The Cup ties, in the Second Round Qualifying, were Enfield Town v St Albans City (Friday), Hayes v Brook House (Saturday) and Cray Wanderers v Camberley Town (Sunday). They were all excellent.
The other three were Hanwell Town v Sporting Bengal United in the London Senior Cup and Boodle Hatfield v Visa and Mother (yes, really) v Alba in the London League.
"The Barber" made his first visit to Enfield Town for the tie on Friday, brought forward because the club shares the ground with Brimsdown Rovers who had a Saturday game. On the train from Liverpool Street to Brimsdown I met "Richard" who used to work in our Ticketing Department. He’s now at Fulham and enjoying it there.
I sat at the back of the stand and saw two chaps climbing over a couple of rows of seats to reach their preferred spot in the corner. I heard one say to the other: "I know you like to get your leg over on a Friday night". I’ve no idea what he meant.
The Enfield Town fans behind the goal on the right were chanting: "There’s only one ‘f’ in ‘Enfield’". (I may have got the spelling wrong there.) One of the little mascots was Yasmin, aged ten. According to the programme she "likes football and judo and dislikes Barbie dolls".
The home side, underdogs from the start, were really up against it after losing their centre-half to a red card in the first half. But they battled to keep it level at 0-0, with their swashbuckling No.3 the hero, until Saints scored in the last minute of normal time. Within a minute Enfield Town had equalised and the crowd went mental.
I had a host of Cup games to choose from on Saturday and didn’t finally decide where to go until about 1 o’clock. Hayes v Brook House at Church Road was a real local derby. Their grounds are only a mile or so apart but strangely they’d never met in a competitive fixture.
Hayes, three levels higher, peppered the Brook goal with shots from the first minute and it turned out to be the most one-sided game I’d seen this season. They scored on 19 minutes and missed a hatful. Then Brook drew level in highly improbable fashion in the sixth minute of stoppage time and their bench were jumping around and punching the air.
I got to Hayes Lane, Bromley far too early for Cray’s tie on Sunday but had time for a leisurely sausage and chips behind the goal, purchased from some charming ladies in pink outfits in the tea hut. I saw my first game there in 1964, an FA Amateur Cup match against Corinthian-Casuals. A player called Eric Nottage scored both goals in Bromley’s 2-0 win.
On the FA Cup theme I was recently invited to nominate "my favourite football moment" and my choice was from Walton & Hersham v Margate at Stompond Lane ten years ago:-
"With a minute to go Walton were 2-1 down and on their way out of The Cup. In desperation their big centre-half joined in the attack and almost immediately the ball sat up nicely in front of him about 25 yards from Margate’s goal. As he slowly brought his right boot back, I was half-expecting the ball to go completely out of the ground. But it sped into the top corner like a mortar shell.
"After a second or two of stunned silence, the scorer realised what he had done and totally ‘lost it’. He went on a mazy, high-stepping run that took him all over the pitch. The whole time he was jabbing his right forefinger in the air. All of his team-mates, even the goalkeeper, were chasing after him.
"When half the crowd ran onto the pitch to join in, it became a bizarre scene with this 6’6" giant charging round with dozens of people in breathless pursuit, all high-stepping and jabbing their fingers in the air too. I’d never seen such undiluted joy at a football match".