Wilderspool Causeway

Rotherfield FC Hornets 7 Wokingham and Emmbrook 7 (Parry 3, A. Mulvaney, Sexton, C. Mulvaney 2) La Bambonera

Squad rotation, though very much in keeping with the motions of the planet, consigned Evan to the bench for large portions of Henry, Hector, Auberon, Stanley and Horace’s visit to Woodley.

Rotherfield is part of Sonning Common, a place which doesn’t know what it is, containing citizens who don’t know who they are. It’s technically part of Oxfordshire, but what does that really mean now that the Civil War is over? The king was once held captive in Caversham House, but was allowed to cross Sonning Common once a week to play bowls in Cane End in an odd prelude to his execution.

Ever since, the deep south of Oxfordshire and the far north of Reading has been unable to truly settle. If you ask someone from that area who they are and why they live there, they will wobble.

Horace’s mother was unperturbed, however, and even bordered on the proprietorial, as if she was the guardian not simply of herself, Horace and her Range Rover Evoque, but of time and space in general: ‘the guy who organises this league prefers people to stand on this side of the fence rather than that side’, she offered. Jack’s dad was unimpressed, as was I. Coach Peter had a steeliness in his eyes; we wouldn’t bow.

The problem was that Wokingham and Emmbrook began the game with an element of indolence, as if there was time for a cigar and a drink of Ribena on the flagstones by the buttery. Rotherfield’s methodical style seemed to owe more to an advance grasp of trigonometry and chess than to footballing skill. When Evan was on the pitch, he startled Auberon with a powerful curling effort which hit him full in the face, knocking him prostrate. Once reminded, Evan went over to see if he was ok, and the Rotherfield parents were concerned yet mollified. Unaccountably, the ref awarded Auberon a free kick.

Whereas Wokingham seemed constrained by physical geography, colliding with fences, misapplying Cruyff and playing cross-field passes which were almost too good, as if they required an altogether bigger canvas, Rotherfield passed with brutal efficiency, unlocking the defence through an understanding of space rather than technique. They raced into a 4-1 lead, but Wokingham showed huge spirit and fought back to make the score 4-4 at half-time. Rotherfield resumed control in the second half but in a nervy conclusion to the game, Connor Mulvaney broke free and slotted it into the corner to make the score 7-7 with seconds to spare.

On the train after the game, we were surrounded by incomprehensible ‘banter’ from supporters of the Army and Navy rugby teams in relation to some kind of spurious surrender in the Falklands War.
‘If it wasn’t for the navy, you wouldn’t be able to get anywhere.’
‘Yes we would. We’d just use the merchant navy like we did in the Falklands. Anyway, we need you so there’ll always someone who’ll retreat before us.’

We looked out at the comforting sight of allotments. Jack talked us through an intriguing theory about being constrained by physical geography. He noticed some Altostratus and Stratocumulus: a chance of precipitation. Chris McCann recounted an afternoon in which he decided to walk through some allotments, simply by way of exercising a ‘right to roam’, of negotiating the boundaries of defensible space to challenge the rampant privatisation of common land and the will of anyone who would stop him.

April 30, 2016

Rotherfield FC Hornets, Wokingham & Emmbrook
AFC Caversham Kites 6 Wokingham and Emmbrook 7 (Parry, Xanthoulis, Bridgecross (og), Mulvaney 3, A.Mulvaney)

The Summer League’s inaugural fixture: the Tracy Chapman derby.

The first challenge of the day – descending the stairs – did not bode particularly well for a carefree morning in which ‘all the parts of the puzzle start to look like they fit’, as Van Morrison once put it. It was one of those descents in which you grip the banister and place both feet on each step, hoping you’ll make it down without tearing something irrevocably. This was before the shinpad crisis, the enigma of Evan’s missing underlayer, the hairbrush chase, the absent spatula – you name it, it was missing. Even the coaches were struggling with the opening fixture: an unwelcome vibration by The George told me I was in charge of the warm-up.

A league official approached with paraphernalia relating to the incipient season: a fetching trophy with a ‘player of the match’ wristband wrapped around its base: ‘the challenge is to keep this intact until the end of the season.’ Strange instruction. The trophy is pretty much unbreakable, and the wristband is for the wrist, I would have thought. When I relayed this to Coach Michael, he sort of squinted uncomprehendingly, as if a spacecraft had just landed behind me: ‘Thanks anyway, Alex.’

The game was perhaps the closest and most unpredictable I have witnessed. It had everything: a red-card challenge from Mark, an own goal, a scuffle between Evan and Mark after Caversham scored a free-kick, a left-footed wonder goal from Connor, some excellent interplay, goals from unlikely sources and a scoreline which went back and forth as frequently as 17-year-olds drive Range Rovers over Sonning Bridge.

A contest like this teeters on the brink of irrelevance throughout; without pattern or logic, there’s a ‘certainty of chance.’ I might have hoped for a post-match verdict from Evan. Instead, typically out of the blue, he said: ‘Dad, I set Siri a challenge. I said, say “oh my giddy aunt.”‘
Siri said “oh my giddy aunt!”, so I said:
“Right, now break titanium, rose gold, copper and rock.”
This is somewhat outside Siri’s remit, presumably, but confrontations such as this are what makes the world interesting. We all know a person who’s friendly, but always indignant; they’ll argue in an empty room, and will have fallen out with the waiter before the starter’s even been ordered. I love that kind of person.

Even the coaches were struggling to articulate instructions which were not at a distinct tangent to reality: ‘Guys, remember: virtual marking’ advised one of the Caversham coaches. You what mate? One was bald and friendly and the other had a fuller head of hair and was equally friendly, though with a slight ‘edge.’ Would they not have been better advised to adopt ‘real marking’, given that we scored 7 and they scored 6?

They were animated, pacing about and shouting, whereas our coaches crouched on the opposite side, watching, waiting and getting the psychology right. Paradoxically, if you want to engender intensity and quality, it seems you sometimes need to release pressure rather than apply it. Michael and Peter project acceptance; there’s nothing the players could do which would disappoint them, and therefore the pressure’s off and the team play well and with constant ‘bouncebackability.’

With the score at 7-5 in the nervy final moments, the ball was smashed at goalkeeper Thanasie Xanthoulis who fell to the floor in floods of tears. Caversham scored the rebound, with questionable ethical force. With a player on the floor crying, would you score? Most people would say it’s fine to play to the whistle.

The final moments were tense; with Mulvaney off the pitch, we were scooting without recourse to handlebars. Oddly, the Caversham supporters dealt with the tension by resorting to a rendition of REM’s Mr Richards, their theme tune:

Mr Richards your conviction
had us cheering in the kitchen,
now the jury’s eating pigeon pie!

So tell me, how was prison?
Have they taught you how to listen?
Mr Richards, pay attention
to the famous Kites from Caversham.

Mr Richards, you’re forgiven;
Sign the papers, stamp the ribbon.

And we know what’s going on.
Yes we know what’s going on.

This put the game into a wider perspective, no doubt, but Wokingham were unflustered and held on to win 7-6. As we left the Maracana, I wondered if this was a league for aristocrats. A team from Oxfordshire called ‘Rotherfield United’ were present, and so was a boy called Ernest whose dad is visiting Dorchester tomorrow and is wondering if anyone would like to join him.

(Postscript: after one or two enquiries, I’m going to take the unusual step of declaring a rule I adhere to. My policy is that large scale fan activity can be fabricated – because it clearly doesn’t exist at U7 Level – but everything else must be truthful. Therefore Mr Richards is NOT Caversham’s anthem, and they didn’t sing it. Everything else happened.)

April 23, 2016

AFC Caversham kites, Wokingham & Emmbrook
Burghfield Reds 5 Wokingham and Emmbrook 7 (Sexton 3, Dance 2, Mulvaney 2)

As this was the last game of the regular season, I will begin with some (quite astonishing) goalscoring statisitics. In 24 games:

C. Mulvaney 59
Saynor 17
Sexton 15
Parry 12
Dance 4
Xanthoulis 1
Butler 1
A. Mulvaney 1
In the drizzle and resented frigidity of this April morning, a shadow was cast across our porch. The figure lingered, seemingly incapacitated by a deep dilemma, a wrangling of the soul. Could ‘Knock and the door will be opened to you’ – though a good aspiration – ever apply here, in the Central Berkshire lowlands, significantly in advance of 9am on a dank Saturday morning?

Evidently not, for Uncle Jack had to be relieved of his self-imposed porch-centred limbo by a frightened resident. Once his true identity was discovered, terror was transformed into unconditional welcome faster than you can say ‘Everything hung on a prayer, in the hanging dusk.’ Is there a harder hardness of core than that required to turn out for an Under 7’s game in the pouring rain at 8:30 in the morning?

If the vivid orange of Wokingham’s shirts were an insufficient burst of colour against the banks of brooding grey clouds above Bulmershe Water Tower, Connor offered more as he sauntered magisterially across the pitch in gloves which were…what colour exactly? An indeterminate shade of bluey-green. We settled on teal.

The sky also seemed to take on illogical hues: the mint sunrise and misty buff of Harry Enfield’s Dulux chart. Pat Butcher stood on the sideline with her little dog, waiting for things to commence, but the sky spat at us. The sun threatened to illuminate greater portions of the pitch, but managed only a grey and yellow mist between the clouds.

After a long and bumpy journey over from Burghfield in their Belarus 3022 from Minsk Tractor works, with 5 in the cabin and 2 in the ballast box, Burghfield were understandably slow to start and crocked of limb. But they worked with the methodical dignity of seasoned labourers, and it was nip and tuck until the deeper recesses of the first half when Evan hit the post from distance and Connor scored soon after the rebound. By half-time it was 3-0.

What the landowner from Burghfield said to his bedraggled charges in the break, we’ll never know. Perhaps he told them to forget about their carbon footprints, reminded them that there’s no organic top soil because it’s astro-turf: told them that it’s but a short step from crop rotation to squad rotation, that our attacks need to be mulched, that counter-attacks are essentially pesticide drift.

However he phrased it, they intensified and diversified in their approach. They put the ‘agro’ into ‘agroecology’ and showed goal drought resilience by scoring several in quick succession, incredibly making the scoreline 4-4 with 10 minutes to go.

At this point, the day threatened to break loose from its already tentative moorings as an unthinkable, unmentionable moment occurred for Evan which I can only allude to by offering a personal anecdote by way of parallel.

Yesterday, I took part in an 11-a-side match against a team at least half our age, most of whom were very good players. Can you think of anything more absurd than a manager issuing instructions to the team over a Tannoy? Well that’s what happened yesterday. We had contained them quite well until just after half-time when the manager belted out, over the loudspeaker: ‘Right, we’re going to go 3-5-2, that’s 3 5 2. Rob, you push up and Alex go to centre-back with Mark and Luke. We’re going for it.’

This seemed like a kamikaze move; surely the point of tactical changes is to offer an element of surprise? And they’d been overloading one flank all game, so we’d be even further exposed now. Anyway, no sooner had I moved to centre-back than a ball was floated over my head from midfield: except I couldn’t let it float over my head because they had 2 players running on to the ball, unmarked. So I decided to get my head to the ball in order to nod it back to the ‘keeper. Unfortunately, he read the ball as definitely going over my head and ran towards the attackers (without giving me a shout) in order to battle them for it. Where do you think the ball went?

5-4 to Burghfield. Evan kept his head up and moved on. Please don’t let this be the decisive moment. It was an unbelieveable comeback from Burghfield, but the story wasn’t over. Putting his Everton goalie shirt to one side, Connor re-entered the fray for one last teal-gloved lunge for the summit, and with Mark, Jack, Kiera and Thanasie’s help and wilfulness we finally got there: a remarkable final thrust at the culmination of an epic season.

April 16, 2016

Burghfield Reds, Wokingham & Emmbrook
Woodley United Spitfires 2 Wokingham & Emmbrook 5 (Sexton 3, Mulvaney 2) San Siro

Fresh off the red eye from Ho Chi Minh City, Jack Saynor made his first destination Woodley, Berkshire. His changed values system was immediately apparent as one of Evan’s teammates approached us in the car park: ‘So what do your people call you?’ asked Jack.

‘Mark’, replied Mark.
‘Far out, brother. Go in peace, friend’
uttered Jack in benediction. He reached into his pockets and withdrew his rizlas, his roll ups, all the dodgy imported Marlboro’ reds and lights: the self-professed Woodbine Willie of our support offered each player and parent a cigarette before the game as a ‘calming leveller’, an opportunity to see the game from a new vantage point.

“What the hell is he doing, Alex? You’re supposed to be helping me here, mate. Sort it out – now.” Coach Peter was not impressed, but Uncle Jack reassured him: “Chill, my brother. Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round again in another form.”

Having spurned an opportunity for philosophical understanding, Wokingham and Woodley began the game with little to offer by way of footballing purpose. David Pleat says ‘You’ve got to put a message on the ball.’ I think he means that you shouldn’t pass without purpose. Don’t play the ball as if it’s an empty text message to the top of your address book. Do something with a bit of meaning or don’t do it at all. But both teams struggled with this, flailing around with ultimately inconsequential effort and misplaced exertion.

Once Connor, Evan and Mark were on the pitch, the complexion of the game became progressively rosier. Coach Peter had asked for ‘dragbacks, Cruyff turns and Maradonas’ and Evan was able to take him literally: no-one could take the ball off him and he was able to open up space for Mark and Connor to vanquish any lingering hopes of a Woodley uprising; Connor’s twinkle toes are just unplayable, in every game. Mark’s regressive power is such that the rules of the game are frequently misinterpreted (he would have been sent off once, twice – or even thrice a by a professional ref), but overruled by character – he roams and lunges, clips and dives, then scores from outlandish positions: ‘Mark, you reminded me of yourself’ is perhaps the highest praise available from Coach Michael, and fair play to him for delving into the deeper waters of cryptic enquiry.

Woodley, ‘rapidly approaching the floor of the gorge’, as Uncle Jack observed, had little recourse to football, at this stage, and were buoyed only by the character and creativity of their supporters whose focus on Waitrose was unclear in its satirical force – were they focusing on the Wokingham branch or the Woodley branch when they belted out ‘kick down the door/ go straight to aisle 4/ get some wild boar/ and some Louis Latour’? I’m not sure, but does it matter? They knew things weren’t happening on the pitch so they mixed the comic with the existential – as everyone should – finishing with: ‘I don’t know where I am/ and I don’t really care/ I look myself in the eyes and no-one’s there/ I fall upon the earth/ I call upon the air/ and all I get is the same old vacant stare.

So Woodley were united with Uncle Jack in their desire to grapple for existential insight, for the values which potentially collude with all that’s meaningful in the universe, but they did so on the basis of inevitable defeat, a prospect which faces us all at one stage or another.

April 9, 2016

Wokingham & Emmbrook, Woodley United Spitfires
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