Service with a smile

Four more matches have taken me up to 151 for the season and an absurd 6,002 altogether. The results, with attendances in brackets, were: Amateur Football Combination 4-4 Arthurian League (8), Civil Service 2-0 Honourable Artillery Company (31), KIKK United Ladies 3-1 Hemel Hempstead (11) and Battersea Southsiders 1-0 River Split (3).

After all the coverage at the weekend I’m now a household name in parts of Ruanda Burundi. Their chief wants me to marry his daughter – but I’ve told him I’m married to football. The funny thing is: I’ve been to 6,000 football matches but I don’t even like football. I’m more of a ‘rugger’ man. I’ve been to several matches at Wasps but I still don’t know if they have a ‘B’ team (cough).

It was all rather jolly at the Bank of England Sports Centre at Saturday. I was invited to join AFA Chairman of Council David Dunn and Chief Executive Mike Brown for lunch in the Pavilion Room and after that I was able to watch 20 minutes or so of an Inter-Collegiate Ladies Final on the bottom pitch. UCL were playing Royal Vets and while I was there the score went from 2-0 to 4-0.

Before the main match at 3pm, featuring Civil Service 2s and Honourable Artillery 2s in the AFA Intermediate Cup Final, I was also asked to take part in the ‘Respect’ handshake out on the pitch with both teams and the match officials. I was surprised that they seemed to know who I was – ‘that bloke at The FA who’s watching his 6,000th match’. There was a photographer, arranged by the office, who took hundreds of pictures of me during the afternoon.

Luckily I was wearing my fabulous new anorak. I also had a tie on for the first time since 1994.

I thought I was going to make history as the first person to die of embarrassment at a football match in England but survived to make a return to the Pavilion Room for a post-match meal of sausage roll, chips and baked beans with the AFA chaps and some new pals from Civil Service FC. Service won 2-0 after HAC had made all the running in a goalless first half. Their club had once been on a tour to Spain, they told me, and had twice played against the great Real Madrid.

The results were: Real Madrid 0-4 Civil Service and Real Madrid 1-3 Civil Service. The club is 150 years old in 2013 and they may ask Cristiano Ronaldo and co if they fancy a re-match. I’d love to see that!

I was in The Regent’s Park with about a million other people on Sunday morning. After an interesting restaurant experience, in which the waitress gave me a knife and fork to eat an ice cream sundae, I took my place behind one goal for KIKK United’s London & SE Regional League Division One (London) fixture with Hemel Hempstead. KIKK, ‘my team’, won a tough contest 3-1 which I’ll remember for an upsetting incident in the second half.

‘Sak’, No.20, was as impressive as ever, showing her silky skills and superb athleticism. A few minutes after scoring KIKK’s third goal she made a typically brave and forceful run down the right flank, stride for stride with a Hemel defender. Her left leg seemed to buckle, there was a cry of pain and she lay motionless on the ground. People rushed to her aid and play was held up for about ten minutes.

I was assuming the worst but became encouraged by the fact that an ambulance hadn’t been summoned. ‘Sak’ was finally carried away, by relatives I think, and I hope this very talented player will be back in action soon. A special mention should also be made of KIKK’s No.2, ‘Fran’, who had an absolutely outstanding match at the back. Believe me, this is a team worth watching.