Come On You Wands!

It is happening more and more often nowadays. Top-ranking football managers are fielding weakened teams against perceived lower level opposition in cup matches, presumably to give their 'star' players a break from the hectic life of professional footballers. You know - those participants who get paid so much more than a living wage whether they play or not. The ones that train every day as a part of their job but then are deemed to be 'too tired' to turn out for a cup match. Not only is it running the risk of a team being on a hiding to nothing, it is also depriving (as in 'ripping off') all those supporters who go to such a game expecting to see their 'heroes' in real life instead of on the telly. All those fans pay hard-earned money to be crammed into a small, often non-League, ground only to find that the team of stars they have come to see in their (often) home town is full of peripheral squad players that nobody has ever heard of, resulting in the t...

When somebody asks you "what football team do you support?", what do you answer? Think about that for a moment or two before answering. How many football clubs do you follow? Again, be honest with your answer. And, do you have a favourite Premier League (EPL) or English Football League (EFL) club as well as a favourite non-League club? Once more, you should be brutally frank with your answer. Of course, only YOU will see or know your answers, but the end result is how honest you are with other people when they ask you that question again, "What football team do you support?" The wise person will always include each of the teams that they follow. The person that hedges their bets will always offer the EPL or EFL team only, while virtually nobody will ever think about mentioning the non-League side that they very often frequent to watch their games in relative comfort but which is not necessarily attached to a fashionable or well-known club. That is generally borne o...

Artificial intelligence (AI), once thought of as science fiction, is surrounding us all more and more every day. The robots are taking over the asylum! I am the first person (maybe) to advocate that we try and avoid AI whenever and wherever we can, especially if any of us are involved in writing activities like authorship, newspaper reporting or essay writing for school, college or even university. AI can be wrong with its/their information and there are websites that can actually tell, very accurately, whether or not the assignment or other written work that you try to put forward as your own creation is really written by AI. I know this as a true fact because, although I write my own articles, posts and books, I always run my work through a plagiarism checker before I publish anything I have written. Okay, that way of checking is not quite AI, but then I also run my written work through one or two AI-detection websites 'just in case'. Unsurprisingly, I have had a 100% hit rat...

This is a glimpse of how it might have been for footballers in the early days of the organised version of the game in the UK. Football throughout the ages has been bound by the rich tapestry of passion, innovation, resilience and crunching tackles. The modern game became organised in the 1850s and certified by the introduction of the Football Association in 1863. 19th century football underwent a significant transformation; out went 'whatever rules suit' decided on the day of each match and in came firstly the Sheffield Rules and then the FA's Laws of the Game. Up until then the game was seemingly played combining a mixture of soccer and rugby, depending on what the teams decided on the day. Confusion, or what? When we look back at those early organised football days, we could be forgiven for thinking "why didn't they choose the summer months in which to play?" and, indeed, why didn't they? Presumably it was because that would get in the way of the already...

Does it irritate you? I know it irritates me. When players get fouled they or some of their team mates immediately turn to the referee and wave their hand, gesturing that the player who committed the foul must receive a yellow card (minimum). The antic of players waving such an 'air card' crept into our game in the 1990s and, at that time, referees were quick to stamp on it and issue a yellow card to the 'air card' waver. And then players seemed to take stock of the situation and the practice stopped. That is, until recent seasons, when the dastardly act crept back into our game, seemingly after the 2020 'Covid' World Cup tournament held in Qatar in 2021. A few years ago, I wrote an article for a Cray Wanderers matchday programme, about this annoying action that has again crept into our domestic game of football, mainly via international players who seem to 'get away with it' in their own countries' leagues. Referees are now starting to get tough aga...

A couple of days ago I wrote a short post about Percy Addleshaw, writer of a poem called 'The Happy Wanderer', in 1896. I now wish to go back a bit further in time to the early 1800s and speak about another poet, who also penned a work called 'The Happy Wanderer' but was later set to music.  In the early 19th century, a German called Florenz Friedrich Sigismund (1788-1857) put pen (or quill) to paper (or parchment) and wrote a poem in 1847 called 'Mein Vater war ein Wandersmann' which, translated from German, means 'My Father was a Wanderer'. It has also been catalogued as 'Der fröhliche Wanderer' ('The Happy Wanderer'). Yet is wasn't until just after the end of the Second World War that another German, Friedrich-Wilhelm Möller (1911-1993), put the words of Sigismund's poem to the catchy melodic tune that is now associated with the song. This was followed shortly afterwards by Möller's sister Edith adapting the song for the Ob...

Imagine the scene... back in 2003, when I took over the custodianship of the official Cray Wanderers website from Jerry Dowlen, I was looking for a mascot image to include on the site header. I eventually found one (the faded version in the picture, left) , courtesy of the public domain, and I decided to name him 'Jamie Kempster'. Now, Jamie Kempster was a midfielder who was playing for the Wands at the time and his name popped into my head first. Thereafter, my little football image was unofficially known by that Cray player's name. If you were among the very many visitors to the old official club website between 2003 and 2012, you would have no doubt seen 'JK' adorning the site header. I also used his image on the front cover of a short book I wrote in 2006 called 'Forever Amber: The Story of the Cray Wanderers FC Website So Far' (now out of print) . He has been around our club in one form or another for over twenty years. Fast-forward those 20+ years and ...

I have received a message from a visitor to this blog site asking me why I am not including any match reports on Cray Wanderers games. The answer is quite simple and comes in three stages. However, before I list what those stages are, I must mention that I am very pleased with the progress that this blog site is making. It is now attracting many visitors and not just from our football club or from a football background in general. Of course, the impish personality in me could up the ante and receive even more visitors to the site by being much more controversial in my work but, this site is still relatively new and I've experienced my share of hot water in the past; I don't particularly wish to revisit that scenario. I don't write about politics (very much!) or religion (very much!), so that's the controversy bits out of the way! All I can continue doing is what I know best, writing from experience and my ability to find unusual items of interest to research and write a...

Back in 2004, while I was still 'doing my thing' with the official Cray Wanderers website, I came across a poem called 'The Happy Wanderer', during one of my research moments and uploaded it to the site. At the time, the internet was still in its infancy and very little information was known about the author of that poem, Percy Addleshaw. Mr Addleshaw was, apart from writing poetry, a barrister and a writer. He lived from 1866 to 1916. He was a graduate of Christchurch College, Oxford and he was called to the bar in 1893. He was also known to write poetry under the nom de plume Percy Hemingway and apparently wrote 'The Happy Wanderer' in around 1896. The Happy Wanderer (Percy Addleshaw, 1866-1916) He is the happy wanderer who goes Singing upon his way, with eyes awake To every scene, with ears alert to take The sweetness of all sounds, who loves and knows The secrets of the highway, holds the rose Is fairer for the wounds the briars make; He welcomes rain that h...

This was one of the last articles of mine to appear in a Cray Wanderers matchday programme towards the end of the 2024-25 season. For those readers who collect the Wands' programmes and wish to check up on this, the article appeared versus Bowers & Pitsea on Saturday 22 March 2025. The article is based on knowledgeable fact and research. I have reproduced the item here, as I believe that it is right and proper to do so, if only to remind and notify future visitors to this website and who maybe never obtained a copy of that programme that this is what the word 'cray' actually means — and has meant for hundreds of years. It also ties in nicely with the history of Cray Wanderers Football Club theme. Believe it or not, the word ‘cray’ does not only mean ‘crazy’. This is apparently a modern way of using the word by younger generations of people. The historical word ‘cray’ comes from the Saxon word ‘crecca’ and the Welsh word ‘craie’, meaning ‘a brook or fresh water’, which i...

The following article was written by me back in 2011. I don't think it got as far as being included in a Cray Wanderers matchday programme at the time, but I might be wrong about that. However, I do believe that it was uploaded to the official website as a free pdf download for Wands supporters to print off and include in their scrapbooks and, the story is briefly mentioned on page 78 of my " After Grassmeade " book that is still available to purchase on Amazon. Here's the cup final programme story in its entirety... Many years ago, in May 1975 to be exact, I was requested to prepare and supply the Metropolitan London League Cup Final programmes for the game between Cray Wanderers and Alma Swanley. The final was being held at Chingford FC on Saturday 31 May, 1975 and a bumper crowd, made up of supporters from both Kent clubs, was expected to attend the Essex ground. I can’t recall now why the cup final programme was given to one of the teams involved to arrange, but I...

I first researched and created the following information as an A4 printable page that could be downloaded for free from the official Cray Wanderers website in 2005. At that time, I was into my second year as custodian of the website, which I later had to relinquish in 2012 for personal reasons. While looking through some of my old articles and creations on some of my numerous USB sticks, saved from my even older computers, I came across this and thought it would provide an interesting read for visitors to this blog site. Everything I have written below is unique; that is to say, the information I researched is true, but it is written in my own words. Please enjoy! What Happened In 1860, the Founding Year of Cray Wanderers FC • Garibaldi's 'Redshirts' captured Sicily and invaded Italy. • Abraham Lincoln was elected 16th President of the United States. • The British Open Golf Championship was established. • Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations. Richard Cobden (1804-1865),...

The idea of buying and using an air fryer is to circumvent the traditional ways of cooking with a gas or electric oven, as well as to save hard-earned readies on the ever-increasing energy consumption bills, but I have my own reasons for owning three air fryers. They are all in everyday use (although not at the same time) and they complement both the microwave oven  and the CleverChef  cookpot that I also use for cooking meals. But, why three? Quite simply, I found that when I bought our first air fryer, a single drawer jobbie , it was painfully obvious that you can only cook a small amount of food at a time in it. So, if I need to cook two separate meals at the same time (Jack Spratt and his missus have nothing on the eating habits in our house!) , it can't be done. It's fine for cooking burgers or sausages or even fish and chips — surprisingly, oven chips turn out great when cooked in an air fryer, provided you ignore the instructions on the packet they come in — or anythin...

At Cray Wanderers we are very proud of our long history, particularly the fact that we commenced playing in 1860, which makes us one of the three oldest clubs in the world still playing. The oldest club is, of course, Sheffield F.C. (founded 1857), who we welcomed for the official opening game at Flamingo Park last July. They beat us 4-0 to take home the Heritage Cup. One other club claims a foundation date of 1860. It’s Hallam F.C., one of Sheffield’s first opponents, and I went to their ground on a very wet day in September. Hallam, located on the hilly outskirts of the city, not far from Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough, were promoted to Step 4 (Northern Premier League East) at the end of last season, ironically taking the place of Sheffield F.C., who were relegated. That was something of a surprise to me, as Sheffield looked a decent side when they came to Flamingo Park. Like the Wands, Hallam set great store by their longevity. Unlike Cray, they have played on the same ground, S...

Cray Wanderers have already played one Southern League Premier Division side this season, unfortunately losing to a Fergie Time winner at the end of a replay at Hanwell Town, in the FA Cup. Hanwell Town play in the Southern League Premier Division South. Now the Wands travel to another Southern League Premier Division club, Bishop's Stortford, in the FA Trophy. Long-time Cray supporters will remember that Stortford competed in the Isthmian League until a few seasons ago and then they got promoted to the National League North of all leagues. They now play in the Southern League Premier Division Central. Yes, National League South would have been kinder to them, as they faced up to 500-mile round trips to some clubs in the northern part of England. It's a bit like Cray being relegated to the Isthmian League Division One North about 10 or so years ago, but on a grander scale, if you could call Stortford's experience 'grander'. I am also not sure if they enjoy all the...