient means ‘to visit Eastbourne or Weymouth.’ A rival bid is for a group who would like ‘maybe the odd Bingo night’, but my vote went to the Charvil Whatever who wanted to do their thing strictly within the realm of Charvil. So the question remains: what is Twyford?

Perhaps we’ll never find an answer. We do, however, know that an extremely irritating and single-minded nightmare of a human being lives there. Readers of previous reports may remember a lady who turned out in support of ‘Harrison’ when these teams last met. She was here again and in full, shameless voice: ‘Grapple with him, Harrison! Put your foot in there! Get her in a headlock! Pull her plaits off!’ From the dugout on the opposite side of the pitch I could hear her shrieking exhortations from the first minute to the last. To make matters worse, following a neat finish from Connor to put us in the lead, Harrison scored their first goal, taking it past three players before blasting it into the corner. Evan, starting up front, got into some excellent positions and had a few near misses before the game swung with seemingly terminal force in Twyford’s favour. Evan, now in goal, decided to pass the ball out to Amelia who miscued spectacularly, looping the ball back over Evan’s head and into the goal.

Twyford then scored another before half-time, this time through the oddly named ‘Andrew’. I’m not knocking the moniker in itself, but you do seldom hear it nowadays. Not many people introduce Baby Andy to the world. Does this signal yet another bewildering cultural difference between Wokingham and Twyford? I wouldn’t be surprised if Twyford’s ‘Evie quotient’ is also down somewhat in relation to other places, perhaps accounting for just 80% of girls’ names there as opposed to 95% elsewhere?

The second half was a nightmare and I was a jittery mess throughout, partly to do with an excess of filter coffee and partly because Coach Michael made me participate in the warm-up, running up and down and lifting my knees high in the air while wearing jeans and boots. Ridiculous. Harrison’s mum’s report would have identified her double, I’m sure, wondering who the prick in the warm-up was and why he paced up and down the touchline yelling nonsense all game. It’s because it was so painful. We battered them in terms of possession, territory and attacking thrust, but just could not finish.

Amelia played excellently in terms of her positioning as lone striker, carving out several opportunities for herself by finding space – it’s just that she narrowly missed every one of them. Connor Mulvaney was nullified by a detail their coach seemed to have put on him and it was impossible to find a breakthrough until, that is, we were awarded a penalty after a handball in the box. Coach Michael decided that Evan was the man for this, but he was jostled no end by envious teammates. Michael called out that he’d chosen Evan and that the decision was final. The ref said ‘Right, enough of this. Can the penalty taker put their hand up?’ Four hands shot up. Eventually, Evan had a clear run at the ball, the whistle sounded and he curled it high and to the left of the keeper and into the net.

So it was now 3-2 and we continued to exert relentless pressure, but Twyford’s defence was excellent. It looked like it was just one of those games; all that was left was a search for inner humanity, the resolve to walk past Harrison’s mum with one’s head down, mute. But that wouldn’t be necessary. Just as all hope appeared to be lost, and with about 30 seconds left, the ball fell to Mark Sexton who pelted it, lofting the ball high into the net, Steven Gerrard style. I couldn’t restrain myself from running onto the pitch and joining the celebrations, morphing the delirium into yelled instructions for the last seconds, shifting the indefatigable Jack Parry into defence for the final moments, during which they won a free kick. A goalmouth scramble ensued, as did my final injunction: ‘Just hoof it!’ Coach Michael was unimpressed: ‘Alex – ”Just hoof it?” – you can’t say that.’ Point taken, Michael.

After the game, Evan was interviewed about his penalty taking style and approach:

Interviewer: So tell me, Evan, did you decide where to place the ball for your penalty?

Evan: No, I just hit it.

Interviewer: That’s fine, I suppose, as long as you don’t hit it straight at the keeper!

Evan (concerned, sympathetic look on his face) : No, I wouldn’t have done that because he was wearing hearing aids.

The most considerate penalty taker of all time? That accolade probably goes to Robbie Fowler who deliberately missed a penalty he deemed to have been awarded unfairly. The most counterproductive hearing aid in the History of Twyford? The village’s most punishing humanitarian episode? We may never know.

Twford Comets 3 Wokingham and Emmbrook 3 (Mulvaney, Saynor pen. Sexton)

February 6, 2016

Twyford Comets, Wokingham & Emmbrook
Wokingham & Emmbrook Cougars 2 Wokingham & Emmbrook Oranges 5 (Mulvaney 4, Sexton) Silesian Arena

‘This is our teacher, Les. When he refers to your tailbone, he means the place your tail would be, if you had one.’ As Evan and I reclined on blue mats in Emmbrook Village Hall, three days before our crunch derby game for which I would be manager, Evan leaned over and whispered ‘Dad, I don’t really understand this.’ But it didn’t matter. We needed all the help we could get: Les, Grandmaster Choa Kok Sui, Keith Chegwin; if John Redwood had popped in for a hug or to release a pigeon into the Emmbrook sky, we probably would have welcomed him. This is the Glenn Hoddle school of management and everyone’s accepted.

The build-up involved all the tension, gamesmanship and psychological warfare associated with any big derby. The Cougars brought the biggest following we’ve ever seen at this level, many of whom positioned themselves in and around our technical area prior to kick off. I returned to the touchline after the warm-up to the most bizarre of scenes. My Costa take-away was smashed and smeared all over the advertising hoardings and, no word of a lie, one of their fans said ‘Yeah, we used to dance on Karl Marx’s grave.’ This was a highly alienating comment: ‘Sorry, what? Where’s Karl Marx’s grave?’
‘It’s in Highgate Cemetery…and we didn’t smash your coffee, by the way. Were you looking forward to that?’

Were we up against the Lazio of Wokingham? Were these Mussolini acolytes, displaced from Rome? Or had they simply noticed that Mr Parry (Emmbrook Maths guru and assistant manager from the Black Country) and I are teachers, and therefore highly suspect lefties? Anyhow, these shenanigans would not stand. Due to fixture congestion, we were playing a 7-a-side game on a much larger pitch, a situation with which both teams were unfamiliar. As a result, the first half was ragged and scrappy as players reverted to a herd mentality in pursuit of the ball; but how can you be direct and yet inoffensive when addressing a six-year-old? They need to know what to do, but not feel bad about not doing it, somehow.

One of the advantages of working in a boys’ school is that you learn all the new slang as soon as it’s minted. Last week, a boy told me he’d been ‘ham sandwiched’ by another teacher; this seems to be the equivalent of Fergie’s ‘hairdryer’: a short burst of ire, strategically timed for maximum effect. A lot of these were needed today. Apparently ‘ham sandwich’ is transferable; any negative situation is ham sandwich. Just as the game was threatening to go totally ham sandwich, Connor Mulvaney, ever the architect of our revival, seized the ball in his own half, dribbled around most of their team and smashed it into the corner. He scored another a few minutes later before a swift counter-attack from the Cougars brought them back into the game, sending their fans absolutely nuts.

A controversial moment followed when we were awarded a goal after the ball seemingly went out of play. Their manager, who looks more like Jurgen Klopp than Jurgen Klopp himself, seemed disgruntled, albeit in a studied, academic and philosophical sort of way. I decided to trespass into his technical area to say we were willing to have that goal chalked off. The guy earlier involved in ‘Costagate’ decided to interpret this as a failing on his own manager’s part and yelled ‘Typical Klopp. Always questioning every decision.’ So an attempt to be conciliatory just ended in embarrassment. Is the lesson that it’s best just to accept any advantage? That magnanimity is/reveals weakness?

Cool heads were needed to consolidate the winning position, and none was cooler than that of Mark Sexton who, at a finely poised moment in the second half, strolled up to take a free kick and curled it, with power, high into the net. It was an excellent goal and even the rabid Cougars applauded, one of whom said that it was worth attending the game for that moment alone. There was no way back from this for our Wokingham brothers and we were able to win 5-2, the controversial goal not included.

After the whistle, Karl Marx grave dancer 2 approached one of our players and said ‘If you carry on playing like that, you could play for West Ham when you’re older.’
‘You could play for Fulham now’, I said, superficially generous in victory; smiles on the outside and ham sandwiches within.

January 30, 2016

Wokingham & Emmbrook
Burghfield Reds 3 Wokingham and Emmbrook 7 (Mulvaney 3, Parry 2, Sexton 2) Estadio da Luz, Lisbon

You have one of the biggest military arsenals in the world, an army of 690,000 and a logistics labour force of up to 12.6 million people, none of whom can particularly leave the country. What’s the next step for the loopy autocrat with the dodgy Barnet? A leaflet drop. South Korea. Pop down to Prontaprint. You can imagine the song going around in Kim’s head:

Monday left me broken,
Tuesday I was through with hoping,
Wednesday I popped down to the printers,
Thursday we’re pam-ph-let-ing.
Thank the stars it’s Friday,
Dropping a hydrogen bomb on Saturday,
Guess it’s to the barbers again on Sunday.
I’ll be shaving my rug.

Today’s game was all about preparation. Not exactly inspired by Kim Jong Un, but in his wake, a group of us thought ‘F it. Let’s leaflet Burghfield.’ Let’s absolutely flood them with pamphlets about Wokingham. Let’s overwhelm them with tracts. Let’s extol the virtues of Winnersh, the stagnant ponds of Emmbrook. Tell them about Crockhamwell Road in Woodley: the traffic calming measures of Arborfield. Let’s become New Wave Tractarians of Central Berkshire, befuddling minds with inventories of Molly Millars Lane warehouses and the iron curtain of the mind which separates Lower Earley from civilisation.

This game was won, if not entirely on the doorsteps of Burghfield and Burghfield Common, then certainly on the Forest School training pitch. After last week’s (frankly woeful) performance, coaches Michael and Peter spent most of the session subverting FA directives in their attempt to toughen the team up. You are not allowed to explicitly teach 6-year-olds how to tackle, but you are allowed to model how to ‘press’ and ‘close down’ the opposition.

The team followed this plan to the letter, proving my beanie hat theory to be a bit of a red herring. The problem with not being able to tackle, though, is that you end up fouling. After Connor guided us to a 2 goal lead, Jack Parry received a STRAIGHT RED CARD for felling a country bumpkin who was through on goal. Except he didn’t get a red card because just as you’re not allowed to tackle, you’re also not allowed to be punished for fouling. This leads to an absurd situation in which almost anything goes, with players lunging in ‘all over the shop’, as my dad would say. So Jack lived on, and went on to score 2 goals of his own. Their bedraggled manager seemed upset before the game had even started (misfiring tractor? Udder problems?) and left the sanctuary of his urban technical area to prowl around the pitch in justified disgust. Fittingly, they scored from the resulting free kick. The foul was an accident, but maybe a sin bin should be introduced: 5 minutes out as a balm for the aggrieved.

Wokingham and Emmbrook were relentless. Evan- off colour with asthma and shinpad deprivation- did enough Cruyff turns and Jenas jinks to win the Skills Trophy, but it was really the drive and all-consuming passion of Connor, Mark, Ciara, Jack and Amelia which won the day: Amelia even managed to successfully execute a backheel pass across our own six yard line to get the keeper out of trouble at one point. Everything they tried seemed to work. A lot of credit has to go to coaches Michael and Peter Mulvaney for identifying last week’s problems and arriving at training with a clear strategy that the players were able to understand and then execute in the game. Sorry Burghfield, but that’s life in the metropolis. As Neil Hannon once recommended: ‘Wise up little souls. Join the doomed army. Fight the good fight. Wage the unwinnable war. Elegance against ignorance. Difference against indifference. Wit against shit.’

Coach Michael’s Man of the Match speech was slightly puzzling though. He said ‘Mark, you reminded me of yourself.’ Deep, but maybe a little cryptic, a little backhanded for a six-year-old?

January 23, 2016

Burghfield Reds, Wokingham & Emmbrook