Come On You Wands!

For many years now scientists have been baffling themselves over the possibilities and likelihood of 'time travel'. Some practitioners may even claim to have experienced this elusive phenomenon but they have yet to prove that they have done so. Which brings us back to the ever far-reaching and elusive question: "Does time travel really exist?" Well, I for one would never hazard a guess at this, just as much as I could never rule out the faintest of possibilities, especially when there are so many self-styled 'experts' around ready to ridicule and scoff even the slightest positive — or negative — approach by such lesser mortals as myself... even more so if they get to read the theory that I am about to put forward on the subject! For, you see, I can really claim to have time travelled. Indeed, I managed this 'elusive' feat every working day of my life between 1994 and 2009. I have even time travelled when I went on holiday! You should either now be int...

Can you play the ukulele? According to 'experts' on the internet, learning to play the ukulele is as easy as pie. Then they proceed to run through the chords and strumming actions required to produce something resembling a tune. The problem is, they've no doubt had tons of spare time to practice, practice, practice. When I was a young boy, one of my relatives bought me a ukulele for Christmas. Never having heard of a ukulele before, I naturally thought it was a guitar for a little boy and I fitted that bill precisely. It was only when I heard my parents talking about the uke that I realised it had to be a different musical instrument to a guitar. I couldn't get a decent tune out of it, though, as it emitted a noise that definitely got on my family's nerves! I don't know whatever happened to that ukulele. I think maybe that it may have got 'accidentally' trodden or stamped on by one of my brothers. It wasn't an instrument that I associated too much wi...

I am typing this article on an Asus EeePC netbook computer. “What's one of those?” I hear you ask. I'll explain. Back at the start of the 21st century, some workers for Acer, another computer company, moved away and formed their own company called Asus. Similar names but with differing ideas. By the by, Asus eventually created and marketed a very mini laptop computer. They called it the Asus EeePC 701. For marketing reasons, they later changed the 701 to 4G. We have the 4G version, which is running a lightweight version of Linux from a very small solid state drive (SSD), which (in case you don't know) is a type of hard disk drive without any moving parts and it has a single 512MB RAM stick fitted. Back in the early 2000s, SSDs were yet to catch on. We were all still using mechanical disk drives at the time. This machine, however, can be upgraded to 2GB of RAM or so I am reliably informed. I do have several 2GB sticks of RAM hanging about this house that I've swapped out...

Moving grounds and stadia has, since organised football commenced in the 1870s, been a regular occurence - with some clubs having to 'up sticks' more frequently than others. We should all know by now Cray Wanderers' path to Flamingo Park has been littered with ground moves. Flamingo Park, by my reckoning, is the ninth such ground they have played at since the club formed in 1860. There has been (in no particular order) Star Lane, St Mary Cray Rec (at least twice), Fordcroft, Tothills, Twysden's Meadow, Grassmeade, Oxford Road, (groundsharing at) Hayes Lane and now Flamingo Park. Coincidentally, there are nine letters in the name 'Wanderers', so perhaps Cray were always destined to find their forever home at the ninth attempt. But, apart from the Wands, other clubs over the years have faced a nomadic experience although probably none as severe as Cray Wanderers. One of the furthest moves must be that of Wimbledon FC. Before their controversial move to Milton Keyn...

This is the way I used to prepare and write my articles for the matchday programmes. My fellow article writers in the Cray Wanderers programmes may or may not have had their own ways to reach the same end result, I am sure, as we all studiously brought supporters a varied selection of interesting articles to read. To address the elephant in the room from the very start, I do not use artificial intelligence (AI) to either write my articles, to research my articles or to create graphics that occasionally appeared alongside my articles in the Cray Wanderers programmes.  That is not to say that I haven't dabbled with the likes of ChatGPT; of course I have.  But, I come from an era in which I was taught how to research and compose my written work and to create graphics from scratch, the hard way.  The big concern with using AI to 'write' articles is the potential to breach copyright on existing work. Such use could also be riddled with plagiarism within AI-generated articles....

When my grandad died at Easter in 1968, I was handed his very old Acme Thunderer whistle, along with the message that "Grandad would have wanted you to have it". I was thrilled to bits. From that time onwards, I was 'the kid with the whistle' down our street, which very quickly opened some doors for me in a strange way. No, this is not going to be a "Billy's Boots" type of story, although by saying that I have just come up with a brilliant idea for a short story. Blimey, I surprise myself sometimes! Anyway, back to what I was saying. This is a true story of how I used that whistle before I lent it to my mum to use for her Brown Owl duties and before she promptly gave it away without realising the sentimental significance of it to me and, of how it sort of paved my way following an injury after a freak accident that ended my footballing days.  Try, if you can, to imagine me as a 12-year-old schoolboy. Yes, I was young once. Saddened by the sudden death of...

Have you ever been taken in by any of those 'diet plans' that are advertised with ever more frequency on the commercial TV channels?  The ones I am specifically talking about show a lady attempting to flog her own 'plan' by knocking off a hundred quid and she has women giving their testimonials into the camera while they look radiantly slim. Or, the bloke who claims to be a chef and shows a woman with a perfectly-shaped body talking to the camera (as in, talking to you), about how much weight she's lost since going on the 'plan'.  Neither ads show a 'before' condition, only an 'after' state and they expect we the viewing public to believe it unconditionally, without them providing conclusive proof that they've lost weight by following those diets. For all we know, those ladies could have been and probably were slim to start with. Telling is not the same as showing. The trouble is, those adverts and others like them are only being aimed at...

Have you ever noticed how, the older you get, the faster time seems to fly? Yes, me too. I started watching Cray Wanderers in 1967, not long after I had reached the grand old age of 12 years, yet it seems like only yesterday. I spent most of the 1970s serving as a committee member for the club; that time spent also still seems like yesterday. I can recall both eras with a high degree of accuracy. But, I am no longer a young whippersnapper, I'm just one of those old farts that I and many of my contemporaries used to make fun of. Ageing is a strange phenomenon and one that we couldn't possibly understand or comprehend in our youth. When you are young you think that ageing is what happens to old people; it doesn't occur to any of us when we're young that we will eventually grow old ourselves. To put another slant on time, what you or I experience about it may result in two totally different experiences. Your perception of time may not necessarily agree with my perception o...

In all the years that I lived in St Mary Cray and Orpington, I always thought that the town was north of the village. I also thought that Bromley was more north towards London than the pair of them. However, having looked at an old map of north-west Kent in recent months, it transpires that St Mary Cray is more north than Orpington and that Bromley lies parallel due west to St Mary Cray and not to the north. I found that quite fascinating. Of course, back before 1965, the village of St Mary Cray and the towns of Orpington and Bromley were always in Kent. The maps of the time tell us so. Not only that but, I was born in Kent (Farnborough Hospital) but was reclassified as a Londoner after 1965. No wonder I'm a confused man. Add to this the fact that Cray Wanderers now play in what is officially known as a Chislehurst location, even though Flamingo Park is situated on the Sidcup Bypass, and I can state quite categorically that nothing makes sense anymore. Take, for instance, a works c...

Last season, I wrote an article for the Cray Wanderers club matchday programme about Diversity. From the feedback I got, some supporters liked it, some agreed with it and others said it shouldn't have been included in a football programme. That's quite a healthy and diverse set of opinions. And there's the word in a slightly different form. Diverse. It can come in all shapes and forms, which was what I was trying to get at in my original article. I will admit that, in the past, I have been accused of not being diverse enough. Of course, I denied — and still deny — such accusations. Besides the true story of a little lad called Andrew that I included in that previous article, I have had plenty of experience of Diversity in my life. For instance, when I first started school at St Mary Cray Primary School when I was four and a half years old, my first 'girlfriend' was a black girl called Shirley. I thought she was wonderful. Unfortunately, that was a short-lived 'r...

Please be advised that you may find you can only really read this particular post on a computer or laptop. There is no telling how screwed up the formatting might be if you try reading this on a mobile telephone. Anyway, here's a hypothetical question for you to consider. If you were offered the opportunity, would you rather be handed one million pounds cash immediately, or would you instead opt for a solitary penny to be invested and doubled for thirty consecutive days? Maybe you are one of the many people who would opt for the million quid up front. It would be ready cash and you wouldn't have to wait a month for it. If you are a student then this would probably be a 'no brainer' for you to take the lump sum. Well, let's consider the million quid option. The cash would be in your bank account the moment you chose that route. Mobile telephone banking apps work wonders nowadays. But, not only that, you would be free to shop around for the highest-paying interest ac...

For so long, football was considered to be a man's game played by men. In the early years of organised football, it was the men who ventured forth across the mowed grasslands of football pitches throughout the land. Ladies watched from the sidelines, specially prepared sandwiches or even orange slices at the ready for half-time. The ladies didn't get involved with playing what was ostensibly a man's game. Then, in the 1920s, something quite extraordinary happened. Women were introduced to the pastime of playing the man's game. The worm was turning and ladies were donning football kits and learning how to kick a heavy leather football about without missing it and falling over. And a little-known factory in the north of England spawned what was to probably be the most famous women's football team of them all. The Dick, Kerr Ladies football team was formed in Preston, Lancashire and instantly became a popular attraction in the first decade following the First World War...

    Maybe you have seen this badge design before, or maybe this is the first time you have seen it. If you purchased a copy of 'Wandering No More!' by club statistician Pete Goringe before it sold out in 2024, it was included on the back cover. Pete, and those of us who collaborated with him on that publication, felt that the book needed something different to reflect the club's historical past. If you have a copy of that book, but you haven't noticed this badge design, just turn the book over to the back cover and all will be revealed. Although this badge has not been officially adopted by Cray Wanderers FC, it depicts the early days of the Wands back in Victorian times, to when the club was established in 1860. When I pieced this design together, club Chairman Gary Hillman had recently requested a simplified version of the Wands' crest. What transpired was a revamp, by someone, of the badge I had created in around 2003 after I was requested to do so by the club. B...

The latest irritation caused by referees appears to be when a corner or free kick has been awarded. Just why is it that referees nowadays, especially on live television coverage matches, have this insatiable desire to be a schoolteacher before the ball is even kicked? What I mean by this is, in the modern game, players still like to jostle and shove their opponents about, just like they did in my day. In my years as a referee we called it 'jostling for position'. Only when the ball is kicked were we instructed to decide who did what to whom and to award a free kick to the defending team or a penalty kick to the attacking team, depending on who committed the first foul. In clearer words, we as referees were expected to make a decision in open play , not hold the play up by delivering a sermon on the mount and treating two or three highly competitive players like children. If a player is getting too close to a goalkeeper at a corner kick, for instance, surely it is the referee...

Once upon a time, there were quill pens. They begat typewriters, who begat home computers, who begat emails, who begat the internet, who begat websites, who begat forums, who begat social media, who killed the forums. It may not have happened yet, in this lifetime, but it will happen in the not-too-distant future. Social media is killing forums, especially football-based forums and, it is slowly strangling websites, especially football-based websites. Someday, not too far off, there will sadly be no more need for football club websites or forums because social media would have sucked them all up. Back in the early 2000s, when I was the proud custodian of the Cray Wanderers' official website, it was the 'go to' place to find out information about the club. We had results and fixtures not only from the then current season but from seasons prior to that. My late friend and fellow long-distance Wands supporter, Gareth 'Ki' Cotterell, then started up a club forum — calle...

Known to footballers as 'Mr Pickwick', Roger Kirkpatrick was one of those referees who supporters loved to give stick to. Sporting impressive mutton chops sideburns, he was a well-known figure on the playing fields of the Football League. I can remember my first-ever professional football match that I attended. It was Charlton Athletic -v- Middlesbrough at the Valley in 1969. Both sides were challenging for the two promotion spots at the top of the old Second Division (now known as the Championship), so it was a game of some potential consequence, with the London side triumphing 2-0. As it turned out, both those clubs missed out on promotion to Crystal Palace and Derby County. The referee for the Charlton game was Roger Kirkpatrick, whom I had only seen on the TV prior to that game, and what surprised me was how 'Marmite popular' he was with the two sets of supporters. Yes, even back then, you either loved or loathed players and referees alike and Kirkpatrick was no exc...

When I first started watching football, on Match of the Day, back when it started on BBC2 in 1964, supporters were still using rattles. No, I don't mean baby rattles, in blue or pink plastic. I'm talking about big, wooden rattles, that made one heck of a noise as the supporters spun them around by their handles. I also remember one or two people at Grassmeade using football rattles a few years later. But then the fad died out. In between times my brother, who was a trained cabinet maker and a whizz at carpentry, made me the biggest football rattle I had ever seen. When I spun it round by the handle it made the loudest clackety-clack imaginable. Alas, I never got to use it at Grassmeade, for I would most certainly have stood out in the crowd. Football rattles originated around the time of the Second World War. They were apparently used by air raid wardens to sound the alarm if they detected poisonous gas was in the air. In addition to this usage, farmers also used the rattles to...

If anyone ever wanted to know what it is like to live in purgatory, like a shot I would have to advise them not to do what I agreed to do. And here is why. I would never, ever recommend anyone (or his or her brother, or dog, or cat) to agree to take care of a relative, a neighbour or especially a spouse if they became ill or disabled and dependant on you. I know this from absolute experience and I am currently living in hellish times. Don't be fobbed off by that 'think of the rewards' nonsense. There are no rewards, just endless tasks of cooking, feeding, toileting, washing, dressing, trying to deal with outside 'help' (or even getting it), clearing up spilt food, spilt drink, little (and not so little) 'accidents'. They happen with rapid frequency the older you — and your forced-on-you patient — become. Worst of all, carer duties for someone you are attached to, like a spouse, a sibling or a parent, comes without recompense — that's without any kind of...

I read an article a while ago that stated late US President George Washington died 15 years before the first fossil of a dinosaur was discovered, meaning that he never knew that they had ever existed. I thought that this was an interesting enough fact to do some more research and write an article on strange but true surprising facts in recent history.  Let's kick off with a Cray Wanderers related snippet. Back in 1860, when the Wands were first formed, the United States of America were not so united which culminated in the Civil War between 1861 and 1865, Queen Victoria had been reigning for 23 years and Lord Palmerston (Liberal Party) was the Prime Minister of the UK. Abraham Lincoln was elected as the US President in 1860. Getting away from dates, here's a few things that I bet not many of us knew. Armadillos are bulletproof, apparently; I don't know how they found that one out. Pineapples take two years to grow; I think it takes longer than that to peel and slice them. A...

  It has been well documented by Pete Goringe (club statistician and historian) that, Cray Wanderers were involved with at least three name changes during the 20th century. Firstly, there came Cray Old Boys after the First World War, after which they reverted to Cray Wanderers again a couple of seasons later. This was followed by a works team called Vegpardel blending with Cray Wanderers after World War Two. One final name change came at Grassmeade in 1972, when 279 Chislehurst was absorbed into the existing Cray Wanderers club. But there's been plenty of occasions of football clubs changing their names since the commencement of organised football back in days of yore. Keen football fanatics will already know that Manchester United started life as Newton Heath, while West Ham supporters may know that their club was originally called Thames Ironworks. The elephant in the room, Wimbledon, moved to Milton Keynes and changed their name to Milton Keynes Dons. And Woolwich Arsenal became...

It's quite amazing how certain memories are triggered for no apparent reason. Hopefully there are still enough Wands supporters around to remember the game against Barking, at Grassmeade in the F A Amateur Cup in early 1968, when it finished all square at 0-0 after Cray had put the visitors under a lot of pressure and could have won the game. But, here's the thing. How many of those Wands supporters can recall the half-time entertainment provided by a local Boys Brigade Band as they marched around the pitch playing their instruments? Yes, it really did happen, and the band was applauded as the ensemble left the pitch prior to the players of both teams coming back on for the second half. That was the one and only time I can recall such entertainment at a Cray Wanderers home game; I certainly don't believe or recall such an occurrence was repeated at Oxford Road in the 1970s and ditto about when Cray played at Hayes Lane. I was not doing anything in particular this morning (a...