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.
Wilderspool Causeway 