Last week’s results were: Hanworth Villa 2 Rayners Lane 2 aet (4-5 on pens), Sevenoaks 2 Faversham 0, Starlight Snooker 1 Old Roan 5, Hillingdon Saints 4 Foxes 1, Nastaran 2 Hiwa 3 aet, Morley FM 1 Rothschild 3, Abbey 7 Daily Telegraph 0 and St Johns Arsenal Deaf 0 Times Athletic 6.
That’s 144 games this season and 5,276 all told.
There was the predictably competitive Middlesex Intermediate Cup Final before about 200 fans at Hanwell last Wednesday, decided on penalties, and a Kent League Premier Division fixture in hazy sunshine at Sevenoaks on Saturday. I was accompanied to Greatness Park by sister Kathy who, remarkably after all these years, is still two years younger.
A "triple header" followed on a windy Sunday, featuring games at Ealing Central (10.30), Avenue Park (12.30) and Birkbeck College (2.30). First up was Starlight Snooker v Old Roan on Pitch 5 next to Perivale tube, the Old Roan manager telling his charges before kick-off: "Right, lads. We’ve got four games left and they’re all must-win games".
Soon after kick-off a particularly sleek-looking greyhound appeared. After sprinting around and across the pitch at top speed, he made a bee-line for me sitting on a bench behind the goal. Before I could take any kind of evasive action, he launched himself onto my lap and his lunging paws left my best trousers spattered with mud. Cheers.
Starlight similarly found it difficult to get to grips with the pace and close control of "Fabio", Old Roan’s No.14 up front, and they did well to keep the score down to 5-1. As soon as that game finished I crossed the road for the tube to Greenford and the next instalment, an U16s game at the old Viking ground which I believe is now used by Southall FC.
This game had a fairly unsavoury incident just before half-time, which resulted in two boys being red-carded. Otherwise the standard of play was quite high, with Foxes’ No.5 outstanding. My next game started 27 minutes late due to the non-appearance of the ref but it turned out to be a cracking West End Sunday PM League Challenge Trophy semi-final, a determined Nastaran coming back from 2-0 down to force extra-time.
It was up to Paddington Rec on Monday night for a "double header" that produced eleven goals. Morley Fund Management and Rothschild came onto the water-based Astroturf for the 6 o’clock kick-off with strikingly similar shirts. Morley had yellow and black quarters, while Rothschild were in yellow with black sleeves and shoulders.
The ref made the Morley team wear their shirts inside out. But somehow that still left one of their players in an all black strip, and several times I was shocked to see what I thought was the ref sliding in to make a tackle. I was sitting in the back row of the uncovered stand with a row of "hoodies" and we saw a tense finish to the game, Morley missing with a spot-kick when they were 2-1 down with two minutes to go. It wasn’t even close.
This morning I had breakfast with half a dozen Swedish girls in their pyjamas. They were all 18 years old and gorgeous. Strange but true.