Pole position

It may have been my imagination but the weekend just gone seemed like the coldest so far this season. There was a biting easterly wind at Fairlop on Saturday that made it feel like a block of ice was being held against my face.

In conditions like that what you dream of is a match that lasts for THREE HOURS. The first half of a ‘double header’ of AFA Senior Cup semi-finals at Old Parkonians FC, featuring Broomfield and holders Nottsborough, started at 2.20 on Pitch 3 and finished about half a minute after 5.20.

Notts took a ninth-minute lead in this Byzantine monstrosity but Broomfield went 3-1 up and were looking good for the Final. They were desperately hanging on at 3-2 when Notts scrambled in the leveller a minute from the end of normal time.

Then it went 3-4, 4-4 and 4-5 in extra-time while some poor chap, a Notts substitute, broke an ankle and that caused a very long stoppage. The Broomfield lads chose to return to the dressing room after an ambulance had been summoned and you couldn’t blame them. The other semi, between Old Owens and Winchmore Hill on Pitch 1, also went to extra-time, Hill’s leading scorer fluffing a spot-kick on 32 minutes but heading the winner on 101.

The first semi had a crowd of 27; for the second there were about double that number.

I travelled back on the Central line tube from Fairlop to Lancaster Gate, a journey of about 200 stops (or so it seemed), and got back to the hotel in time to see most of the second half of Fulham v Spurs on the box. It was so good to be in the warm again. It’s been freezing for five months now – we might as well be living at the North Pole.

On Sunday morning, still with that wretched wind, I saw KIKK United Ladies play West Ham United Development in a John Greenacre Memorial Trophy Third Round tie, watched by 16 spectators at Regent’s Park’s Pitch 2. KIKK, the predominantly Swedish team, were ahead in four minutes but it was yet another match that went to the extra half-hour.

KIKK ultimately triumphed 4-2. I enjoyed watching the brave, bordering on kamikaze, play of West Ham’s little goalie and KIKK’s impossibly glamorous No.14, who must surely swap the football field for the catwalk during the week.

I went back to the hotel via a late breakfast with ‘Miss Croatia’ and saw the whole of the first half of Reading v Villa on the telly before setting off again for Stamford Bridge. Someone in our Commercial Office had kindly provided me with a ticket for Chelsea’s FA Cup tie and I found myself right at the back of the ‘West Upper’, the pitch reduced to the size of a postage stamp. (Well, almost.)