Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen a few members of my family. A couple of them, play junior football. I love discussing all the memories I have from when I used to play, so I thought it was time to share with you the next part of my story. To read any previous blogs I’ve done on the subject, click here.
At the end of my first season, we moved over to Crosfields. I was a bit young at the time to understand, but it was something like Cromwell wanted us to play 11-a-side, and a lot of the parents disagreed, so we went over to Crosfields, and started again over there, still playing 7-a-side. It meant a new manager, and Adrian took over. He had a different way of training, but again, we were still young so we enjoyed anything that was asked of us. At Under 10s I moved to striker, and played the majority of the season out there, although mainly for the B Team, as the A Team had a top quality striker in Jamie Gilham. I did play on the left hand side of midfield on a number of occasions though, for the A Team. The reason I didn’t play permanently for the A Team was because we had two really good keepers, except one of them was also a talented left footed midfielder, so if he played in goal for the B Team, he played out for the A Team, meaning I was the one to miss out.
I don’t recall too much from that season, although one game playing for the A Team, I drilled in a solid goal from the edge of the box, and punched the air in delight, something my dad commented on afterwards. The only game my mum ever saw in my 7 year career was against Sankey, at Stocks Lane, and I scored a hat trick! The first one was a tap in after good work by the winger Brad, and then the second I pounced on a rebound off the keeper, before I hit one in from just inside the box to complete the hat trick. I remember Adam Moriarty coming to congratulate me with a huge grin on his face after my hat trick goal. But, I didn’t get man of the match, which left me and pretty much everyone else bewildered, and I often wonder whether the manager held something against me. It was a bit hypocritical in that the A Team striker scored 4, and got man of the match for their team for his goals, but I didn’t for the B Team. I was also disappointed I’d played much of the season up front, when I much preferred the left midfield position I’d become accustomed to playing under Ray for the Under 9s.
At the start of the Under 11s season, Charlie Ralph was in charge, and he played me on the left wing, and I think we won 2-0. In our second game, I saw the first red card handed out in a match for the first time in my career, a horrid challenge by a Peel Hall player on Eddie Ralph, which left Eddie, a tough lad, down on the floor in pain. It started to kick off a bit after that too, as one of the Peel Hall dad’s started shouting abuse and acting aggressively towards the referee. We ended up drawing the game 3-3 I think, although I do remember Jamie missing a penalty.
