Ding ding

Three matches at the weekend only produced six goals between them. On Saturday I revisited a fixture that had a very special moment 46 years ago, Croydon v Banstead Athletic (1-1), and yesterday in a Regent’s Park teeming with people I saw L’Equipe v FC Marylebone (0-2) in the morning and Northern Alliance v Jokers (2-0) in the afternoon.

Saturday’s match at Croydon Sports Arena, where I came second in the triple jump in the Croydon Schools Athletics Championships when I was 15, was in the Combined Counties League’s Premier Division, where both teams now languish in the bottom seven. The match in the ‘60s, which Croydon Amateurs (as they then were) won 4-1, was an FA Amateur Cup First Qualifying Round tie.

Near the end, when Banstead in their all-amber strip were all but out of The Cup, their silver-haired centre-half, Ernie ‘The Tank’ Watkins, then 48, booted the ball in the general direction of Croydon’s goal from a point midway between the edge of his own box and the halfway line.

So we’re talking about 70 yards from where Croydon ‘keeper Norman Stanley, who later made the England amateur squad, was guarding his net. He rushed out, was hopelessly beaten by the bounce, and turned to see the ball nestling in the back of that net. I’d never seen anything like it before and I haven’t since.

There was a blustery wind blowing around Regent’s Park on Sunday but at least there was no rain, snow, sleet or hail. That was a ‘first’ since November. Something quite strange was happening on Pitch 8: a team composed entirely of Frenchmen, which was called ‘FC Marylebone’, was about to kick-off against a team composed entirely of Englishmen, which was called ‘L’Equipe FC’.

Surely it should’ve been the other way round. But no, it was Marylebone’s players who were giving it the ‘Allez!’, ‘Bien joue!’ and ‘Plus vite!’ France beat England 2-0, the second goal a penalty a minute from time, conceded by the most unruly team I’ve seen this season. They were even fighting each other.

After a late breakfast in Baker Street it was back to that relentless wind in the park, where my 5,800th match turned out to be almost devoid of interest, though I applauded the ref’s booking of a Jokers player for disputing every decision given against his team in the first 15 minutes. He was a bit more circumspect after that.

At England’s recent Wembley international I felt obliged to cheer for the visiting Egyptian side, given that I’m apparently distantly related to the boy-king Tutankhamun. But I can confirm that we don’t have the same mummy: his is in a glass case inside Cairo Museum and mine lives in Purley.

There’s another morning ‘groundhopper’ fixture in the Middlesex County League this coming Saturday (11am). Sandgate play Grosvenor House at Bourne Farm Playing Fields, Bourne Avenue, Hayes, Middlesex UB4.