Come On You Wands!

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...

I very nearly missed it! The Wands gained promotion to the Isthmian League Premier Division back in 2009, after beating Metropolitan Police 1-0 in the Division One South play-off final at Hayes Lane, Bromley. Back then, the Isthmian League was being sponsored by Ryman stationers, Cray had been in the Isthmian League for five seasons and during that time were playing at their highest-ever level. But there comes a time when you can't keep a good team down and manager Ian 'Jenko' Jenkins' squad of 2008-09 was destined for higher plains. Finishing second behind Kingstonian in Division One South, Cray had home advantage over first Worthing and then the Met in the promotion play-offs. They secured the play-off final spot by easing out the seaside team 1-0 before dispatching the coppers by the same scoreline a few days later. I couldn't make it to the midweek game against Worthing but, I booked my place on the touchline for the final. It was a neatly crafted free kick from...

The year is 2225. Championship side Cray Wanderers are playing host to recently re-formed AFC Manchester United in the 14th Round Proper of the FA Cup. United, currently competing in the National League One after going bankrupt in 2215 and resigning from League 2 mid-season, have catapulted themselves up through the pyramid after being placed in the Stockport & District County League as punishment for not fulfilling their fixtures. With so many additional lower level football clubs entering the FA Cup in the qualifying stages, the competition expands year on year, thus why in 2225 the 14th round has effectively replaced what used to be the 3rd Round Proper. Foxbury Park, renamed from Flamingo Park around 100 years beforehand, is filling up with local and travelling supporters. The opinion of the newly-installed Cray Wanderers committee to replace the outgoing directors is that the attendance may well reach the 127,000 capacity for their stadium. That would be a nice injection of fu...

QR is short for Quick Response and QR Codes were first invented in 1994 by a Japanese company director called Masahiro Hara. His company is called Denso Wave, a market leader in the development and manufacture of data capture devices such as barcodes and QR Codes. The QR Codes caught on worldwide with the introduction of mobile phones with cameras in the early 2000s and they have been with us ever since. A QR Code is a shortcut that can take you anywhere — to a video, a product, a surprise. They also do not need to be printed on paper; they can be shown on drinks cans, business cards, posters, menus, on the sides of buses or taxis — and even on beer mats.  If you want to see how this works in real time, just scan the QR Code below by aiming the camera on your mobile phone at the screen if you are on your desktop or laptop computer and see where it takes you. That way you can see the process in action. However, if you’re on your mobile phone while reading this, just click here to f...

One or two people have asked me why I keep banging on about the history of our football club. This is a strange thing to ask, of course, because how do they know that I keep 'banging on' about it if they haven't already taken time out to read what I write? It is a paradox brought about by them criticising what I am 'banging on' about by reading what I write in order to form that judgment. And, in my view, if they read what I write then they must be interested in my content in the first place, otherwise why do they read it? Said another way, how do they know that I am constantly writing about the history of Cray Wanderers if they don't keep taking the time to read what I have written? If that is the case then are they hypocrites? Maybe, maybe not. What do they not approve of about the club's history or it being written about? Only they know. And, if they follow the club themselves, don't they realise that they are making history and also observing it arou...

I never thought I would ever live to see the day that the Cray Wanderers I started watching many moons ago would eventually end up sharing their changing rooms with female footballers. Not literally, of course, but for the purpose of sharing the facilities for their separate matches at Flamingo Park. Back in 1967, as we all know, the women's game was still in an over-extended hiatus mode thanks to the shortsighted thinking of the Football Association back in the 1920s and subsequent officials of that self-governing association who sat in office until 1971. I must admit that, my briefest of encounters watching a women's team playing on a pitch in anger is limited to a ladies' hockey match while I lived in deepest, darkest Essex back in the 1980s. On that occasion, the ladies were going at it hammer and tongs. There were very few prisoners taken on that miserably rainy Saturday afternoon in 1986! I had been invited along to watch the game by one of my work colleagues, who pla...

• I wrote this following article for a motoring magazine back in July 1998. It is based on a true story and I really did experience what I described in the article. As it is a car-related article, as opposed to a football-based storyline, I thought that I would include it here anyway before the world goes totally mad and totally electric for no other reason than liquid fuel based cars are still in existence in 2025. This recollection was during a time when changing from petrol and diesel to electric vehicles had not even been considered, let alone intended to be forced on all drivers. Maybe similar incidents like this are still being experienced by drivers of liquid-propelled vehicles up and down the country, or even around the world... Don't you just love it when, having experienced a niggling defect on your car, you take it into (because you have to take it into!) the main dealers to have the problem rectified — only for the garage to greet you with little or no confidence in t...

Occasionally we all tweak stuff to make them seem better. Car enthusiasts tinker under the bonnet until they get the fuel and air mixture just right in the carburettor, football managers shuffle the team around by way of rotation and I try to improve this blog site so that it is not only aesthetically pleasing to the eye (I hope!) but also so that it is easily navigable for visitors to view the pages and posts. But there comes a time when a little too much tinkering can be the wrong approach. I remember just a couple of years ago, I was in discussion with Jerry Dowlen about book writing and how authors and writers tend to tinker with what they have written, yet still not be happy with the final, final, final version of their manuscript. Both Jerry and I admitted that we, too, tinker in that way when writing a book. Not only that but, when I was a lot younger and I bought cars for £15 or £25 a pop, I always tinkered under the bonnet. It was a case of having to, because old cars then th...

A few years ago, I wrote a season-long series of articles for the Cray Wanderers matchday programmes under the title of 'Nutmegs'. Of course, one or two supporters asked me why I had named my work in such a way, as surely it is a derogatory move in football. I can agree and disagree with that sentiment in that it is only embarrassing to the player being nutmegged rather than for the player who has performed the nutmeg. So, what is a 'nutmeg'? It's when one player passes the ball through the wide open legs of another player and retrieves the ball the other side of him or her. To finally put the matter straight for those Wands supporters who have been wondering about it all this time, the answer is simple. I wanted a title that was short, direct, had a meaningful attribute to football and was instantly noticeable. It worked. Before I decided upon 'Nutmegs', I toyed with the idea of naming the articles 'crossed with aplomb', 'unceremoniously' an...

Somebody asked me recently how many Cray Wanderers matchday programmes I own. I replied asking, "Does that include Reserves matches?" Knowing that the person in question meant First Team games, my response was "hundreds" . And that is no exaggeration. When you've been a supporter for as long as I have, and there's still several supporters around who watched Cray quite a long time before I started going to their games, you tend to pick them up as often as a wayward penny on a pavement. Here's a thought... if I'd kept all the pennies that I've picked up over the years in a jar, I'd probably have a fair few quid saved up by now. I would say that quite a number of my programmes from the past are now collectors' items. After all, where on this planet are they still being produced? Cray's programmes were only printed in limited bundles and quite a few of them were discarded by supporters after they'd read them. And that makes the survi...

Cray Wanderers have now settled into their permanent 'forever home' at Flamingo Park, just off the Sidcup Bypass. "So, what's new with that short statement?" I can hear you asking. Well, you will have to read further, because I am about to explain the positioning of Cray's location and how it now affects even more football clubs who may have thought they had the 'run of the manor'... When our club was founded in around 1860, belief is that the Wanderers of the day played against makeshift local village teams in the surrounding areas. One by one those local sides seemed to have disappeared into thin air well before organised football was introduced by the Football Association in around the 1870s. Until their eviction from Grassmeade and, correspondingly, St Mary Cray itself the Wands were the top senior football club in Orpington, the Crays and most of North West Kent.  With the eventual introduction of Dartford FC (1888) and Bromley FC (1892), Cray fi...

In this concluding part of my mini series on players who took to the pitch at Grassmeade in the colours of Cray Wanderers during the six years that I watched them play there, I now concentrate on the plethora of strikers that the club managed to keep hold of for an average of two seasons. The Wands were very fortunate back then, as they have always been, to have a constant supply of reasonably accurate front men. The number 9 shirt has been worn with pride by so many goalgetters and long may that continue. There is a saying that the first thing you ever witness in something can't ever be beaten. In a sense, that may be true, and in a Cray Wanderers sense the jury is still out. I was spoilt when I first started watching Cray at Grassmeade. We had Barry Diggins. No other club had him... until towards the end of the 1967-68 season we all heard that he was on his way to Brentwood Town — then quite an accomplished Southern League side. Yep, he'd been pickpocketed from us after only ...

I qualified to become a football referee in 1978. It really was a case of "I reckon I can do better than that" after I witnessed some atrocious refereeing in the old Kent League back in the late 1970s. I applied for, and was allocated, a place on a referee's course that was held in Bromley.  As I recall, I didn't have to wait too long to attend the course, which lasted for several weeks, one evening per week. It was very much an indepth course that concentrated on the Laws of the Game and unsuspecting things like working out what yards, feet and inches are in metres and millimetres, positioning of referees and linesmen (linos) at corners, free kicks, throw-ins and so on. And the importance of 'running the diagonal' (Diagonal System of Control) which I personally had never really thought about before. As I was later to find out on the open football fields of our countryside, running the diagonal only works really if you've got two competent club linos runn...