My performance at Football - The Highlights

Even fewer than those on my posting about my cricketing highlights, probably because wearing glasses (no contact lenses in my youth) excluded me from even my form first team at St Clement Danes. Again, not for the want of trying, the amount of time I spent kicking a ball around with my brother John in the Mews behind Napier Road and Holland Park should have paid off, but commitment is nothing compared with an extreme lack of talent or muscle.

But out of the blue came one staggering success of sorts. At the beginning of my last year at Beaufort House Junior School in Fulham, I turned up for trials for the school team on the clay pitch of Norman Park, without any hope of coming close. But there was nobody who wanted to play in goal. After a couple of boys were tried, I was reluctantly press ganged into the keeper's position. A couple of suicidal dives at feet on the hard red surface, a bang on the nose resulting in one of frequent nose bleeds, and I was in the team. Mum knitted me a goalie's jumper and I was off to the (unusual) grass pitches of Hurlingham Park for our first game. The junior schools in Fulham had very good players in those days, so it was no surprise when I spent most of our first game picking the ball out of the net. We lost 5-2. I kept my place for the next match and this time had hardly anything to do as we won 4-0. The rest is a bit of a blur. We must have lost the next game as that was my last, and the end of my goalkeeping career for ever. Thank goodness.

I didn't play in goal for the cubs. Dad was the coach of the 37th Kensington Cub Pack and we met him at the shop on Saturday afternoons. We caught the bus to Hyde Park and walked across to Buck Hill where the pitch was marked out with poles carried on the bus. There were lots of games being played by a decent number of cub packs from all over Kensington.We had a pretty good team, and in my last year our last game became a decider for who came top of the league. We had hoped to play it on our favourite patch in the photo below. But the other side seemed more professional and we played on their pitch. There was quite a crowd that formed when word got round about the game's importance. We were down at half time, but came back strongly to win. A memorable victory.

My first grammar school of St Clement Danes was an all boys school with a yearly intake of 120 plus. Many boys selected this school as they were big on soccer. So never a chance of making even the house team. But three years later, we moved to Braintree and a new school. Mum would have preferred that I travelled on the bus to King Edward VIII in Chelmsford. But I chose the local mixed Braintree County High School, even though there was no room in the top form. Far fewer boys in my year, even fewer interested in football. In my first few weeks at the new school were the trials for the 1959/60 Under 15's. I played in my favourite deep lying midfield role, spraying long passes to the wings. And it was in this position that I made the team.

We travelled to away games by coach, and being part of this was the biggest thrill. We played a number of other mixed schools with some success. But when we played the second teams from Chelmsford and Colchester RGS, we were hammered. I think I lost my place towards the end of the season when replacements from the year below came into the reckoning. But it was great to have played most of the games. The photograph is the team that played Clacton County High School.

But no school teams after that, and the only time I remember playing after I left school were a couple of games for a George Wimpey side. We played on one of the many pitches on Wormwood Scrubs. I can remember the first game I played was on a very muddy surface. The ruts were so bad that the next game on a frozen surface was a joke. A bit like my ability at football.