David Barber, aka ‘The Barber’, joined The FA as Sir Alf Ramsey’s assistant in the International Department after the Mexico World Cup in 1970.
He has been historian for the past 36 years and has attended nearly 7,000 matches at all levels but has lost none of his enthusiasm! He was in the Midlands at the weekend for even more football...
Alvechurch FC were the ‘village team’ from the Birmingham area who hit the headlines in the old FA Amateur Cup in the mid-1960s.
The Barber reached Alvechurch but the game was off!
They reached the quarter-finals in ’65 and then beat the likes of Enfield and Crook Town to go one better the following year.
Dad and I saw them lose to a late goal against Wealdstone after they had missed a penalty before 14,000 fans at their semi-final at Stamford Bridge.
They had been that close to a Wembley Final.
The club’s other claim to fame is being involved in The FA Cup’s longest ever tie. Their Fourth Qualifying Round clash with Oxford City in 1971 had five replays and lasted for eleven hours.
The results were 2-2, 1-1, 1-1, 0-0, 0-0 and 1-0 to Alvechurch. The Church, who must have been exhausted, went down 4-2 at Aldershot in Round One.
I was in the Midlands at the weekend and paid my first visit to Alvechurch’s home at Lye Meadow for their Midland Football League Premier Division fixture with Long Eaton United.
Boldmere St Michaels went down 2-1 to Loughborough University
Imagine my disappointment when I got there to find it was off! Saturday was dry and sunny and apparently they’d had no rain to speak of on Friday. The pitch looked fine, i.e. green and firm, from a few yards away but close up it was squelchy.
My sister Kathy was with me and a quick call to Boldmere St Michaels FC gave us the hoped-for information that their match with Loughborough University was going ahead.
We got there as quickly as we could but were bound to miss some of it. When I went there for the first time on the Saturday before Xmas, they were riding high in the division but lost 2-1 to Heath Hayes near the bottom.
This time they were playing Loughborough University, also near the bottom, and suffered another 2-1 defeat. ‘The Mikes’ have now slipped to tenth in the table and will probably be paying me to stay away in future!
Kathy and her husband live in Bearwood, part of Smethwick, and Sunday morning’s quest was find out where Bearwood FC v Oath in the Warley & District League was being played.
The fans watch Boldmere St Michaels at Trevor Brown Memorial Ground
We tried the Thimblemill Recreation Ground first, less than ten minutes’ walk away, and sure enough it turned out to be the right venue.
The match on the first pitch, the one with some covered standing, was some sort of cup tie and Bearwood’s was on the far side by the changing room block.
Despite doing more of the attacking, Oath found themselves 4-1 down. Then they pulled two goals back near the end as we watched from inside the block, heavy rain by now lashing against the window. Well, it had been forecast.
Over the weekend I saw parts of two unusual matches on TV – Queen’s Park v Berwick Rangers on BBC Alba and Aberystwyth Town v The New Saints on SC4.
It’s The FA Vase quarter-finals on Saturday and I have my eye on Erith & Belvedere v North Shields.
I was at the latter’s ground for the first match of the ‘Northern League Hop’ last April. They had a crowd of 1,312 for the visit of West Allotment Celtic.
