Come On You Wands!

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...

Currently, my wife and I are looking for an appropriately appointed bungalow to buy and move into, so that I don't have to keep negotiating umpteen stairs or lifting her ladyship on and off a stairlift. We are now both older than we care to admit and, with age, come struggles associated with fitness and wellbeing. I have already mentioned several times in various postings and articles that 'the lady of the house' is disabled. Little has been revealed about my struggle with angina. Gone are the days when I could clamber up the stairs here in our semi-detached house two or three at a time; those days have been replaced by me carefully placing my feet on those stairs in a very steady manner. On occasion, I also find myself holding onto the banister, just in case there is a small chance that I will lose my footing. So, the time has come for me (on behalf of both of us) to seek out that elusive bungalow that has everything we need in later life and sell this semi to pay for the ...

For quite a long while now, energy prices have seasonally fluctuated. In the winter, the cost rises, while in the summer it reduces slightly. Managed correctly, an average consumption cost of gas and electric can remain well below the price cap line. If managed incorrectly, or with a cavalier attitude, costs will rise exponentially each time there is an upturn in charges. Here is something that we have been practising in our house for a long time. Both my wife and I are at home most days and every night, not because we work from home but, because we are both now pensioners and my wife is disabled. We can't go out much because of that fact. So, when we have the heating on in the winter, like most other people's situation, the bills go up. When the warmer weather arrives and we turn off our heating, gas and electric use generally goes down. But we are used to it happening and can adjust our energy use budget to cope. It's not easy but we've learned to manage since we both...

Once upon a time, when I was a young boy, if the Wands were drawn to play an Isthmian League club in one of the various cup competitions, it brought an air of anticipated excitement to our supporters, players and club officials. In fact, it brought a sense of awe to everyone associated with our club. At the time, it has been said, Cray Wanderers were punching above their weight in the Metropolitan League and were competing alongside such teams as Arsenal, West Ham and Tottenham Hotspur XIs, which included former first-teamers and soon-to-be stars alike. Players like Clyde Best and Peter Grotier, who were to know some fame with the Hammers in the Football League during the 1970s, plus former Spurs double-winning player and England cap Ron Henry, graced the Grassmeade pitch, such was the standard of that league. Yet the very mention of an Isthmian League side arriving for a cup match for Cray to take on was an absolute thrill in itself. Teams like Barking, Leytonstone and St Alban's ...

We should all by now know about the date that the Football Association was formed in England. We should all by now know what date the F A Cup was first introduced. And we should all by now know when the English Football League was first formed. I have written about all three of these events but now I am writing about the football club that time forgot; about one of the football clubs that were turned down for admittance to the Football League back in 1888. If you are thinking here about Nottingham Forest, Darwen or Newton Heath then you would be wrong. Yes, each of those clubs was turned down for the inaugural season of the Football League, but there were two other prominent sides at the time that were rejected... and it all stemmed from the fact that the organisers didn't want to risk a fixtures clog up, even though the accepted clubs totalled just twelve. This post is about one of those other two clubs; I will hopefully write about the other unfortunately rejected club in due cou...

Quite recently, I was reading an article written by Jerry Dowlen in which he highlighted the strange pronunciation of a place quite near to where I live. The article was printed in Issue 3 of 'The Jocelyn Brooke Journal', a newsletter-style booklet created and published by Phil Babbs every quarter about the author Jocelyn Brooke.  The place in question that Jerry mentions is Elham. I can agree with Jerry's recollection for Elham being pronounced as Eel-ham, as it is still said this way today, and his article did get me thinking. There are many towns and villages throughout the UK where the spelling does not match the pronunciation. We have a fair few of them here in Kent. In fact, including Elham, I have rounded up thirty such places, all of which I have listed below with their actual spelling and how they are commonly pronounced. The hyphens within the words are included to break up the syllables of each name. They are not listed in alphabetical order, as I think that woul...