THE MUDDY, laced ball, resembling Barnes Wallis’ bouncing bomb, rolled into the net, careering over worm-casts and divots. A gaggle of schoolboys, wearing their Gola or Co-op boots, tried to kick the ball back in play from behind the goal. The goalkeeper, white spindly legs, Peter Bonetti –style hair and an ill-fitting, gaping-at-the-neck green jersey, […]
STEVENAGE and Crawley Town are both members of the Football League, albeit the lowest division. Neither are what you might call “traditional” clubs, although football in Stevenage dates back to 1894 and Crawley 1896. When the game was in its infancy as an organised sport, they were merely amateur concerns in the south of England, […]
STEVENAGE and Crawley Town are both members of the Football League, albeit the lowest division. Neither are what you might call “traditional” clubs, although football in Stevenage dates back to 1894 and Crawley 1896. When the game was in its infancy as an organised sport, they were merely amateur concerns in the south of England, […]
GRAYS Athletic play at a very nice stadium. Brand spanking new, great facilities and a football-friendly artificial surface that performs very well. The only problem is, the club is ground-sharing at Aveley, a town of 8,000 people some four miles from Grays. They’re in their second year of a two-year agreement, and like most tenants, […]
THURROCK is a borough full of football people, but many of them prefer to watch the likes of West Ham, Tottenham and Arsenal. In the 1990s, teams from the area started to acquire some ambition, not altogether unrelated to the rise of clubs from Billericay and Canvey Island. Grays Athletic, which was always considered to […]
WHETHER you like it or not, TV programmes like X Factor and Britain’s got talent are very popular and watched by millions. The audience participation aspect of these programmes is quite contagious, if sometimes rather contrived. Audience engagement in football doesn’t always get treated in the right way. I cannot help feeling that some football […]
ESSEX and football go together like fish and chips. Although bordering on London, and therefore a county that feeds a lot of the capital’s clubs with supporters, Essex also has its footballing identity: Southend United and Colchester United may be the most identifiable of clubs, but there’s a few grey areas as well. Here’s just […]
EAST THURROCK UNITED are making something of an impact. Riding high in the Ryman Premier League, with designs on a stab at promotion to National League South, they are currently the leading club in the borough of Thurrock. It had been 30 years since I first visited Rookery Hill. When the club moved to Corringham, […]
WE ALL identify the Reliant Robin with the BBC TV series Only Fools & Horses, but back in 1969, a blue three-wheeled car acted as an improvised team coach for Benyon County Primary School in South Ockendon. It belonged to Mr C.E. Heath, the only male teacher at the school (headmaster excepted) and the man responsible […]
