Hackney Homemade

My hands were so numb with the cold at the previous weekend’s Vase tie at Royston that I couldn’t even write the times of the goals in the programme. Three days later, I was soaked through four layers as heavy rain caused QPR v Watford to be called off a short time before I got there.

This battering by the elements was bound to take its toll and it put me in bed with all the usual ‘flu symptoms. But I’m glad I ventured out on a bright Saturday morning to attend the Middlesex County League’s latest ‘Groundhopper’ fixture. It would’ve been sensible to stay in bed but I don’t do sensible.

Sporting Hackney were playing St John’s Arsenal Deaf at 11am, the teams respectively second and bottom in Division One Central & East. Very quick goals are topical, Reading’s Jimmy Kebe having scored 9.7 seconds into a recent FA Cup tie, and Saturday’s crowd of 82 around Haggerston Park’s 3G pitch saw the home side storm into the lead after just 16 seconds.

The Sporting Hackney club was formed in 1986 as ‘Hackney Young People’s Unemployment Project’ with a grant from the London Borough of Hackney. It changed its name three years later and joined the London Commercial League’s Division Six.

It has now been promoted into the Middlesex County League and Ben Watson, the manager of this forward-looking club, says: “While the pursuit of cups and trophies is enjoyable, it’s certainly our belief that attempting to play good, attractive passing football in the right spirit is far more beneficial and rewarding for a club in the long term.”

Sporting, in yellow shirts and blue shorts, went 3-0 up but a determined St John’s fought back to level before eventually going down 4-3 in a very entertaining game. The ‘WAGS’ even provided hot drinks and homemade cakes at half-time. A good effort all round, I thought.

Then it was a quick walk back to Bethnal Green tube, changing at Holborn for the Piccadilly line to King’s Cross and an overground train to Palmer’s Green. But my fourth attempt to watch a game at Broomfield’s Madeira Road ground proved as fruitless as the previous three, which left me 25 minutes to get to Winchmore Hill for their Southern Amateur League Senior Division One fixture with Old Actonians.

This was ‘first v second’ and enterprising Acton were ahead inside five minutes. A strangely subdued Hill didn’t remotely look like equalising until they managed to conjure up a goal right at the end. A friend in the crowd told me that one of the assistant referees had played at Wembley in the first-ever FA Vase Final in 1975. For Hoddesdon Town, since you ask.

I also saw a bit of the game between Hill’s Third XI and Nottsborough on another pitch. As the teams came out for the second half, I heard one player exclaim: “Notts, this is a massive 45 minutes!” I don’t think anyone could’ve argued with that.

There was no football for ‘The Barber’ on Sunday. I spent the day in bed, coughing, sweating, the room spinning round. No flowers by request.