Come On You Wands!

It is a reasonably well-known fact that, Keith Peacock of Charlton Athletic became the first-ever substitute in the English Football League (EFL) to play a part in a game, when he came on to replace injured goalie Mike Rose in the 11th minute, against Bolton Wanderers at Burnden Park on 21 August 1965. At the time, the introduction of only one substitute was permitted per team per match that season, and then only for proper injury purposes. The 1965-66 campaign had started on that day. Tactical substitutions were permitted two seasons later, from the 1967-68 season. Substitutes in the World Cup were not allowed until the 1970 tournament in Mexico. What you might not know, however, is that substitutes were used in matches long before the 1960s. As long ago as 1880, an International match involving Wales and Scotland saw the Welsh team replace an already-named player who had failed to turn up. Technically not an 'off-the-bench' type of substitute but a replacement, and therefore ...

**This post now includes a video which backs up my article. Fellow writers and anyone who reads books and articles are encouraged to read this post to the end and to watch the video when you come to it.** As time goes by, new ways and styles of writing seem to be produced out of thin air. Some of them are good, some of them are reasonable and some of them beggar belief. And it is that last option that I wish to concentrate on here. I am a true believer in researching and writing my own work. The interested reader might consider that some of my stuff is brilliant (how I wish!) while other jottings not so much. I tend to write as I find and as I speak. Sometimes, that's unfortunate for the grammar police to comprehend but, what the heck? My blog site so my rules, as the saying goes, at least that's how it could be viewed and accepted. I try to ensure that my work is readable, enjoyable and thought-provoking. From the feedback I've received over the years, I must be doing some...

Did you know that most football clubs, both in the English Football League and non-League, boasted more than one fanzine during the 1980s and 1990s? Also, according to a fanzines listings website I came across recently, it shows that Cray Wanderers only produced one fanzine, named appropriately enough for the club's Oxford Road days as "What Slope?" yet I also know that there was a second, more prolonged, fanzine called "Cray Chatter". From what I recall from liaising with Pete Goringe and Jerry Dowlen a few years ago, there were only a small amount of issues of "What Slope?" ever published and that "Cray Chatter" somewhat more successfully replaced it and was produced for several seasons. I wasn't around at Oxford Road when either of those two fanzines were introduced but I still experienced the fanzine goldrush thanks to one of my ex-work colleagues, who was a Dover Athletic supporter. I often received the Dover fanzine to read at my le...

It's still there on Amazon for anybody to buy and read. I included details of it in my earliest posts on this site. The ad remains in the side panel on the left of your screen, although some visitors to this site may have to extend the panel in order to see it. I am not hiding the book away. Nor am I trying to blatantly flog it in every post. I wrote 'After Grassmeade' for supporters of Cray Wanderers and for supporters of football in general to buy and read if they are interested in what happened to the club during the 1970s at Oxford Road in Sidcup. There was, and still is, no intention to hard sell the book to anyone. As I see it, we are all capable of making up our own minds about things and, deciding whether or not to buy my book comes under this banner. Obviously, I will be happy if you do decide to buy a copy; of course I would! It charts my experience as a Wands committee member at the start of Cray's new life outside of St Mary Cray village and many things t...

It is happening in football more frequently nowadays. Only the Saturday just gone, there was an incident where an English Premier League (EPL) footballer got his marching orders after VAR picked up on the fact that he had 'tugged' at an opponent's hair. But, was it intentional or not (see further reference below)? Currently, as the Laws of the Game stand, committing such an 'offence' is dismissible under the terms of Law 12 which covers fouls and misconduct, even though hair pulling is not specifically mentioned. Now, here's the interesting part. Hair pulling is not actually forbidden in the game of association football. However, those wonderful Laws of the Game changers who rewrite those laws to suit their own aims, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), have decided that pigtail-pulling is an offence punishable by a direct red card and a three-match ban. In one particular incident I watched live on TV recently, VAR got over-excited at such an i...

Cray Wanderers had a remarkably successful and fun time during their first season in the Isthmian League back in 2004-05. Having won the Kent League title for the previous two seasons, Cray finally pushed for and were granted promotion to the next footballing level. The Wands had been ground sharing at Hayes Lane with Bromley FC since the mid-1990s and so they had a rock-solid ground share agreement in place. As the club was to quickly find out, such an agreement was paramount to Cray actually getting promoted to the Isthmian League. With no ground of their own at the time, except for the 'temporary' lodgings at Oxford Road in Sidcup where only the Reserves continued to play, the Wanderers needed to go several stages further than most clubs to ensure their promotion was ratified. Prior to the season that Cray moved to the Isthmian League, there was a better than 50% chance that the Wands could have landed up in the Southern League. At the time, the footballing pyramid was still...

Paradoxically, shin splints can be caused by doing too much exercise. I don't mean rowing on an exercise machine or doing press-ups or sit-ups but, by walking great distances and even playing football. In the early 1970s, I was hit with this cursed problem and it took a good six months, if not longer, to shake my shin splints off. And the cause? My GP at the time said it was because I was taking too much exercise. Not only was I training and playing football whenever I could but I was walking a great deal. And, believe me, if you ever experience shin splints you will wish that you had never heard of them. So, what exactly are shin splints? Broadly speaking, it's where the tissue in your lower legs becomes inflamed and then the shins become very tight and both legs are usually affected. I was having to walk through my pain every day as I walked to the railway station and back to go to work in London and return home again in the evenings. More scientifically speaking, shin splint...

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was what we nowadays think of as an extraordinary sight at football matches. No, I don't mean long haired players or shirts with no names or sponsors on, although you could be forgiven for thinking along those lines. Most certainly, players did have long hair, Welsh international star Trevor Hockey of Birmingham City and Sheffield United being one such example. But there were many more besides him who grew their locks to shoulder-length and longer (and never tied them back).  Players' shirts back then only carried their position number, from 1 (being the goalkeeper) through to 11 (being the left-winger, also known as the outside left). Until 1965 came along, there was no number 12 because the every day games in England didn't allow for substitutes. Most clubs didn't even sport their club badge on their shirts! And, of course, apart from the national team there were no squad numbers in club teams. But there is one sight which appears to...

By now, most Cray Wanderers supporters ought to have heard of Hallam FC. That is the club that currently claims it is 'officially the second-oldest football club in the world'. Unofficially , that is, because there is no way that such a claim can be rubber stamped by any official source without a thorough investigation into all other clubs' formation years around the world... and nobody has ever approached Cray Wanderers to date about the topic in an official capacity.  Like the Wands, Hallam were apparently also founded in 1860. The big difference between the two clubs, however, is that Cray do not contest that there are other clubs sharing the same established year as themselves, unlike the team from up north, but we are happy enough claiming 'joint second-oldest football club in the world' if it was ever thought necessary, relevant or appropriate enough to do so by our club. Then again, the Wands can boast about something that Hallam FC never can... Cray Wanderer...

I have been a writer and a reader for more years than I care to remember and, in all that time, there has been one thing that has bugged me. Even now, after I sought clarification, it still bugs me. I am referring to where a writer should place a full stop. It is what the Americans, for some strange reason, call a 'period'. In my world, a period is something very different and no, it's not what you might think I am going to say. A period is a length of time. Full stop. Having probably totally confused everyone now, here is what I mean about placing the full stop where I have always believed it to go; outside of a closed parenthesis (also mistakenly known as a bracket) at the end of a sentence. Every time I have read anything, be it a book, a newspaper report, a magazine article and so on, I have got very fidgety and uncomfortable when I see a full stop enclosed within parentheses (like this.) and it usually gives me a flashback to my school years when I was always told th...

You see it all the time in football matches nowadays. A player runs down the wing with the ball but, before they have a chance to cross it into the corridor of uncertainty or slip it inside to a team mate, a tackle goes in from an opposing defender and the winger goes down 'in agony' while clutching their boot. An action replay of the incident reveals that the defender has unfortunately stepped on the opposing player's toe. Sometimes a scream bellows out as the player goes down, the referee whistles for a free kick and may sometimes produce a yellow card for the offender. Of course, it is not always a deliberate ploy by a defender to stamp on anyone's feet, yet in the modern game such incidents have escalated over the past few years. Maybe some of the wounded players writhe around on the turf in the hope of swaying the referee's judgment in showing the opposing player a yellow card, thus potentially weakening that player's stance, lest they receive a second caut...

When I was growing up in the 1960s and playing for various junior teams, putting on a football kit was relatively easy. Except the football boots. I could never seem to be able to tie the laces so that they wouldn't come undone during matches. That bothered me a bit, because while I was crouched down in the centre circle trying to retie my boots, I was missing out on chances to score at 'the sharp end'. It must be the boots, or the laces, I thought. I never did find out what it was that caused the laces to loosen with remarkable regularity but I tried them under the boots and around the backs of the boots before tying them at the top; nothing seemed to work to permanently tie them up. However, there was also another piece (or pieces) of kit that I cannot recall we were ever encouraged to wear during matches when I was still knee-high to a grasshopper. The shinpads, or shinguards as some players now call them. Just why we were not pushed into wearing them is as big a mystery...

I love football. Ever since I was a small boy, I've followed the best-supported sport in the world. I've been a supporter, a player, an assistant manager, a referee and served the game in many other ways as well. Not all at the same time but, at various stages of my life. In order for me to pass my referee's qualifying exam in 1978, I needed to know everything about the game in which I was to officiate, inside and out. That knowledge came from my many years of watching and playing the game... and being coached by some of the best in their field. Determination was a big assist in me earning my badge. Nowadays, I watch my football from the comfort of my armchair. Not because I choose to but, because that's the way that life keeps tossing curveballs in my direction. Yet that doesn't mean that I cannot assess the viability and vulnerability of the referees and linos in the matches that I watch and, believe me, from what I see each week there are a number of 'high pr...

The following lyrics have been penned by me after a recent event with our garden shed. It is a tongue-in-cheek view on what actually happened. To be fair, our old garden shed was becoming unserviceable over the past few years. We inherited the thing when we bought our house around 26 years ago and, looking back, it was obvious in a hidden kind of way that the shed was on its last knockings even then. The first hint anything was amiss was when several wooden shiplap panels fell off due to the tiny nails holding them on became rusty. As they fell off and couldn't be renailed on because the panels themselves were beyond 'seasoned', they split every time I tried to tack them back on; they also revealed the ancient black lining underneath which didn't take much effort to rip apart once exposed to the elements. Gradually I transferred most of my decent tools out of the shed and it became a dumping ground every time a lawnmower, strimmer or garden shredder packed up. I purchas...

This is a reasonable enough question to ask but, really, has television actually killed the football match? Back in the days before the Premier League and even live TV coverage of professional games, men's football matches were generally always played on a Saturday afternoon at 3pm. For those of us that can remember such halcyon days, pre-1990s, going to watch a professional football match was a regular ritual. For me, before I was involved with Cray Wanderers in an official capacity, it was knock off work in the City of London at 5pm on a Friday evening, catch the train home to Petts Wood railway station, hop on the number 161 bus up Petts Wood Road to the Poverest Road roundabout and walk home from there. Depending on the fixtures for the following day, I either had the choice of watching the Wands if they were playing at Grassmeade or catching the train on the Saturday morning up to Selhurst to watch Crystal Palace play in the afternoon. Invariably the Wands or the Eagles (or t...