Wilderspool Causeway

A couple of years ago, Caversham’s intention was to ‘soften the streetscape’, to freshen up the village centre by throwing curveballs to the traffic. The Caversham and District Residents’ Association (CADRA) have looked to the work of Hans Monderman in Holland who has designed the town of Drachen to be unhelpful to motorists. Apparently, heightening uncertainty brings out drivers’ best manners and a sense of caution. If you minimise knowledge of whose right of way it is, reduce sightlines and hinder visibility then you encourage drivers to reach deep within and find their better selves: the people the good Lord made them to be. Pedestrian zones merge with the road, improving the public realm. Introduce a bit of chaos and the problem solving part of the mind kicks in to action.

‘Psychological traffic calming’: maybe it’s that sort of philosophy which guides the coaching of clubs like AFC Caversham and Wokingham & Emmbrook. Both clubs have a ‘DNA’ document which emphasises enjoyment, developing skill, time on the ball rather than a ‘get rid’ mentality, risk-taking, team work, the acceptability of mistakes, and the notion that making a good decision can lead to a negative outcome. The result is that players become comfortable on the ball, are not afraid to express themselves and eventually manage to outplay the long ball merchants or anyone who relies on a central bully.  Caversham take it a stage further; they want to see genuine cohesion and harmony within society. According to Point 4 of their constitution, they aim to ‘encourage friendship and comradeship amongst families associated with the club.’ Maybe they could help save relationships or tend to the wounds of the past, healing the environment. I’m sure they would agree with Damon Albarn’s words in Green Fields: ‘I was losing it all the time, but she stayed with me and found me out and above all else I’ve realised that it’s honesty that secures the bond in the heart.’

In their cherry red shirts, Caversham were as stylish and dignified as AFC Bournemouth from among the firs and pines.  They had a particularly effective deep-lying player who went by the name of ‘George’ and played a bit like Carlos Puyol, with luxuriant barnet to match. He was just slightly more cerebral than the average player, showing an understanding of when to arrive at a situation and when to let things run their course. This was a theme developed later in the day when a wiry boxing coach who looked like he had just emerged from a Jam concert he attended in 1981 decided to teach Evan a few moves and how to ‘discover your stance.’ As his loafer tassles flopped about, he explained that boxing is all about discipline and self-control rather than violence, equipping you with an awareness of when to step in and when to step back. Rather than attacking an inflatable Guinness promotion and thereby annoying the landlady of The Golden Lion, as he had been, Evan had a good old spar for 20 minutes and did indeed gain a bit of confidence. In the game earlier, he had to be withdrawn after 5 minutes due to breathing difficulties, returning for a second-half cameo in which he set up a consolation goal but struggled for breath.

On the motorway after the game, it was clear that his general enthusiasm and curiosity was unaffected: ‘Dad, where do you actually buy axes from?’ I wasn’t sure – garden centres? Homebase? But I did remember standing on a thinly populated platform at Earls Court station en route to Stamford Bridge with my sister and a man casually holding an axe alongside his paint-spattered tracksuit bottoms. I also remembered the rumour of a road leading out of Heston Services which acts  as a portal to another dimension, a more verdant outpost of metropolitan Middlesex and its humdrum notes of Calormen.

We couldn’t begrudge Caversham the victory, so well is it built on the footballing equivalents of floating foundations and masonry frost walls – it’s a kind of Arsenal of youth football, as are Wokingham & Emmbrook. We’ll stick to our principles no matter what, even if they sometimes fall short on a windy night in Stoke. I’m not sure it’s possible to bring about a better world in the South East of England where drivers make Cerys Matthews a perennial prophet, but don’t blame AFC Caversham or Matt Rodda MP if a revolution of kindness doesn’t quite happen in 2017.

 

 

 

There were rumours of problems on the A78 to the West of Kilmarnock. You would also have to watch yourself if you were out and about between Middlesbrough and Stockton-on-Tees, just to the north of Danish Mercia. Traffic issues seemed to abound between Strathclyde and Northumberland, dominating the kitchen soundscape while phones were abuzz with updates as to where Evan’s rearranged match would take place. To complicate matters further, ‘Energy in Northampton’ followed the traffic update, in homage to a town where aliens can find freedom.

It transpired that we would be playing in a constructed reality on the edge of Bracknell: an island of mud and ‘bright hygienic hell’ called Montague Park. We were supposed to be playing Purley in the BYDL Cup – not the Croydon Purley, but the Purley-on-Thames Purley who base themselves somewhere near Mapledurham or wherever. As with The Champions League, if you are dumped out of the BYDL cup you are placed in a lesser tournament: the ‘Plate.’  It’s always mildly embarrassing to play in the Plate, so teams seem to interpret it as a refiner’s fire from which they hope to emerge stronger than ever before, purged of vanity yet tougher and purer of collective spirit. So it’s often a blessing in disguise to lose a cup match and be bumped off into the Plate. But what if you lose in the Plate too? How would shame reassemble itself in a completely new competition, and why not keep the tableware theme going? How about the Binfield Saucer, the Sindlesham Mill Napkin holder or the Hogwood Industrial Estate Ornamental Gravy Boat? The White Waltham Jug? ‘We’re in the Pangbourne Cake Fork this week lads. Let’s show them we mean it. Better play well or we’ll be in the Bagshot Vital Rectangle next week.’  And why not involve colanders?

Everything should just keep going with teams bombed out all over the place until they win a trophy. It’s always meaningful to win something, however obscure. My favourite example in the literary world is that of J.L. Carr who set up the Ellerbeck Literary Award in 1972 ‘consisting of a non-transferable meat token for one pound of best steak and a copy of Carr’s novel The Harpole Report. The prize was awarded at ‘infrequent intervals’ and sent to writers he admired – but they would have to travel to Kettering to redeem the token.

By the time we got to the dodgy new development, it was difficult to form coherent thoughts; I’m sure this applied to everyone who was there. To make matters worse, I was also asked to ref the game in the absence of an official. I did an FA refereeing qualification as a youngster, but only passed ‘in theory’, i.e. though I passed every element of the test I was not eligible to be a referee in practice. I remember taking 5 minutes to make an offside call on a board of magnets and the assessor saying, perhaps as an improvised prophecy: ‘You’re not actually looking to referee matches, are you? You just want to learn about the game, don’t you. You won’t actually be reffing – it’s not for you, is it. In a real match you’d have to be a little bit quicker with the old decision making my friend.’

Anyway, reffing Evan’s game was deeply frustrating, particularly as it transpired that we were not actually facing Purley but another team from a higher league, and Evan’s peers: Wokingham & Emmbrook Rangers. There is no team you want to beat more than one made up of friends and peers. The game would live on in the playgrounds and dining queues of Emmbrook. Crisp weekend walks would be fraught with danger; Cubs would be awful. Dads you used to be on nodding terms with would look away in anguish. But to referee a game like that? A prophet is without honour in his own country: a terrible ref, even more so.

I could feel the Rangers’ parents eyes on me: ‘Why the f*** is he reffing, they seemed to say. My philosophy was to ‘let the game flow’, partly because I wasn’t exactly ‘fresh’ from watching Gareth Richards’ excellent performance of Idiot Wind the night before and partly because there are so many strange rules at this level that I couldn’t remember them. The thing I could remember for sure was that when someone scores, you blow the whistle and point to the centre circle to confirm the goal stands. At other times, ‘letting the game flow’ backfired – wincing is not the same as blowing the whistle. My first mistake occurred when peripheral vision alerted me to the prospect of a slumped Ranger labouring over his shoelaces. Rather than stopping the game to let him finish – which I thought would be silly – I allowed him to plough on, fingers losing out to wet laces. Eventually he was back up and in the game, but then Evan’s laces fell. What could I do? There was no way I could stop the game now I’d set a precedent, so I had to whisper ‘Evan, just stop and do your laces up’, but he wouldn’t,  instead offering a subtle nod towards the Rangers goal as if to ask how exactly he would score if he was down among the threads. Then, an opposition dad (a Brentford fan but a fine man ) shouted ‘Alex, Evan’s laces are undone.’ Thankfully, the laces of the recently slumped Ranger had relapsed, meaning I could blow the whistle and the teams could re-tie in tandem.

Meanwhile, one of the opposition dads was really annoying me. He’s a ‘pillar of the community’ type to whom nothing is more objectionable than a conspicuous display of skill. ‘Keep it simple. No flashy skills’, he’ll say. His guiding principle is that of ‘mucking in.’ But if you muck in too much, or too little: look out. He ‘mucks in’ to the optimum level: enough to be the leader while keeping the ‘humility box’ well and truly tricked. All bases covered in life. ‘Not sure about this, not sure about that, not impressed by the other, stay down, don’t be showy’, but when his own son takes it around two players and  sticks it in the top corner? Have a death stare, ref, strolling around in the middle like you’re the big man.

As far as the game went, it was hard to assess while watching the ball and scanning the laces. I would much rather have been in among the brethren who have watched upwards of 70 games together (Andrew, Elias, Claire, Ian, Clive and Jane), where at least a few honest words can be said by now. Objectively speaking,  it was a good win against a supposedly better team but I was much more concerned with the social climate of the game which seemed to dictate that in no circumstances should anything of real feeling be expressed verbally. It made me wonder if sports gatherings and organised events of many types are primarily forms of censorship, suppression and distraction  though I admit that might be slightly too Marxist an interpretation of an Under 9s football match. It would have been much better to stay home and listen to traffic reports. Roll on the vintage tea trolley and the bone china.

 

After much debate about the nature of the moon this week, chiefly between Evan and his friend Sophie, we arrived in the Silesian portion of Woodley on a day supposedly destined to see the moon in its full glory.

‘Look’, observed Sophie. ‘It’s a full moon!’
‘No it’s not’ replied Evan, patiently. ‘It’s a waxing crescent.’

I had no idea if it was waxing or waning, but it certainly wasn’t full. Further enquiry confirmed this – it was waxing gibbous.

As a welcome change, we were back at the Woodley Goals Centre where Evan has played the bulk of his games so far. His sister Iris is generally thought to offer good vibes and motivation, but unfortunately she had made herself unavailable for today’s outing due to a clash with Jethro’s party. When I saw the invite, I imagined her on the road to Truro, ready to celebrate the great Cornishman. It transpired, though, that the Jethro in question is an associate from pre-school and that instead of an odyssey to the west of Bodmin, she was bound for Junglemania.

As mentioned, Evan’s game happened to be in Woodley’s Silesia, awarded to Poland after the Potsdam Agreement of 1945. To enter an outpost of Slavia is a real privilege. There should be more international enclaves in Berkshire, celebrating allies and former enemies in equal measure. The Lower Sorbians call the area Slazynska, while the Slovaks call it Sliezsko; the Polish Slavists stick with ‘Silesia’, believing the word to be directly related to the Old Slavic words ‘sleg’ and ‘slag’, meaning ‘dampness.’  There are also Czech Silesian Slavs who no doubt have their own interpretation of where they’re from and how to say it, but perhaps that’s a question for another day. I could mention Pavel Nedved, but he’s really from the Northern Austro-Bavarian dialect area of East Franconia. It would be nice to think that Wokingham would be playing on land known  to Karel Poborsky, the ultimate Czech flair player, but he’s from South Bohemia, near the Vltava river.

This morning, tactical architect Coach Peter circulated a memo of almost transcendent indecipherability, recalling the prodigious exploits of Will Hunting alone with a blackboard, if not the deranged collages of mathematician John Nash in ‘A Beautiful Mind.’ He studies the game academically and as a tax specialist, has a baffling knowledge of formulae. As a player, he scored in AFC Wimbledon’s first ever game and as a 5-a-side player he is perhaps the most direct I’ve played with, combining physical aggression with great deftness of touch. When coaching, though, he offers options, encourages mistakes, provides routes to recovery, prefers creativity to safety and would rather the team play high quality football  and lose than win by gambling.

On a newly resurfaced pitch, Calcot played agriculturally. They placed a big lump of a lad up front and a hefty chap in goal as the twin poles of their play. Simple reference points would guide their progress through the game. That’s not to say they were a bad side: their game had been distilled. Why complicate the game? Why take 10 steps to get to the opponent’s goal when you could take 3? Some would argue that it’s because you need to take the extra steps in order to develop good technique: the counter argument is that the definition of skill is ‘minimum effort for maximum effect’, so why not be direct?

Wokingham  play the purist’s game, albeit very impurely at times. The first two Ikea goals resulted from catastrophic defending linked to the principle of ‘playing out from the back.’ The first one was an own goal after the goalkeeper’s pass bounced off a defender and the second was a crazy, entirely avoidable defensive misunderstanding: that’s the price you pay for never launching the ball through the air. Is it a price worth paying?

Hayden Harris then scored two very good goals to level the scores before possibly the worst refereeing decision I’ve seen at this level. Thanasis Xanthoulis found a winding route across the opposition penalty box, as if he was a contestant on Blockbusters, before side footing the ball into the goal as he was pushed over by a reckless Calcotician. So he scored, but was fouled in the process. And what did the youngster with the whistle do? Award a penalty. And did we score it? No. Calcot then went down the other end and scored a goal themselves: 3-2 at half-time. I know the refs are learning, but when they’re being paid £40-50 to do so then it’s not unreasonable to expect a degree of alertness. Too many of the lads seem to roll out of bed and mark time, barely seeing the action through their perms.

With Evan and Connor introduced in the second half, Wokingham continued to dominate possession and were resilient when roughed up, scoring from two set pieces as they pushed forward in numbers. My highlight of the game arrived when Evan received the ball on the right hand side and scored one of his best goals ever as he unleashed a thunderbolt across the goal and into the top corner.

Ultimately, thoughtful football prevailed over the pragmatic offerings of Calcot. It could have been the other way around, though, as best exemplified by the most direct teamtalk I’ve ever heard, delivered to a team who were trailing 2-0 but went on to win 4-2: ‘See those posts over there? Kick the f***ing ball through them.’ How you get there’s up to you. Silesia, gibbous moons – whatever.

 

 

 

 

They hadn’t navigated one of the world’s major rivers to get here, boating down the Mekong or ballooning in over the Po, but whichever way you look at it they would definitely have had to cross the Kennet as they made their way east from their base on the outskirts of IKEA.

Woodford Park, the venue for Evan’s games this season, is easy to get to but very difficult to get in to. For the last two weeks, for example, we’ve been greeted by a cutthroat gesture from the steward at the entrance, indicating that regardless of whether we’ve paid to be there or not, they can’t accommodate us under any circumstances.

You might recall that we had similar difficulties accessing The Goals Centre in previous years, obstructed by a well meaning official from the Berkshire Youth Development League who had graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Genially Lingering in Foyers from Binfield Tertiary Learning Centre and was studying a distance learning master’s in Lobby Clogging – but at least he was welcoming with his clipboard, timetable, agenda, referee’s briefing suite and vision for the future. No cutthroat gestures attended our arrival there, ever.

On a beautiful morning of wind, swirling leaves, brooding skies, sun and rainbows, Coach Peter was alone with a threadbare squad as yet again an assortment of factors were at work to deplete us; what’s more, Coach Michael was off with the Fillies and Mares at Ascot for a day on the flats, with the going soft but heavy down the hill to Swinley Bottom.

We therefore had no substitutes against a Calcot team full of fire and endeavour, shorn high with the clippers; tough tackling, industrious, hoofing and freewheeling. No signs of mourning for the SavaCentre days, Megabowl or Utopia nightclub, at least among the players – this was a fresh generation with the opportunity to fashion their own futures in the Lingonberry quarter of Reading.

Unfortunately, apart from one or two glorious flashes of brilliance – burning bush moments in the Autumn sunshine – we were a little more inhibited. At one point, for example, one of our players missed a tackle and burst into tears, leaving the pitch to sit on a heap of coats. As we tried, one player short, to make an impression on the game, Coach Peter knelt down beside the distraught figure to offer calm words of solace and encouragement.

We could only speculate as to where the other absentees were, because none of the parents had hit the WhatsApp group to explain. Were they at a Button Moon convention at Teddington Exhibition Centre? Or perhaps they were eating heirloom tomatoes and scrambled eggs at The Oakwood Centre: we didn’t know.

The problem was, our players on the pitch were scarcely more present than those away. Calcot’s first goal resulted from a horrible defensive mix-up, setting a pattern which was repeated throughout as our old defensive demons returned in number.

After this goal, though, Evan scored with an outlandish strike from the halfway line, lofting the ball instinctively towards goal and seeing it bounce over the ‘keepers head and into the net. He then – arguably – scored a second in quick succession as Josh Dance arrowed the ball at him from a throw, which he then controlled and shot towards goal on the half volley. The goalkeeper backpedalled, clawing the ball away from its seeming position behind the line. Regardless of whether it crossed or not, Jack Parry was on hand to slot the rebound into the corner to make sure.

With our teary eyed player now back in the fold thanks to the patience and motivation of Peter, it looked as though we might be able to consolidate the advantage. An ill wind followed, however, as Connor, the engine of the team, took his turn as goalkeeper, leaving the rest of the team to play without a captain. While Wokingham & Emmbrook sought to play in keeping with the game’s best principles, Calcot followed the beat of a different drum, launching the ball up into the wind to see where it would fall.

The match was lost to the certainty of chance; if you hit the ball into the mixer regularly enough – and have some good finishers, as Calcot do, then the game of percentages will work in your favour. Amidst the chaos, though, were some moments to salvage. Gymnast Josh Dance executed a forward roll, mid-dribble, and carried on with the ball. More unusually, Evan managed to execute a successful slide tackle.

This is notable because Evan’s tackling record could be described generously as ‘patchy’; sometimes he quarter-heartedly dangles a foot in the general direction of an opponent and at other times he lashes out and takes a player’s legs with no obvious reference to the ball. Last week, he clipped someone’s ankles, cynically. Coach Michael later challenged him on this, but Evan seemed not entirely comprehending of the problem. I chipped in: ‘Evan. Listen. Evan. Look at me. Was the ankle tap you did a good or a bad thing?’ He thought for a minute: ‘Medium’, he replied, with the not-entirely-faulty logic that the lad had it coming to him.

So, Wokingham’s unbeaten record this season fell among the fluttering leaves. It was still a praiseworthy effort though, given the emotional wobble and lack of substitutes. Let’s hope they got their selfies with Mr Spoon and will be back – rejuvenated of mind and spirit – to face Purley Jubilee Lions FC at the same time and place next week, respectful of  – but never defined by – the gestures of stewards and league officials.

With our games usually confined to central Berkshire and the immediate environs of Reading, we had never faced a team from this far east. OK, we’re not talking Frinton-on-Sea or the Yellow Sea, but the mediocre, self-deluded, nothing town of Maidenhead where according to John Betjeman you ‘talk of sports and makes of cars in various bogus Tudor bars and daren’t look up and see the stars, but belch instead.’

Maidenhead Boys & Girls FC – in breach of the 1968 Trade Descriptions Act Section 7(i) by virtue of the final seven letters of their name – lined up in luminous yellow shirts and shorts and socks in all the colours of the rainbow.

One of their managers rambled fruitlessly up and down the touchline in a constant loop, as if in thrall to an invisible chicane, whereas the other stood impassively in regulation Adidas, an anti-social chaperone who had the bearing of a surly tribal elder or stubborn herdsman rather than a football coach. Is there any point in acting like an unapproachable witch doctor when you look like Phil Tufnell and you’re standing in a wide-open field in Woodley? Aloof, sour-faced crabbiness is perfect for ignoring your neighbours and fellow dog walkers in Maidenhead, but does little to galvanise 9-year-olds to play good football – and so it proved.

I didn’t particularly warm to this Maidenhead team, perhaps coloured by the most unsavoury incident witnessed at this level so far. Though a disorganised rabble, most of their lads were determined and tried hard within the boundaries of moral acceptability. They tended to occupy the central zone of the pitch, retreating in numbers as Wokingham passed the ball progressively through the midfield; Evan played with skill and composure, winning the man of the match award for his incisive passing and calm on the ball. Maidenhead’s combative attitude yielded several free-kicks, one of which was converted with a superb left-footed curling drive by Josh Dance whose slow motion caterpillar celebration perhaps only served to make a combustible moment more likely.

It arrived at the end when Amelia Mulvaney, who had previously scored with a clinical strike into the corner, was delivered an uppercut by a little thug she’d just dispossessed and outwitted. This was in clear sight of the ref, who explained afterwards that ‘no matter how sinister the incident, all we can do is ask the manager to sub them off.’ The Maidenhead managers reacted by subbing the boy immediately so as to prevent a scene, but didn’t issue a single word of reproach to the little git as he laughed his way to the sidelines.

Thankfully, incidents of this type are rare and perhaps that’s why there are no mechanisms in place to deal with them. We won’t ignore it, though, and we won’t forgive the town, the ‘Royal Borough’ it’s part of, the bizarre management of the team, the local council or even the lad himself – not for a very long time, if at all, even though it’s Sunday. It reminds me of Bart’s famous phrase when he and Lisa were locked inside a church and Lisa sank to her knees in prayer: ‘Lisa, this is neither the time nor the place.’

This was an impressive performance from the team, if a little too comfortable at times. Evan chipped in with four assists from midfield, playing delicately weighted balls into Hayden Harris on two occasions and sliding in for a shot on the keeper which was followed up by Amelia Mulvaney for an important goal to put us two up early on. Twyford struggled to make an impression on the game, perhaps due to an unusual philosophy which led to the whole team being rotated every five minutes: they seemed to have brought a whole coach load of players across the wastes of Sonning for the game. The Twyford manager – a grizzled South African who looked like a cross between Jurgen Klopp and Joe Mangle – keep shouting in support of the ‘Comuts’ but struggled to cultivate much coherent play when there were so many grandparents and parents to satisfy in his own ranks.

With players missing due to the Norovirus, commitments in the Black Country and spreadsheet misinterpretation, Wokingham had to face the multitudes of Twyford with no substitutes or room for misadventure. With Amelia Mulvaney playing at the apex of the Christmas Tree formation, she was fed chance after chance by Connor and Evan who made the Twyford rearguard look about as impregnable as the buffer zone around Theresa May’s lectern. She had five near misses before poaching two goals before half time; her dad, Coach Michael, with motives as inscrutable as I’m sure they were sound, then took the decision to remove her from the fray in the second half, thereby denying her the chance of a first hat-trick. She spent the second half in goal, brought out of isolation once to confidently tip the ball around the post and deny Twyford a consolation. With Wokingham in command, cousin Connor then risked charges of complacency by leaving the game entirely with 5 minutes to go; this wasn’t Robin Friday running through the gates of Elm Park and straight into the Spread Eagle after scoring a hat-trick, though. He was off to a major Cub event in London.

Twyford and Klopp/Mangle/Warne will have to regroup, and I’d advise them to do so in fewer numbers – they need to slim the roster a bit. Maybe not ‘root and branch’ reform, but certainly a bit of judicious pruning’s in order. After the game, Evan and best mate Ozzy disappeared into the shrubbery and tall trees, emerging a while later with a friendly and slightly doddery lady from Winnersh who had advised them to climb with caution: straight off the pitch and up the trees – a refreshingly classic activity before tortuous traffic and a one hour journey from Woodley to Reading just for a decent post-match milkshake in Reading’s ‘you’re not smelly anymore’ alley.

Playing football, climbing trees, drinking milkshakes, hanging around in the Black Country, going to cub conventions, chatting to dishevelled South Africans: we may not have learned much from the game itself today, but we definitely had a decent window on some wholesome activities occurring in the world around us.

After a celebratory glass of Verdant Headband or Semi-Skimmed Occultist in Shepherd’s Bush, some of the Wokingham faithful showed signs of having recently strayed towards the borders of dehydration as they waited under the dark autumn clouds of Woodford Park for another confrontation with our old adversaries from across the river.

As the first half progressed, some of the players also seemed less than fully connected to the world at large. Wokingham & Emmbrook were so dominant that goalkeeper Thanasie Xanthoulis seemed to check out of life entirely. He just stood there, motionlessly, with his forehead resting against a post. It looked like he was meditating, a bit like when Iris hears something so far beyond the remit of her understanding that her eyes widen into a stare reminiscent of a bus taken out of service, or when cousin Wilbur seems – like a philosopher – to try to pierce the darkness merely by looking.

Evan played at the heart of defence and seemed to enjoy spraying the ball about with both feet, playing a mixture of simple passes and more ambitious cross-field balls. The attack was dominated by Connor Mulvaney and Josh Dance who interchanged like pros, dropping the ball off with each other as if it was a child being passed between parent and nursery key worker: there was little chance of Caversham intervening.

There are times in games when the singing becomes abstruse, usually when there’s some kind of lull in the action.  Notts County’s anthem, for example, consists of the line: ‘I had a wheelbarrow; the wheel fell off.’ Bristol Rovers sing ‘Sometimes I live in the country/ Sometimes I live in town/ Sometimes I have a great notion/ To jump into the river and drown.’ This was definitely a match which lacked tension; we could have done with a tune from the parents to add an extra dimension. John Betjeman’s ‘Indoor Games Near Newbury’ would have worked well, I think: ‘Gabled lodges, tile-hung churches, catch the lights of our Lagonda as we drive to Wendy’s party, lemon curd and Christmas cake. WOKINGHAM! WOKINGHAM!” Or perhaps we could sing about the almighty skeins of Canada Geese which squawk their way over Winnersh with abandon. The documentary This Farming Life shows a farmer lighting a firework to scare them off his land. As the rocket flew up, they didn’t simply flap into the next field. They went: effed off back to Canada. Migrated. They were gone.

Caversham didn’t offer much by way of coherent football, huffing and puffing to little effect. Their manager kept calling out ‘Benjamin Baker.’ I’m not sure if it was a coded reference or if there really was a Benjamin Baker there, but it did little to help them from a tactical perspective. Parents kept half an eye on the game but mostly talked about other topics such as the new shopping centre in Bracknell, saying things like “I went there and thought ‘this is actually quite nice’” and “I’m not a Bracknell person but when I used to live there I thought it was quite nice.” Others of us played games in which you match Japanese cities with supermarkets and birds to generate names of football teams which we could play on tour. You should try it: ‘Nagoya Carrefour Snowy Owls’, ‘Sapporo Baltic Nighthawks’, ‘Nagasaki Budgens Budgerigars’, ‘Fukuoka SuperValu Night Parrots’…good fun.

 

 

 

 

Rotherfield are from the edge of the Chilterns, though I won’t use the term ‘hillbillies’ to define them. We’d had close encounters with them before, after they’d been guided down in Range Rover Evoques from among the kites for a 7-7 draw and a narrow win last season. While they’re at home and relaxed in the natural world, we’re confined by major transport arteries and bronchial problems as we amble around among the kebabs and tyre vendors of RG41. Wikipedia is dismissive: ‘modern Winnersh exists mostly as a sleeper town. Relentless housing development on all sides will soon see Winnersh exist as part of an urban continuum between Reading and London (citation needed).’ Apparently it all went wrong when the Crimpy Crisps factory was demolished. So: they’d been training at altitude while we’d been training in crankshaft emissions.

It was one of the most frustrating first halves I can remember, crying out for someone with a different picture of the game to that possessed by most of the youngsters on the pitch: a deep lying architect who could reconcile the incoherent strands of the game with a telling pass or a quiet word in the ear of a midfield flounderer – someone with composure, vision and intelligence: unflustered, yet tough; exploratory, yet guarded; economical yet uneconomical when it matters; someone who knows when to slow the game down and when to speed it up; when to be direct and when to be indirect – someone who realises that all the above are probably false dichotomies in the first place: someone with a sixth, seventh, even an eighth sense with which to cleave to a set of defining principles while mobilising the team to defend a corner or understand the potential of a throw-in: a meditator, a philosopher, a seer, a footballing mystic of sub-suburban Reading.

They had names printed on the backs of their golden shirts: ‘Potter’, ‘Boden’, ‘Elcott-Rawnsley’, ‘Schmidt’; monikers such as Henry and Ernie were bandied about at will. We wouldn’t be wise to underestimate these boys as they lined up with obvious clarity of tactical purpose. From the start, we poured forward in search of an opening goal with new signing Hayden Harris conspicuous with skill and progressive runs while Evan was consigned by formulae to a watching brief on the bench. Rotherfield were undaunted, opting for something akin to the Wilkes-Barre Variation in the face of our ultra-aggressive Budapest Gambit. They simply absorbed the pressure through the middle before sending balls through the gaps we’d left. While not technical masters of the game, they undermined our notions of defence three times before the interval with close range finishes. Mulvaney, too, was rotated to the bench but we missed the cut and thrust of his buccaneering runs and exquisite finishing. Their goal was under siege, but the ball tended to fly past it like a coconut in the London Docklands, leaving no permanent trace in the record books.

Eventually though, with Evan having entered the fray as sweeper, Connor Mulvaney crossed himself on the sideline and hope was ignited among the travelling contingent of asthmatic Wokingham fans. If one goal went in, surely it would be open season and we could retreat to our amply populated anonymous housing estates, footballing dignity intact. The first goal happened after the chilternised goalkeeper randomly skewed the ball over his own head and into the path of an onrushing Connor who then immediately reclaimed the ball after their kick-off to embark on a winding run culminating in a composed finish to make the score 3-2. The canny Rotherfielders then proceeded to calm the heck down and take their own sweet time over throw-ins and set pieces, hoping to find salvation in the mysteries of depleted time.

Thankfully, though, justice was done as the ball ricocheted fortuitously off bar and post to seal a satisfying draw at the fag end of the game and a richly deserved man-of-the-match award for Connor, today’s Chief Satsuma and King of the Bronchiole Belt. It was a good effort from both sides, but at the end our sentiments resounded with that of freestyle rapper Big Kumi: ‘Ah, G, well he thought he’d won, but I come from the RG41.’

 

‘I don’t mean this crudely, but do you have any resentments from the past?’ You had to feel for the man facing this question as he stood in the cafe queue after the game. He was in for one heck of an intense coffee session, starting with an opening delivery which is absolutely unplayable. If you say ‘yes’, you’ve opened yourself up. If you say ‘no’, you know you’ve lied and if you pause, you give the game away. It didn’t help that the guy asking the question looked about 18 and placed a suspect coffee order (decaf mocha) while the man with potential resentments was about 50 and ordered a much more solid americano.

I overheard snippets of the conversation which followed and it appeared to be some kind of mentoring session, with the older man surely a reluctant ‘mentee.’ I heard comments like ‘really growing’, ‘really flourishing in his faith’, ‘lacks spiritual ambition’ and ‘Just a bit of feedback for you. You spoke for slightly too long for what they could take in. Just one thing I thought could be better, that would be good for you to know.’

Evan’s coaches don’t tend to offer ‘feedback’ (criticism), without first checking that the player is ready to hear it. He played well, making some important contributions in attack, but felt disappointed that he hadn’t scored or played as big a part in the game as he did last week. When his manager said ‘well played today’ after the game, Evan suggested that he wasn’t altogether happy with his performance. I saw the manager’s eyes light up at this, but he just said ‘OK, so what were you not happy about?’ before listening to Evan’s answer and then saying ‘Right, well I think one thing you could try is this…’.

That’s not to dismiss the faith theme altogether. As The Boss observed, ‘Forty days and nights of rain have washed this land/ Jesus said the money changers in this temple will not stand.’ The lady who served Iris and me a burger and a bacon roll before the game was certainly not intent on exploiting Woodley’s sacred ground for commercial gain. We were charged £2 for both delicious items when the advertised price was £5.20. Happy days. We ambled over to where Evan and friends were already warming up ready to face AFC Caversham, a bunch of mop tops from north of the river. Could we repeat the success of last week’s resounding win against Reeves Rangers?

While Evan and the Oranges were playing in front of us, Iris was post-burger, running around kicking a Peppa Pig ball with Ian Butler, Ciara’s dad. He essentially formed a crèche as the game developed, chasing all over the park with the little brothers and sisters and not stopping until the game was over. He’s a very generous guy but I also wonder if he was a bit bored by the match, and to be honest I couldn’t blame him.

The pitch was bobbly, to say the least, and the left side of it seemed to exert a gravitational force, drawing most players into its corridor of frustration; Evan tried to find space up front, but our midfielders couldn’t ‘get out’ of the throng of players to release the ball. It was quite a scrappy game, certainly not one for the scouts and purists. Connor scored an excellent long range free-kick, but the three other goals were tapped in after unlucky rebounds and ricochets.

So it was a very encouraging win (2 on the bounce now), but with an element of frustration tucked under the surface. This continued while listening in to the faith mentor in the cafe afterwards, though it was quite amusing to see the young enthusiast’s mum arrive to pick him up an hour later and address the older man: ‘Thank you for meeting him. It’s really lovely of you to do that. He said you’d been trying to get together for a few years.’ Good bit of mothering, that.