Footballing memories

Many years before I discovered the wonders of blogging, I started writing a short story about the memories I had from playing football as a junior. I played junior football for seven years, and it was the best thing I’ve probably done in my life to date. I miss it hugely. I also regret not trying a little bit harder. I took it for granted.

Anyway, I started writing down my memories not so I did not forget them, but just so I could share them with others. I stumbled across the document on my PC earlier. It hasn’t been edited since November 25, 2005, although I’m sure I started writing it a long time before then. My last ever game of junior football was played in April 2005, in a game my team lost 9-1.

The story remains incomplete, but I plan to complete it at some point. I will post snippets from it on this blog from time to time. Your comments are much appreciated.

It was the end of a normal school day, and I was given a letter to put in my bag to take home, but instead of being left in the bag, it was something interesting. Cromwell Athletic football club were starting up, and looking for players at Under 7s, 8s and 9s. I decided I wanted to join. However, it took me a while to persuade my dad to take me, but fortunately I eventually did, and that’s how I got started.

The first time at training was late July, at Mary Ann Meadows, Westbrook. I remember being told to train with the Under 9s, my age group, and many of the other players were there for the first time, like me. In fact, the only person I knew was Josh, a friend from school, but unfortunately at the end of the session he was told he was too old. I didn’t end up playing in the same team as him, or so I thought, it would turn out 3 years later we would be playing in the same team.

At Under 9s, my manager was Ray Langford, and he was a good coach, and a nice bloke, and I enjoyed training for him. At that time, everyone was enthusiastic and willing to learn, I remember one awful night training at Mary Ann Meadows, the grass had just been cut, and we were doing headers. We all got covered in grass from head to toe, but we didn’t care, because we were playing football. My first ever game was at Winwick Community Centre, and we lost 7-2, our first goal coming direct from a corner. Me and a lad called Sean were playing on the wings, and his dad was shouting at us to imagine there was a five pound note on the ball!

My first ever goal came a few weeks after. My 21 year old cousin came to watch and I was obviously out to impress him! It was only a friendly, so the fringe lads got a game, meaning I only came on at half time. Paul Cliff went on a run down the right, centred over the ball, and I just remember launching myself at it, head first, and then seeing the ball fly in to the top corner from the edge of the box. It was my first ever goal, and probably my best ever goal! I scored another in that game, a tap in, and we won 6-2, against Croft.

The week after we played Sankey, and I scored another two in that one, as we won 4-2. Another tap in, and then one direct from a corner with my right foot. Although I was right footed, I was playing on the left flank, and I was working hard in training to improve my left foot, and I think I finally realised what it was for when at training one night, I ran out of pitch on the left hand side. I went on to score 6 goals in my first season from the left midfield position, although I did cover a few other positions during the season. We got to the quarter finals of the cup as well, where we lost 1-0 after extra time away at Birchwood on the golden goal, in a game which I hit the bar. My pre-match ritual in those days was to have melted cheese on toast before the game, and I put my raw pace down to that in those days, and I might be right, because I seemed to slacken in later years!

The name “Sport Report” for my blog was actually inspired by the fact that in my latter years of playing, I started reporting on matches for the website, Our Kids Sports. When I finished playing, I continue to write reports by watching other teams from various age groups. I had a load of pictures on the old website I used to run, but sadly this was lost when the server it was stored on crashed irrepairably.