I thought we’d turned the corner as far as postponements due to wet weather were concerned but there were still dozens of games off at the weekend. I think the story of this season is going to be made into a film called 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, starring Kirk Douglas and a giant squid.
There were 200 football fans on my train from Waterloo on Saturday. 199 of them alighted at Putney for Fulham v Chelsea in the Premier League and one stayed on until the next stop, Barnes, for Albanian v Old Wilsonians in an AFA Senior Cup Semi-Final.
The funny thing was it wasn’t me who got off at Barnes. (Yes it was. It was captured on CCTV.)
I was at the Bank of England Sports Ground in Roehampton at 2.30. The main football pitch, the one normally used for Semi-Finals and Finals, was looking rather sorry for itself with little puddles around the halfway line. I could see that two rugby games were about to start but there was no sign of any footballers. Not a wasted journey, surely?
No, the man at the gate told me the football was on the pitch on the far side, beyond the tennis courts. By kick-off time on a sunny afternoon there was a crowd of 16 to see Old Wilsonians, in their 125th season, attempt to reach their first Senior Cup Final. I stood behind the goal being attacked by Albanian and it was so warm that the chap I was chatting to took his coat off.
I was definitely at the wrong end, with the blue-shirted Albanians failing to mount a meaningful foray in the first 20 minutes. It was curious how a Semi-Final could be so one-sided. I decided to change ends and as I walked along the touchline to the other goal Old Wilsonians (in yellow and black) took the lead with a textbook header from a corner.
Six minutes before the break it was 2-0. OWs’ nifty No.14 had already hurdled one lunging boot inside the box when he was sandwiched by a well-known Albanian catering firm as he was about to shoot. The spot-kick went in and two further strikes in the second half – on 70 and 88 minutes – gave OWs a 4-0 win that didn’t flatter them.
The second Semi-Final, featuring Winchmore Hill and Old Suttonians, is due to be played this Saturday at HSBC’s ground in Beckenham, literally next door to New Beckenham station. The Final is booked for Old Parkonians, a few yards from Fairlop tube, on 12 April.
There was some London Accountants League action in Regent’s Park on Sunday morning. PWC City v Detica only produced one goal, scored by City on 52 minutes and owing a lot to the windy conditions. The ‘keeper seemed to be trying to tip the ball over the bar but it just went up into the air and was bundled over the line as several players almost fell over each other.
Adding two games in midweek – Carshalton Athletic v Dulwich Hamlet (0-4) and Tower Hamlets v Greenhouse London (3-2) – I’m now on 136 for the season and 6,601 altogether.
