Panic attack

Four more games, as the temperature began to drop to wintry levels, have brought the superfan up to 95 for the season and 5,768 altogether. He saw action in The FA Youth Cup sponsored by E.ON, The FA Carlsberg Trophy and The FA Women’s Cup sponsored by E.ON.

The little Surrey town of Carshalton has two main clubs: ‘Carshalton Athletic’ of the Isthmian League Premier Division and ‘Carshalton’ of the Southern Amateur League Senior Division Two. They were both at home on Saturday, with kick-offs an hour apart, so I thought I’d see a bit of one game and all of the other.

Carshalton had a League fixture against Alleyn Old Boys in Beddington Park and I saw about 15 minutes of that, in which the ‘Cars’ hit a couple of shots well wide before taking the lead. (They won 2-0). Then I walked off behind one goal, reducing the crowd from six to five, and was at the ‘Robins’ ground within half-an-hour for their FA Trophy First Round Proper tie with Northwood.

On the way I passed Hackbridge Primary School, where I first went to school at the age of five (I think). It was a dismal place – I couldn’t wait for the bell that meant we could go home. Actually I’ve been like that at every school I’ve been to. I don’t know what I was into in those days, but it certainly wasn’t football.

Carshalton Athletic were a goal up in two minutes, but the visitors dominated the rest of the first half. There were hardly any attacks at Northwood’s end, where I was standing, and the only topic of conversation seemed to be how Chelsea were doing against Everton at Stamford Bridge. The Robins played much better after half-time and after being awarded their first corner of the game on 62 minutes, proceeded to have about ten in a row.

In the end it was a very entertaining Trophy tie, with 1-1 the final score.

I counted 26 people watching Crystal Palace’s FA Women’s Cup Third Round Proper tie with WFC Fulham at Whyteleafe’s Church Road ground on Sunday afternoon. Both teams struggled to pass the ball properly on a muddy pitch and there were minimal scoring chances in a game that finished goalless after extra time.

All the excitement came in a penalty shootout that had 14 kicks. Fulham’s goalie, known as ‘H’, turned out to be the heroine, blasting home her own kick and making the crucial save that allowed her team to win 5-4. Someone in the stand on the side was shouting something that sounded like ‘Don’t panic!’ I think it was probably ‘Come on, Palace!’

My two games in midweek were QPR v Southampton in the FA Youth Cup Third Round Proper (3-1) and West End v FC Mutant in the Islington Midweek League Division One (1-4). I’ll remember the latter for what may have been my longest ever booking. It appeared to be for dissent and the ref spoke to the player at length before writing several pages of notes. Weird.