"Pardon, miss?", I said.
That impertinent little boy completed 30 years at The FA last Thursday. One spell of three years and one of 27, either side of being a philosophy student at Liverpool University.
I’m told that in the first few months of my life I had a "Great Aunt Rose". She was in her late eighties, having been born in February 1863, eight months before The FA was founded. That old lady, whom I never met (but could have), is my personal link with the birth of the organisation I’ve been privileged to work for.
The more recent past, i.e. last week, saw "The Barber" reach 196 games for the season and 4,884 altogether. Twice in three days I watched a team called "Philosophy Football" play in the London League’s Premier Division.
My courses at university were in philosophical logic, epistemology and meta-ethics but I don’t remember having much to do with Jean-Paul Sartre, the famous French existentialist philosopher. That was a shame, because he once said: "In football, everything is complicated by the presence of an opposing team".
If he’d still been around, I would’ve invited him to be my guest at Millennium Stadium on Saturday.
When the two teams emerged from the changing rooms and filed through the gate to the sand-based Pitch 1 at Paddington Rec, I didn’t know which was "Philosophy Football" and which was "Equifax". That is until I saw one of the goalkeepers with "CAMUS" and "1" on the back of his jersey.
Albert Camus, better known as a novelist, wrote "The Plague", an allegory of the Nazi occupation of France which is one of my favourite books. He was also a decent goalkeeper – but didn’t play international football for Algeria as a lot of people think.
Well, his team on Monday night were unjustly 2-0 down at half-time and then converted two of at least ten clear-cut chances to secure a 2-2 draw. Church bells rang throughout the game in a particularly irritating fashion.
After seeing Brazilian FSSC edge Mauritius Sports 2-1 in the Middlesex County League at Hanwell on Tuesday, it was back to the Rec the following day to see the Philosophers draw again, this time 1-1 with Visa.
The whole ground is alive with people in the evening and there are balls flying everywhere. Apart from serious 11-a-side football on two pitches, there are 5-a-side fun games going on in one corner behind a hedge. There is cricket until it gets dark and there are floodlit tennis courts where pretty girls in ponytails laugh as they miss the ball completely.
At any one time there are a dozen or so runners out on the track that encircles Pitch 2, some striding round like proper athletes while others dawdle with their music.
I thought Saturday’s FA Vase Final at White Hart Lane could’ve been one of the best in the competition’s 31-year history. There were five goals in the second half, including a penalty, and the result was always in doubt. The beauty of The Vase is that a team like Didcot, with no "form" in the competition, can go all the way from the Second Qualifying Round to The Final. "Stand up if you love Did-cot!"
Last week’s two other games were British Home Stores v BBC Post Production in the London League Division One (3-1) and Deportivo Atlas v AFC Clapham in the West End Sunday AM League Division One Cup Final (3-2 after extra time).