Cold wind in August

Four games over the Bank Holiday weekend took me up to 5,875. They were Gosport Borough v Erith & Belvedere (0-0) and Kentish Town v Bethnal Green United (1-3) in The FA Cup, Croydon v Horley Town (0-2) in the Combined Counties League and Whyteleafe v Corinthian-Casuals (4-2) in the Isthmian League.

The first ‘official’ game I ever attended was an FA Cup tie between Crystal Palace and Hitchin Town in November 1960 but three months earlier I’d been to Privett Park with Dad and Grandad to see a pre-season practice game featuring ‘Red’ and ‘White’ Gosport Borough teams. Bizarrely, the Mayor of Gosport was in the stand and he asked this nine-year-old to be a linesman (or linesboy).

Predictably this resulted in a laugh-a-minute experience for the players. That was my embarrassing football ‘baptism’ and it’s been pretty much downhill ever since.

I visited that town on the Hampshire coast again on Saturday, via a tube to Waterloo, train to Portsmouth Harbour and ferry to Gosport. ‘It’s shorter by water’ is the latter’s motto. A charitable interpretation of Borough’s Preliminary Round tie with Erith would be that both teams played well and ‘cancelled each other out’. I can only recall one shot on target.

There was more FA Cup action on Sunday and I’m glad I got to Silver Jubilee Park in Kingsbury, the neutral venue for Kentish Town v Bethnal Green, an hour or so before kick-off. In that hour there was driving horizontal rain and a gale blowing, even drenching people in the stand.

Many were in anoraks and woolly hats. I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold in August.

Two committed teams put on a good show. Bethnal Green, playing in their first competition, grabbed a 2-1 lead near the end of an even first half and were the better side after the break. Their 3-1 win, achieved with ten men after a slightly unlucky dismissal, takes them through to an away tie at Harlow Town in the First Round Qualifying.

Bank Holiday Monday was a much more pleasant day weather-wise and the travelling was straightforward for a change too: London Bridge to Norwood Junction for Croydon v Horley at the Sports Arena, where I did the triple jump in the Croydon Schools Athletic Championships about a hundred years ago, and Norwood to Whyteleafe for ‘Leafe v Casuals at Church Road.

‘Leafe’s No.10 kicked the ball and the corner flagpost at the same time, when attempting to take a right-wing corner in the eleventh minute, and the ball just dribbled a couple of yards. Not sure what to do, he kicked the ball again and conceded an indirect free kick. This player went on to score a hat-trick, so he didn’t have a bad afternoon.