Last night’s Conference South fixture at Hayes brought 'The Barber' up to 114 for the season and 5,446 all told. In immediate prospect, there’s an FA Youth Cup tie at Chelsea tomorrow and some FA Trophy action, probably at AFC Wimbledon, at the weekend.
I had an e-mail last Friday from the historian at NAC Breda, one of the leading Dutch clubs. He was looking for details of their games during our 'Festival of Britain' in 1951. It transpired that the club’s first game on English soil was against Eastbourne at…The Saffrons!
I bet he nearly fell off his chair when I told him I was going to that very ground the next day. It was only the reserves and there was a raw January wind whistling round the stand – but there was a decent crowd of 40. The man two seats away from me had an enormous dog with a Hannibal Lecter-style wire box round its mouth. "Without that, he’d bite yer ‘and off," his owner confided to me.
About ten minutes into the game someone shouted: "Havant are beating Liverpool!" Don’t be ridiculous.
I was back at the same venue on Sunday morning and this time there were twice as many people watching, many of them related to the players. There was a group of teenage girls too, no doubt eyeing up the talent. Town won a penalty in their first attack, but the kick was driven into the cricket nets behind the goal.
I’ve seen a lot of missed spot-kicks recently, including five in the shootout at the end of Barnet’s FA Cup replay with Swindon last week. Although the visitors fluffed all four kicks, it was the Bees’ only miss that turned out to be the most entertaining.
The big centre-half walked forward with the ball and journalists around me in the 'press box' were remarking on how calm he looked. The ‘keeper threw himself to the right as he aimed his right boot at the ball, leaving three quarters of the goal unguarded, but the poor chap’s shot missed the right-hand post by at least three yards.
Hayes & Yeading United beat St Albans City 2-1 at Church Road last night and almost inevitably there was another comical penalty. Hayes were awarded the kick a couple of minutes into the second half and their No.10 hit it miles over the bar, the ball going first bounce into the car park.
Another interesting e-mail last week concerned the original FA Cup competition in the 1871-72 season. Reigate Priory were due to go to Royal Engineers in the First Round but had to scratch. Now they’ve decided to play the game in Reigate on 23 March, kick-off 2.00 pm, and there’ll also be a Football Memorabilia Auction in aid of the Tadworth Children’s Trust.
It’ll make a good quiz question: "Which FA Cup tie took 137 years to complete?"