Wind-ruffled oaks in common grasses; a castle that stands in swathes of time. Do we need these places so we feel small and free disappearing ripples on a constant sea?
Venture across soft grass and concomitant nettles, interloper on royal grounds, taught to show reverence.
A Quaker would never bow, except to divine energy, cumulonimbi piling up over a sequoia treeline seen from a town centre car-park top.
Lost in the National Trust’s gold and green insipid Crown Estate heraldry, you forgive great men foibles, would rather they were private.
Isolated villages, Great Park council properties; You’re a child with inferiority signposted daily in ancient stone, drawbridges, Range Rovers.
A prince marries in a Christian church, hears a standard gospel message: the family smirks.
These ancient oaks, Mildmay plantings, are so much less derisive. Yes, lose yourself, your ego, self-importance, conceited dreams of greatness: lose it in great rivers, unknown nebulae, at just a glimpse of someone who stands apart through learning or instinct; lose yourself before a farmer who humbly read the weather, a taxi driver who baffled with all the London streets, a player who created time when others snatched.
Never lose yourself to fortifications, a curated garden, some farcical sage green punt at prestige, falsely weathered wood or new authentic signage, those people who filter the Holy Land through Instagram: ‘Here’s a picture of me wading through the Jordan, beyond the profane; here’s one by the holy sepulchre, hope I got the lighting right and you see me in Jesus’ footsteps. I’m wearing a hoodie & a cowboy hat as per the megachurch uniform so young people can relate to me. Hope you can ignore the salary, but look at the followers, the reach,
and who I’ve saved from hellfire – hope you’ll forgive me.’
From the first Berkshire Youth Development League game (throwback here: https://wilderspoolcauseway.com/2015/09/12/woodleyzebras11we2/) where there was a ‘raw blend of hairstyles, philosophies and haircuts on the Wokingham side’ to the last, today at Prospect Park, there have been huge changes to the profile of the team – with only Evan and Connor remaining from that first game – but not so much to its identity. They still obdurately play the ball out from the back, along the floor. This has led to too many perilous defensive situations to recount, as time and time again the full backs find themselves under huge pressure when receiving the ball – but, unsurprisingly, they have therefore learned to deal with the ball under pressure. Other teams may launch the ball through the air, but have players who remain uncomfortable with the ball on the ground, which isn’t ideal when the game is called ‘football.’ As Brian Clough said: ‘If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he’d have put grass up there.’
Wokingham also still prioritise skill and quality of play over the final score. They therefore adhere to the current F.A. guidance that players should be encouraged to take risks, make mistakes, be creative and have time on the ball. This is because historically there was/is a cultural problem in the U.K. which means that individual expression is automatically deemed selfish – in the 80’s if you had the ball at your feet for more than two seconds you would be screamed at by teammates and supporters alike to ‘get rid of it’. In my own case, the parents were best described as resembling the cast of Only Fools and Horses: one of them was even a T.V. racing pundit – so much like Boycie it was unbelievable – who would run across the pitch with his long coat and big cigar to shout at the manager or ref at any moment he needed some emotional release – the others would just shout random stuff like ‘Oi!’ and ‘Are you listening to me?’ and ‘Get Out!’ (We played a high line – so high that the defence were screamed at if they weren’t on the halfway line at all times). If you don’t have the ball, though, you can’t become very good at the game, obviously, and that is ultimately why so many other countries with similar populations have far, far surpassed England; they don’t attach any stigma to the football – they see the ball itself as a good thing and treat it accordingly.
It’s only in recent years that the F.A. have woken up to this and changed their official policies to value creativity. They’ve seen that allowing a bullying culture means that a load of thugs make it as professionals, but they then can’t deal with other national teams who are much larger part footballer and much lesser part thug. This new culture only permeates grass roots football though, if managers – i.e. parents who grew up playing in the 70’s and 80’s when you were just supposed to launch the ball anywhere and mainly fight physical rather than footballing battles – can have the vision to drop their egos, take a long term view and not worry about the scores of individual games.
This is easier said the done, but Evan’s team have been blessed with brilliant coaches, Pete Mulvaney being the constant presence over 6 years; he shows unbelievable attention to detail – but they are not the details that most people typically value. If you ask him the final score at the end of the game or who we were playing against (or even, to be honest, where we are) he will genuinely have to rack his brains to remember and will invariably get it slightly wrong – he just doesn’t remember those details. If you ask him about a particular player, though, it’s a completely different story – he will be able to give a nuanced and detailed account of how they played, picking up on all kinds of subtleties the other viewers would not have seen. He will also then project forward as to exactly how he sees that player developing, and the positions they will be taking up in 6 months, a year or even 2 or 3 years later. Despite being a prolific goalscorer himself, he doesn’t especially privilege the scoring of a goal over any other skill, and at the end of the game might give a goal the same billing as a run someone made, a position taken up, a thoughtful pass or even an intention gone awry.
To be fair to the manager, it can be quite tricky to get a grip on the identity of opponents in this league. There are 10 teams in the division, and many are named after recognisable places such as Calcot or Pangbourne, but some have names which are harder to grasp like ‘Centre Skills’ – this one is confusing; does it mean they practise skills at a centre? If so, where is the centre? Or are the skills performed in the centre of the pitch? What are the skills? The name kind of functions in an abstract way like North West Pangs of Conscience FC or Adjacent Tendonitis-on-Loddon. And Whitenights, surely, is an Estate Agents – would their supporters arrive in suits between Saturday morning viewings to see how their little leaflet droppers were doing?
They train, predictably, at the Whiteknights campus of The University of Reading – but where do they come from? What’s the vibe? Regardless of the total mystery surrounding them, they played in quite a straightforward style – well organised, nothing too flashy and lots of prodding and probing down the flanks for little reward until their centre forward managed a fantastic lob from outside the box just before half time. Wokingham generally had more of the ball but were a bit too impulsive; they needed to calm down, lift their heads up and adopt a different perspective on life, but they did come back into the game well in the second half, culminating in Connor scoring an excellent left-footed volley from a corner to win the game after he and Evan entered the fray having taking their turns on the bench in the first half. Evan took a while to settle, but then found his customary range of passing and particularly helped in quick transitions from defence to attack. This was a good game and a fitting end to the BYDL era with Connor scoring the final goal after Evan scored the first, 6 years ago. The team also secured 3rd place and now probably face dispiriting trips to places like Colnbrook for 11-a-side games next season.
From Slough Sewage Works to a football field in Uxbridge; Can you spot the Ring-billed Gull among the others?
Portland Bill, in raptures: first a Desert Wheatear, then a Ring Ouzel.
And where was the heath, that hot March with the Crossbills?
Whatever is on the line, we follow the majesty to places thought unvisitable.
Something’s blown in on tumbledown winds so pack the flapjacks
and start the Passat. We’re off to Vauxhall Sand Martins, gravel pits and estuary flats, seabirds slotted between tower blocks – cormorants off the Isle of Dogs.
Can you sense the sea by St Edmund’s, Millwall, reflected back in shallows of the outer dock?
We’ll mark the species off – more than a hundred in twelve hours –
from Slough Sewage Works to a football field in Uxbridge, from the post-dawn grey of Portland Bill to an equivalent dusk on Bugsby’s marshes.
Facing the café, not the bay, he sees indistinctness in the glass – sails of a summer mirage.
Figures seem transparent within cloudiness: the weather’s coming in from the east, through the kitchen.
In the newspaper, isobars are crockery and saltwater palimpsests. The samurai sudoku is hidden by a beach hut.
He rocks the table, looks skywards towards rain clouds and underneath at a dog and a gull.
Through the door, a transparent body emerges to corporeality. A ghost tray becomes whole. Proxima Centauri hangs above hybrid Santander changing facilities.
At Liverpool Street, or the former site of Bedlam:
Love is not eating noxious crisps; Love is allowing others to pass; Love is keeping two chevrons apart.
Someone at the bank cares for me, sees beyond my overdraft, sells only fixed rate mortgages whatever the Bank of England does.
Everything invested in your job buys a Boxster, riviera yacht, penthouse and Dom Perignon as God broods over the bonds and hovers over the surface of The Financial Times:
If I can’t find words or they are halted by a synaptic lock keeper, tyrannical yet wise, holding up a hand to delay the latest craft, whatever its design, I return to a trusted question, my favourite formula: Have you ever heard of Vincenzo Montella?
If I can’t find truth or it’s out there in muddied layers of time resounding through Sheldrake’s field as memory traces in the collective mind, I return to a trusted question, my favourite formula: Have you ever heard of Vincenzo Montella?
If I can’t dance a question forms and lands to looks as if from continent to continent, with bafflement in subtle lines above the eyes. My friends, do you know of the Aeroplanino, our absent choreographer? Have you ever heard of Vincenzo Montella?
If I can’t find beauty or its sun in England only shines obliquely forming shadows on our game of a mild September evening, I return to a trusted question, my favourite formula: Has anyone here heard of Vincenzo Montella?
Huddled in the swirly-carpeted foyer of Woodley Goals Centre, we were introduced to a new concept: mid-season relegation. Apparently, it’s called ‘streamlining.’ As this was explained, the general decor reminded me of fruitless Stena Sealink trips to Boulogne and an encroaching sense of dread took me back to the ‘deck of infirmity’ of the Portsmouth to St. Malo crossing of ’99.
So as a result of ‘streamlining’, ‘restructuring’ and ‘appeasing the Knights of Malta’, we were scheduled to face the Caversham Arrows team who beat us 8-4 in the cup last week. Instead of a warm up, coaches Michael and Peter opted for a ‘stay warm’, enjoining the team not to take to Woodley’s bleak landscape until the very last minute in the hope that thawing out would not be the theme of the opening minutes. It was worth a try, but one player was late and started the game frozen in her beanie hat, allowing Caversham to score within 1.3 seconds of the game. They soon scored again and the pattern of general ineptitude punctuated by redundant flair looked set to culminate in another defeat.
Caversham crossed one of the bridges this morning with a sense of optimism tinged with a gentle bout of the Rumsfelds: they knew that they didn’t know how Wokingham would gift them them the game, but they knew that it would happen. We were left with a Scouse sense of community, Costa Coffee and a touch of the vapours. The parents of both sets of players stood throughout in atmosphere of brotherly love. Even the inevitable songs which ‘dig out’ the portly element of the crowd were characterised by a concern for public health rather than a need to ridicule:’You’ll have to cut back on the sweeties, YOU’VE GOT TYPE 2 DIABETES’ was one that stood out, a line taken from Gaz Brookfield’s ‘Diabetes Blues.’
Thankfully the madness was soon augmented by the force and passion of Connor Mulvaney, who pulled a goal back before being unceremoniously withdrawn from the game. Sensing blood, Caversham turned the screw but Evan and the defence coped brilliantly until an unstoppable shot made the score 3-1 to the Arrows at the break.
The beginning of the second half was delayed by Darth Vader. The ref blew his whistle and Coach Michael, in full on Scouse, shouted ‘Sorry ref, I shoulda seen tha’ and attempted to remove Evan’s Star Wars hoodie from him. This was difficult as Evan isn’t prone to the realisation that something is happening which has a direct and immediate relevance to him, and in standard fashion he didn’t really raise his arms or generally roll with Michael’s efforts to alter garment plans.
Eventually the game was under way again and with Connor now in goal, it was difficult to see how poacher Evan would get the service to score. Caversham didn’t really have a chance of beating Connor in goal, and when he was released the team were able to lay siege to the reds’ goal for the final 10 minutes. The Arrows defended stoutly, however, but just as there were audible murmurings among their parents about the ref needing to blow his whistle and Waitrose probably filling up by now, their whole deck of cards collapsed. Firstly, Connor lashed a corner across the face of the goal, causing the ball to deflect off a defender and hit the back of the net: 3-3. Then, the industrious and clever Jack Parry saw a shot canon off the underside of the crossbar and onto the line. We would definitely settle for a point now, but with almost the last kick of the game, Mulvaney broke free and thumped it into the corner for a win, sending the Wokingham and Emmbrook congregation into raptures:
EMMBROOK, AMORE, STORIA DI UN GRANDE AMORE
Emmbrook, tale of a great love
BIANCO CHE ABBRACCIA IL NERO
White that embraces the black
TORO CHI SI ALZA DAVVERO PER TE
Bull that really stands up for you
PORTACI DOVE VUOI
Take us wherever you want.
Wilderspool Causeway 