Andrzej Perkins | Max Seeburg – History maker

Max Seeburg – History maker

andrzej.perkins — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 17:11:44 +0000

Max Seeburg was born in Leipzeg in 1884, but moved to London when he was just two years old. His father ran a fur shop close to his home near Tower Bridge, and it wasn’t long before Seeburg was found kicking a ball around.

Despite being an apprentice carpenter, it was the game of football which piqued his interest best, and he soon got on with a playing career which would take him all over England. He played for ‘Park’ a Tottenham-based side, and also had a spell with an early incarnation of Cheshunt, before joining Chelsea, though he did not play a competitive game in West London.

Next up was a move to Tottenham Hotspur in May 1907, with whom he toured Belgium that summer. He scored a hat trick on the first game of the tour V Union Saint Gialloise.

Playing at either center or inside forward he managed seven goals in 24 games during the 1907-08, Southern League season, Spurs’ last before moving to the Football League. He only played once for Spurs in the Football League, but this awarded him the honour of being Spurs’ first overseas professional player, and the first European to play in the Football League.

For a while, Spurs fans had claimed he was the first foreign-born player (from any country) to play in the League, but that honour went to Canadian Walter Wells Bowman who turned out for Accrington Stanley. Seeburg could claim to be the first foreign-born professional though.

Seeburg couldn’t force his way into the Spurs team, so moved across London to sign for Leyton – then also playing as professionals but in the Southern League.

He made his debut for Leyton on 24 October, a 3-0 win over New Brompton (now Gillingham) in the Southern League; where his indroduction was deemed “an improvement” to Aylward at centre forward by The Sportsman. He scored his first goal a couple of weeks later in a 2-1 win over Brighton & Hove Albion in the Wester League and would score seven goals in 40-odd appearances that season.

After a season and a half of playing for Leyton, Seeburg left the bright lights of London, signing for Burnley, where he made 17 appearances, without scoring, perhaps understandably, given he was now playing at right half.

Midway through the season it was time for Seeburg to move east, signing for Grimsby, where he played 20 games.

Then it was time for another move, this time back down south to sign for Reading. Seemingly never going to make it as an out-and-out professional footballer, Seeburg retired from the game in 1913 to run a pub in Reading.

Towards the end of the First World War, raids on a series of addresses in Reading led to a number of German and Austrians being arrested. Max Seeburg was one and he was held in custody for a number of weeks.

He was taken to an internment camp for ‘enemy aliens’ at Newbury Racecourse, not far from his then home. At its peak, the camp held 3,000 men which were guarded by the National Reserve. The majority of the internees were German and Austrian nationals, though there were also some captured injured German soldiers at the camp too.

Internees were considered low risk and, therefore, granted more freedom and privileges within the camp.

According to the Oxford Chronicle, Seeburg stated that “the provision made for the prisoners was distinctly better than any of them anticipated.”

The Chronicle went on to say “The difficulty of the authorities in ‘sifting the wheat from the chaff’ was apparent, and he had no complaint to make on the score of being interned, although he has lived in this country since he was a child, and had all his affairs bound up in the land of his adoption.”

“The rations in the camp were very good, Mr Seeburg added, and he had nothing to complain of in regard to bedding. Plenty of blankets were supplied, with other comforts to keep them warm.”

The authorities were convinced pretty swiftly that Seeburg posed no threat, and was released after just under a month, but during that time, his pub the Marquis of Lorne was without a licence holder, and according to Reading Magistrate Sydney Brian, “there are so many soldiers about, that it is unsuitable for a woman to hold a license”. This was despite the fact that Mrs Seeburg “thoroughly understood the trade, and bore an irreproachable character”.

Mr Seeburg was to all intents and purposes English. He didn’t speak German, and his “sympathies were with this country”, so after his release, he returned to running the pub.

That lasted a little over five years, when he departed in 1920, when he was enlisted into the British Army, while working as a club steward. It was now that he was finally given a certificate of naturalization and granted British citizenship.

He remained in Reading for the rest of his life and worked as a club steward and cabinet maker, and quite possibly played the organ to a good standard, though this cannot be varified.

He died in January 1972 at the age of 87.

Every day’s a school day

andrzej.perkins — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 17:10:50 +0000

Honestly, I can’t believe I’m writing this article. But when you’re the editor, you can write what you want, I guess. Like stuff about our greatest ever players, or how long sleeve shirts aren’t worn much anymore… or how the UK’s 2006 Eurovision entry has claims to have had a half-decent career in football management.

Last week, Liverpool was unveiled as the host city for Eurovision 2023. So today I give to you the story of Daz Sampson; music producer, ‘rapper’… and professional football scout and manager?

Let’s get the musical nonsense out of the way first. Early in his career, Sampson did a bit of work on Radio Luxembourg, had a number 8 hit in 1998 with a remix of Carl Douglas’ Kung Fu Fighting, and then a spate of top 100 songs covering Val Halen, T Rex, Hall & Oates and a load more. Most of the songs are terrible, though his work as ‘Uniting Nations’ in 2004 and 2005 wasn’t awful at the time.

But here’s where things go (more) rogue. On 4 March 2006, Sampson won the BBC show Making Your Mind Up with the song “Teenage Life”, written and produced with his long-time collaborator John Matthews. The accompanying dance routine involved four young women dressed as schoolgirls, dubbed The Sampsonites.

The song, despite kicking off with a girly screech asking “What did you learn at school today” and having lyrics like “Messing on those grade As, my life is just a haze” and “Thinking of those sixth form chicks that misbehave (whatever)”, was a relative commercial success prior to Eurovision becoming a Top 10 hit for him on the UK Singles Chart with the single released on 14 May 2006 just prior to the contest. In the contest itself, Sampson only 10 of the 39 eligible countries voted for Sampson and his total score was 25 points, placing him 19th out of the 24 acts. He was, however, responsible for the highest ever UK Eurovision TV viewing figures at the time.

Sampson had three more cracks at the contest; with the UK in 2007 (didn’t make the shortlist of songs), and Belarus twice, in 2019 with a song called Kinky Boots which wasn’t selected, and in 2021, when his effort wasn’t selected either, and in any case, Belarus were kicked out of the competition.

So what of Sampson’s playing days then? He played as Stockport County and Manchester City as a youngster, but injury suffered in a motorbike accident cut short his days on the pitch.

Honestly, this story would be unbelivable if it wasn’t supposedly true. When part of Uniting Nations, Sampson had three number ones in Poland, and apparently spent so much time there that he bought a nightclub with his agent, and spent his spare time watching non-league football. As anyone who knows non-league football will tell you; hang around long enough and you’ll be dragged into doing something. According to Sampson, he’d “go and watch the local semi-professional side over the weekend and it wasn’t long before I was attending training sessions, before eventually being invited to take a few sessions in order to give them some English ideas.
“Before long I was offered the manager’s job with a side close to the foot of the table in the Polish third tier. The lads took on board everything I asked of them, we quickly moved up the table to finish third only to lose in the play-off final. I left half way through the following season, with the club in the top four, having won 13 of the 20 games played.” Pretty wild.

According to Sampson, he then returned to England, had a couple of businesses go bust, got divorced, and upped sticks to the Micronesian island Guam.

A manager’s record speaks for itself, and Sampson says, he turned around the fortunes of a struggling club on Guam.

“I threw myself into the role and helped the team to win six of the last eight games to ensure that they stayed in the top division, which I would say is Evo-Stik standard with a lot of international players from Guam and the surrounding islands playing in the league.

“We added a few players to the squad and we were near the top for much of the next season, before finishing second and also winning the Cup. I befriended several Koreans whilst on Guam, and was invited to go to Korea to do some coaching and football psychology courses. All of which added to my growing knowledge of the role.

“I enjoyed a couple of amazing years on Guam, winning around 78% of the games”.

From then, it was on to Florida, coaching players in Tampa for a bit, when he was offered a role with a university in Iowa. But by then it was time to come home.

He applied for jobs in the north west, but any potential employer no doubt Googled Sampson’s name, and were flooded by Eurovision results. Rightly or wrongly, it’s no doubt difficult to take someone seriously when that happens.

Sampson did land a role at Cheshire League Billinge, apparently winning nine of his ten games, but then went to Ahston Town as assistant manager, before that all ended in tears.He then took over as manager at Cheshire League side Halebank, but they withdrew from the league at the end of his first season, having finished 13th out of 15.

It’s not clear what has happened to Sampson since the end of the 2018-19 season. A Google search for his name and the word “football” brings up no serious results in the last four years, save for one mention in a Mirror article with an uncorroborated claim that he’s a scout with links to Ayr United and Stockport County.

And that’s a common theme in much of Sampson’s football story. There’s claims of management here and there, that his team was the best in the league, but it all seems to come from Sampson himself, rather than independent sources.

The Eurovision bit is real; millions of people can’t be wrong. But the tales of Sampson’s football career leaves us with more questions than answers.

Interview taken from https://philb1883.com/f/daz-sampson-article-2016

Whatever happened to long sleeve shirts?

andrzej.perkins — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 17:07:02 +0000

It’s cold, isn’t it? No matter how many box-to-box runs you’re doing, it’s still cold, and players must be just as cold as us watching the game. So why don’t you see anyone on the pitch in long sleeve shirts anymore? And why are base layers the biggest scourge modern football?

For most non-league teams, the decision to wear short sleeves is an economical one. Why by two sets of kits; one for when it’s warm and one for when it’s cold?

But cast your eye at the professional game, where players have a fresh shirt for each half of football, then the unease at seeing so many naked forearms only multiplies.

Even just a few years ago, players like David Beckham, Paul Ince, Stan Collymore or David Batty seemed to be in a perma-state of long-sleeved-ness.

And professionals in long sleeves was always the tradition. Right from football’s founding days, long sleeves were the standard. Shirts made from thick, heavy cotton which would carry half the pitch’s mud away with the players on an especially heavy day.
This was always the case, until those liberals on the continent started to impose their worrying fashions on the straight-laced Brits. England’s 3-6 humiliation at Wembley by Hungary marked the beginning of a new era, for England’s style of play, but it also changed how footballers in Britain looked when they played.

It reportedly inspired Umbro to produce a new, streamlined kit which was first worn by the England team in November 1954. The “Continental” style, as it was called, featured sleek V necks instead of cumbersome collars, short sleeves and lightweight, shorts cut much shorter than the traditional style worn in the UK (many European sides had been wearing light weight shorts since before the war). These modern-looking strips caught on quickly with clubs and by 1957 almost every team in England and Scotland was wearing the new-look outfits.

This was just a flirtation with the short sleeve though, as for most of the 60s Umbro returned to the long sleeve. Too hot? Shut up, roll your sleeves up and get on with it.

But as technology improved, and manufacturers realised that being hot was no fun, Umbro created the ‘Airtex’ shirt for the 1970 world cup, with small holes for ventilation.

“Really I think it was a style thing,” says kit historian and author of True Colours John Devlin.

Some players always wore long, other tough types stayed resolutely short, many changed depending on conditions. This was the natural way of things until about 10 years ago. Devlin says Rooney was the trailblazer for the move towards base layers.

“He was one of the pioneers, he was known for wearing the base layer,” he says. His adoption of the style fit a broader trend. “From the 2000s, the emphasis went from design, aesthetics, to fabrics. The sportswear firms became obsessed with performance, so lightweight shirts, moisture wicking, and every shirt was 25 per cent lighter than the previous one… You do question some of these stats”

There’s a under-celebrated marketing genius out there somewhere who realised that if you stopped calling clothes things like long johns and thermal undergarments, and referred to them as base layers or Underarmour, then impressionable young men would be far more willing to wear them.

Base layers are promoted as effective for absorbing sweat from the skin. Their tightness is supposedly good for preventing muscular injury. A skin-tight shirt is going to be harder to grab hold of when jostling during a corner than a baggy old-style long-sleeve.

Still, some wonder if football is really following the science. “Were the sports scientists paid off by what I’m calling ‘big base layer’?” asks Doug Bierton, somewhat mischievously.

Bierton is the co-founder of enormous shirt marketplace Classic Football Shirts. “Kids want exactly what the players are wearing,” he says. “If Messi and Neymar are wearing base layers then the kids will want base layers. And that’s more profit than people buying long sleeve shirts.”
According to Middlesborough kit man Peter Darke, the base layer revolution took hold a little around 2017/18. “The shirts used to be XL, one size for everybody. You look back at the history of Middlesbrough, you go back to Juninho when he was here and you see the size of the shirt that used to be on him, it was unbelievable.

“Players are so much more cared for and looked after now. Shinpads have changed dramatically, boots have changed dramatically, the technology that goes into a shirts has changed dramatically in the past 10 years.”

The current generation of young players have grown up with base layers as standard so are unlikely to consider a change of habits.

And according to the Everton kit man Jimmy Martin, this is just another example of overpaid prima donna footballers getting whatever they want.

“They feel better in it, you’ve got to have it these days. It’s not like years ago, if they’d come to me and said ‘I want that’ I’d just tell them to get lost.

“I wouldn’t have had any players in under-layers, hats or gloves. Or coaches, but it’s all changed now.”

One hold out at Everton was James Rodriguez, but according to Martin; “He just wears it because he’s cold, he still has an under-layer underneath”.

But a few faithfuls aside, it seems the long sleeve shirt’s days are numbered. Several English clubs don’t even bother making replicas any more. You can buy Manchester United’s home shirt with long sleeves, but not their dazzle ship third strip. Liverpool only sell short sleeves. This scarcity means long sleeved versions will remain collectible.

The traditionalists have an uphill struggle. For many years Arsenal had a rule. The kit man and captain decided whether it was a day for long or short sleeves and the rest of the team followed suit.

“When you look at that you realise how great it is when the team looks uniform,” says Devlin. “The clue’s in the word.

“The players should look good and when you’ve got base layers, especially when you’ve got teams like Blackburn Rovers who have different colour sleeves it’s you start to think, well where does the base layer come in?

“Celtic, do they have hoops on their base layer? They don’t. Should they have?

“It starts to look messy.”

The Arsenal sleeve tradition has fallen by the wayside in recent years. Now their players wear a mish-mash. All had short sleeves on, some were braving the cold, others went for a base layer. Most will be happy that Kieran Tierney probably won’t ever be Arsenal captain; the tough Scot would question why not just paint the shirt on our bare torsos? The lunatic.

Playing games

andrzej.perkins — Sat, 22 Oct 2022 16:04:37 +0000

If you’re reading this, then it would be fair to assume that you’re already aware of the cultural significance of the table-top football game Subbuteo.

22 inch-high figurines give children, and more often now adults, the chance to recreate their favourite footballing moments in miniature. It’s a tough ask to pull younger football fans away from their Xboxes and PlayStations, but there still exists a community of analogue die-hards who continue to play, design and build.

Like the real-life version, Subbuteo is a relatively simple game, played on a felt pitch with 22 players and a ball. But while most of us can only dream of being responsible for a top-flight football club, Subbuteo gives people the opportunity to be in total control over every minute aspect, including the stadiums.

While the Subbuteo-playing community isn’t the largest, there exists an even smaller group within it, who are more interested in recreating their favourite stadiums in miniature, or even designing their own from scratch.

Subbuteo themselves have created a wide range of stadium elements themselves, from floodlights to scoreboards, and in a reflection of the times, in the 1980s, they created additional sets which included crowd barriers, policemen and paramedics.

But the work of the home hobbiest is where the real talent and creativity comes out.

One of the first known stadium builders was Carl Pownall, from Newsome, West Yorkshire, who finished the beauty pictured below in 1990 after eight years of work. his hand-built stadium in 1990. Each figure got two coats of paint; his masterpiece contains 6,750 spectators plus 200 police, ambulance, camera crew, photographers, ball-boys and VIPs. He said: ‘I have always been interested in football – I’m just a big kid really.’

While Pownall’s effort set the standard, there have been some incredible efforts more recently.

“The Stadium of Fingers” comes with a multitude of motion-activated cameras, and even a blimp hanging from the ceilingto catch all the action from above. The stands have “Yuppie Corner” and “Cheering Corner”, as well as a couple of Italian bistros to serve the hungry football fans.

There’s only one real winner when it comes to who’s got the best stand in the game. Pictured above is Bill Badger’s recreation of our very own Wadham Lodge, complete with Rabble flags, and to-scale cat banner. There’s the customary football getting stuck in the netting above the stand too, but perhaps the grass on the artificial pitch is just a bit too green compared to what we’ve ever had at the Lodge.

Started as a lockdown project, Bill has even snuck in a custom-made Adalberto Pinto figurine, though it may be a while until a full Stow set is available in the shops… He’s got plans to add in The Rabble over the coming year, so if you want to get a spot at the front, get in quick!

With all things retro seemingly making a comeback, have a dig around the loft and see where your set is. It’s probably just underneath that Hornby trainset.

Pictured: Bill Badger’s recreation of Wadham Lodge.

Thinking about Tel

andrzej.perkins — Sat, 22 Oct 2022 16:01:03 +0000

Few people could claim to have had such a big impact on a club in such a short space of time. Terry Back was club chairman from summer 2007 to November 2008 and the north Londonder, who passed away in 2012 will never be forgotten in E17.

As a player, Back had something of a nomadic career, playing for a multitude of clubs around south-east England, including Buntingford Town, where he would later play for the Veterans team. He also had spells at Wisbech Town as a player where he was something of a fans’ favourite, and would later return, albeit for less than 24 hours.

He was a typical ‘heart on his sleeve’, ‘would run through brick walls’ footballer, who always gave his all wherever he played, if not always the most gifted.

His first experience of football management came in the 2001-2 season, when he was part of the backroom team at Aylesbury United, helping them to promotion to the Isthmian League Premier Division, and the first round of the FA Cup, where they lost to Port vale.

Just a few days after the 2001-2 season ended, Back was appointed as Enfield manager. Enfield were of course, one of the biggest names in non-league football, but the sale of their Southbury Road ground in 1999 began a nomadic existence and a drop down as far as the Essex Senior League, as well as the creation of a breakaway club by the supporters, Enfield Town.

Tom Louziou had just about kept Enfield in the Isthmian Premier, but it proved to be a far harder job for Back. With Enfield playing games at Boreham Wood and strapped for cash, Back was unable to stave off relegation to Division One North.

He kept his job though, and built an Enfield team that featured a host of names which Waltham Forest fans would soon become familiar with. James Courtnage, Danny and Scott Honeyball, Joe Deeney, Matt Waldron, Jeff Hammond, George Fowler, Adrian Griffith and a whole host more would play for Forest during Back’s tenure.

But things went from bad to worse at Enfield. With chairman Tony Lazarou pulling the strings from behind the scenes, Back couldn’t do anything to stop the free-fall, and he left mid-way through the 2003-4 season. Enfield eventually finished rock bottom with just 22 points and having conceded 138 goals.

In September 2004, Back was appointed manager of Walton and Hersham, then in Division One of the Isthmian League. But Back only lasted four games before following the Chairman Nick Carr out of the club.

“I am absolutely devastated that I have had to leave,” said Back. “I felt we would definitely have gone up this year with the players we had on board.”

However, he refused to answer questions on the reasons behind his sudden departure, preferring to remain tight-lipped.

“I can’t go into the reasons too much,” he said. “I felt from my point of view that it was time to call it a day.”

Back was followed out the door at Stompond Lane eight members of Swans’ 17-strong first team squad, leaving the side seriously depleted.

Aside from a failed attempt at creating a new club in Aylesbury in early 2006, Back stayed out of senior football for a few years, instead concentrating on building his business empire.

—

It was a familiar story for our club in the summer of 2006. Previous Chairman Harry Ramis had resigned, having failed in his ambitions to elevate Waltham Forest to the Football Conference. During his three and a half years in charge, Forest never finished higher than eighth. So Forest were left without a chairman, without any financial backing, and looking down the barrel of resigning from the Isthmian League.

Word got around, favours were called in and phone calls were made, and eventually Terry met then-club secretary Andy Perkins at the Wadham Cafe on Wadham Road, a stone’s throw from the ground. Less than 24 hours later, the league registration fees were paid in full and Terry was elected as club chairman.

Back really had the gift of the gab, and could no doubt sell ice (and a whole lot more) to the eskimos, but with Waltham Forest about to go out of existence altogether, he probably never had an easier ‘sell’ in all his life.

Terry got to work straight away, using his contacts to bring money into the club, and prepare the club for the coming 2006-7 season. When not on the end of the phone, he could be found on the mower on the Wadham Lodge pitch, getting it in the best shape for many years.

It would have been easy for Terry to replace Forest manager Dave Muir before a ball had even been kicked; but to Terry’s credit, he gave Muir and his talented, but inexperienced team a pre-season with his full backing. Four games into the league season though, with 15 goals conceded and no points on the board, the club’s committee, together with Terry, decided to part ways with Muir and bring in Danny Honeyball for his second spell as manager, having previously been in charge during the 2002-3 season.

And this began one of the most enjoyable, positive seasons the club had enjoyed in almost a decade. Back and Honeyball rifled through their little black book of non-league contacts and assembled almost a whole new team in just a few days. The new-look Forest team had just one training session together, before travelling to Marlow in the FA Cup.

Aside from scrounging a whole new team together, and having trained only once, preparations were hardly ideal for that tie. Defender Ryan Oliva played a full 90 minutes despite having had an operation on his jaw the night before and player-manager Honeyball broke his wrist midway through the second half, and would have to sit out seven weeks.

Back was unperturbed though, and Forest put in a real blood and guts performance to win 2-0. It would take a few more weeks to get going in the league, and after going eight league games without a win, that first victory finally came with a 3-1 win away to Wivenhoe Town, with Ryan Hall, Danny Gabriel and Victor Renner scoring.

And that started a run of form wich propelled Forest up the table. A 2-1 win against front-runners Harlow Town at the Lodge was impressive, but the best result of all was probably holding eventual champions Hornchurch to a goalless draw, which Forest could have and should have won.

More than anything though, Back really ‘got’ what non-league football was about. And this was perhaps most evident during his time at Forest, during a trip to Wellingborough Town in a preliminary round replay of the 2007-8 FA Cup. After a 90 mile midweek trip, Forest were somewhat lethargic, struggling to get going against a team from the division below. When a loose ball went out of play between the two dugouts, Back turned to the Forest bench and said “watch this”. Within a couple of seconds, the Wellingborough manager was on the floor, not having expected Back – fully suited and booted – to have tackled him for the loose ball.

It didn’t take long for the benches to clear, and for 30 men to get their handbags out. Back returned to the Forest technical area in hysterics; the Wellingborough bench having played their part in his plan to perfection. It got the Forest players going too, as they finally started playing with a bit more bite and scored two second half goals to assure passage to the next round.

If there was one criticism of Back, it was that he didn’t hang around at any one club for very long. He left Waltham Forest in November 2007, just over a year after taking over. A new opportunity presented itself at Arlesey Town, where he was appointed Chairman, taking Danny Honeyball and most of the Forest team with him. The fate of the fixture calendar would have his first game for Arlesey would be against Forest; a game which ended 2-2, with Forest goalkeeper Jason Willis scoring form his own penalty area.

Back lasted at Arlesey until the end of the season, but left there for his local Wisbech Town, where he had hoped to become Chairman. Unfortunately he lost the deciding vote by 15 votes to 13, and left the club’s committee a day after joining. This really ended Back’s involvement in senior non-league football.

Back was always one to give players – especially youngsters – a chance in football and in life. Upon Back’s passing former Forest defender and Assistant Manager Matt Waldron said “We had some great times, we had some bad times. Thanks for giving me my first start in non league at 17, played under him at Stortford, Walton & Hersham, Enfield, Waltham Forest & Arlesey. Will be truly missed.”, while Aveley coach Victor Renner added: “May your soul rest in peace Terry Back thinking of your family and praying for them. Thanks for giving me my first job in Non-League football mate”. Back also gave this piece’s author his first job, working for Back’s Soccer in Schools football coaching company.

For Forest, Back’s departure began a downward spiral, ending in relegation to the Essex Senior League, from which the club has only recently recovered. But for 16 months, he brought smiles back to the faces of the supporters and the committee in E17, and for that, he will always have a place in our hearts.

Terry tragically passed away aged just 45 in 2012 after being involved in a road traffic accident, leaving behind eight children and two grandchildren.

Full board

andrzej.perkins — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 16:00:07 +0000

There’s a corner of non-league that few people will ever get to experience. Once upon a time the post-match meal or boardroom buffet was a source of pride for clubs; with three-course meals being offered up to players and officials. But times are changing, and boardroom hospitality seems to be going the same way as flags on the halfway line, and cup final rosettes.

My earliest memory of being in a football boardroom was at our 1996 London Challenge Cup final, played at Millwall’s (then) New Den. I have no memory of the game, or anything else about the game, other than being frozen to the bone, and saved by my first taste of Tandori Chicken from the mega-spread on offer to the club officials.

Years of following Dad around the boardrooms of south east England, and now frequenting them in my own right, means I’ve had my fair share of curly cheese sandwiches and miniature sausage rolls with questionable meat content. Millwall will always remain a highlight, but there are some clubs who still take pride in this dying corner of football. For a long time, Boreham Wood served a full Chinese takeaway, while Felixstowe and Walton provided a kebab and salad on our last visit.

There was a period at Wadham Lodge when we too provided an authentic Turkish kebab, cooked on hot coals next to the pitch. It was one of then-Chairman Turgut Esendagli’s greatest contributions to the club (and I mean that in the most sincere sense), but as we struggled for results on the pitch, the enthusiasm for someone to cook a full meal twice a week for some ungrateful players soon wore off.

But on the whole, the provision of food has become more functional, and more of a tick-box exercise. Players and committee no longer have the time, or desire, to sit around gorge on platters of beige party-food. Those who stay after full time are usually happy with a plate of sausages and chips. For those who prefer not to hang around, nothing much is being missed out on.

While many non-league committees are on the slightly older side, there is a new influx of young(er) people playing key roles in running their clubs. The vast majority of these – myself included – are happy enough with a cup of tea at half time, and a beer with their players after the game.

In the Essex Senior League last year there was probably only three or four games when opposition officials came into the boardroom – we were left standing around looking at a plate of curly cheese sandwiches, thinking of the waste. Teams in the Southern League haven’t been much more interested so far. Would you be when you have a two-hour journey to make?

Providing food and drinks in a boardroom costs money, and means an extra volunteer (or paid employee) are required, more often than not, just to tick a box.

There will be some who bemoan the death of the boardroom as another sign of modern football strengthening its grips on the game’s traditions. But when all you’re doing is keeping a few people happy with some stale bread and whatever cake is on offer in Tesco, is there much point?

Training grounds

andrzej.perkins — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 08:17:40 +0000

For all the cost, delays and dodgy toilets, there’s still something romantic about crossing the country by train. The travelling football fan’s knowledge of the UK’s rail system is perhaps only matched by that of a down at heel travelling salesman. For on every Saturday, thousands of football fans travel from Penrith to Penzance, from Stoke to… Southend Victoria, following their team through thick and thin.

But so little about football away days is actually about the game; it’s all about the journey. Floodlights in the distance will pique the interest of the travelling fan. Is that Burton Albion? Derby County? Nottingham Forest? Oh, it’s just a car park.

Travelling through the British countryside at 100 miles per hour, non-league grounds will flash by in an instant. The football league behemoths will stay in view a little longer, with fleeting glances of their hallowed turf offered up by gaps between the grandstands.

A sense of unease that you might be missing a game at these grounds takes over, never mind that it’s a Thursday afternoon in June.

The Emirates, Wembley, Vicarage Road, Gresty Road and the DW Stadium all come in to view on the trip north, presenting the opportunity for a “Hey lads, guess which ground this is” message to the group chat.

But then there’s the games you’ll see taking place on a Saturday afternoon. What am I doing on a train? I should be at a game! A glimpse of 22 men in blue and red flickers by. Suddenly you spring into action – where am I? What level does that look like? I wonder what league it is. Think about it long enough and you’ll work out exactly who was playing, and come up with far-fetched conclusions about the final score, based on just a couple of seconds’ play that you saw. “Defintely a deserved three points for Binclestead Sports & Social.”

On our travels this season, there will be opportunity to see Hertford Town v Stow and Berkhamsted v Stow on the West Anglia and West Coast Main Lines respectively. Last season we had Redbridge’s Oakside, a more humble offering from the banks of the Central Line.

But if you really want to do things properly, then a trip to Slovakia is order, to see TJ Tatran Čierny Balog, who have a heritage steam train running between the pitch and the main stand. You can’t imagine any other answer to the question “Why?” than a couple of blokes looking around going “It’s a laugh, init?”.

So as you travel the country this year, just keep an eye out of the window, you never quite know what you’ll see.

Hooligans: Storm over Europe

andrzej.perkins — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 10:29:53 +0000

If ‘Goat Simulator’ has taught us anything, that there really is a computer game for everything. In recent years the Grand Theft Auto franchise has caused uproar thanks to a mix of car-jacking, pimping, and quite a lot of murdering.

But in 2002, there was a ‘football’ game which made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Hooligans: Storm Over Europe was released on the PC just a couple of years after England fans had tore their way through France, then Belgium and the Netherlands.The game is played out over the course of a football season, with the object to become the most notorious group of hooligans in Europe.

The game is set in a ‘documentary’ where one of the reporters – a former hooligan himself – joins the local firm in the Netherlands for a tour around Europe. Your merry band of men are supposed to help their team win a non-descript continental cup through any means necessary. In order to achieve this the player proceeds through a variety of levels set in different locations and must injure or kill every opposing hooligan gang.

The hooligans within the game are divided to several classes, the Leader is the central member to the entire squad and the only one able to use handguns(!!) and rally his men and other members of the firm.

The Rat acts as a scout and can break into residential places without alerting the law, but has limited stamina and easily gets drunk and high.

The Hooligan is the demolitions expert and is used for crowd control.

The Raver is a party-going member who can distract other gang members by using his loud boombox and has strong drug tolerance, but low alcoholic tolerance.

The Biker and Bulch have the most amount of health but the Biker can drive any car, using it as a transport or as a weapon against enemies. The Bulch is one of the three major units, an overweight dumb man who functions as the muscle, beating up other hooligans as well as being able to push certain objects to limit the movement of the enemy.

If this all sounds bonkers, it’s because it is.

During play the members of the gang must be sustained by administering drugs, alcohol and violence on a regular basis. Failure to keep the gang members fueled will see them drift off to more peaceful and legal activities. Looting of the local shops during the game can provide funds for the gang, and the player must overcome resistance from both rival gangs and the police forces to achieve victory.

Once you’ve heard all that, it’s perhaps not a surprise that the game caused some controversy when it was launched.

Darxabre, the Dutch creator of the game, defended the game saying that it rewarded strategic thinking rather than violence, and that there were many more violent games currently available.

Jason Garber, chief executive of Darxabre, said the idea grew out of increasing frustration with games that are all about killing trolls or waging war in space and have nothing to do with real life.

“We realised that if you approach it with a sarcastic, ironic view of the hooligan subject, you could get a good game going,” said Mr Garber.

He said the game rewarded players that outsmarted rather than outpunched opposing hooligan groups, he said.

“It’s not just destruction and mayhem,” said Mr Garber, “We tried to give it more depth and scope.”

“Why single out this one game?” he said. “If it’s not correct then why, apparently, is it correct to make games about World War II in which millions died?”

But even before it is released Hooligans has attracted criticism with the Football Association and Home Office condemning the game, and one French tabloid newspaper branded Mr Garber a “fascist” for creating and promoting the game.

Roger Bennett, general director of the European Leisure Software Publishers Association, defended Hooligans and said the game makers were just reflecting life as it is now: “It is important that everyone should be aware that these are games and should be fun,” said Mr Bennett. “I don’t think we should take it so seriously all the time.”

He added that all computer games had to go through a rating procedure and if Hooligans proved to be overly violent then its sale would be restricted to older people.

Despite the furore, the game never really sold many copies, and you can now dowlnoad it for free at Give it a go for yourself by heading to abandonwaredos.com.

Giving Ajax their stripe

andrzej.perkins — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 07:59:38 +0000

In the early 1900s, the stature of our club was far greater than current supporters could ever imagine. Then known as Leyton FC, and playing in the Professional Southern Football League in front of crowds of over 20,000, the team was filled with former and current and future internationals.

Among their number in the 1909-10 season was Jack Kirwan, an outside left who would go on to change world football forever. We may never have seen the likes of Bergkamp, Cruyff, van Basten, Total Football or one of the most famous kits in the game, were it not for Kirwan; the diminutive winger who would set sail from East London to Amsterdam, to take Ajax to the first division for the first time.

British coaches were very fashionable in 1910, according to Ajax’s Heritage Manager Carel Berenschot, who told the Irish Mail on Sunday that “The first trainer had to be a British trainer, since soccer was thought to be invented in Great Britain”.

Kirwan wrote to the club in 1953, saying, “I will always remember the kindness and treatment I received from the club and supporters. I wish them every success in the future. I will remember the night we returned to Amsterdam, the night we became first-class [promoted to the top division]. What a great reception the team had. Well, I have had all the football honours a footballer could have. From English cap and many more. But never had a better reception than that night.”

There was only one issue with that statement, though, and Ajax’s belief that they had hired a British coach… Kirwan was, in fact, Irish, and impressively so.

Kirwan was born in Dunlavin, County Wicklow in 1878, and long before he played association football, he was a member of the Young Ireland Gaelic football side of the 1890s and was involved in two All-Ireland finals for Dublin, winning the 1894 title (though only on a technicality, as Cork fans invaded the pitch and attacked a number of rival players minutes before the end).

He crossed the Irish Sea in the summer of 1898 and set about turning his hand to the British version of football. After playing a couple of games for Southport Central, he quickly attracted the attention of both Everton and Blackburn Rovers, eventually settling for the Merseyside club for a fee of £250.

It was at Tottenham Hotspur where he really made his name, though, playing over 300 games and helping Spurs to win the FA Cup in 1901. According to The Complete Who’s Who of Tottenham Hotspur FC, Kirwan was “An out-and-out winger, he did not appear to have the physique to overcome the often robust challenges of the defenders of the day, but in fact, had such an abundance of skill that defenders were rarely able to get close enough to tackle him”.

Now aged 27, the bright lights and fat wallets of the newly-formed Chelsea came calling, and Kirwan was named in the west London club’s first-ever Football League starting XI against Glossop North End, contributing a goal for good measure.

He played 73 times for Chelsea, but 12 years of hard knocks in Gaelic football and the just-as-physical association football had begun to take their toll. After three seasons at Chelsea, he moved north of the border to Clyde, helping them to what remains their highest ever finish of third-placed in the Scottish First Division.

But it wasn’t long before Kirwan was back in London, joining up with his former Spurs colleague Sandy Tait, who was now the Leyton manager, for one final hurrah.

Kirwan was an almost ever-present during his one season with Leyton, playing in all but three of his club’s games, scoring six goals. He missed the two games on the 27th and 29th of December with “a cold”, though being teetotal and a non-smoker, this may well have been true. Leyton finished 10th overall, thanks in no small part to Kirwan’s contribution.

He retired from playing at the end of the 1909-10 season, and was quickly offered a job at Ajax, though little of it was reported at the time, with British newspapers just commenting that the famous forward “had moved to Holland to coach”.

In 1910, Ajax were still an amateur club playing in the Dutch second division. However, it was at this time that the then-chairman, Chris Holst, looked to push the club on, by investing more money, signing new players and hiring a British manager. During a summer tour of England, Holst happened to come across Jack Kirwan. As an out-of-work former FA Cup winner and an international footballer with 17 (Irish) caps, Kirwan was just what Holst was looking for and was hired. Kirwan kept his true nationality quiet from Holst, playing along with the assumption that he was British, becoming Ajax’s first-ever professional coach.

Kirwan was an immediate success in Amsterdam. In his first season, he steered Ajax to the second division title, and after winning a promotion play-off against Breda Zeste, Ajax became a top-tier club for the first time.

This promotion had one other long-lasting legacy. A kit-clash with Sparta Rotterdam meant Ajax would have to change their strip, adopting Kirwan’s chosen colours of white with a single red stripe.

The Dutch National Championship, as it was then known, was split into two divisions, East and West. Ajax took their place in the Western division alongside teams such as Sparta Rotterdam and Haarlem. In the 1911-12 season Ajax finished eighth and avoiding relegation – as much as Ajax could have hoped for. All the while, Ajax’s stock was on the rise, and Gerard Fortgens became the first Ajax player to be ever selected for the Dutch national team.

After another solid season in 1912-13, Ajax were unfortunately relegated in 1914, forcing Kirwan to re-build the team from the bottom up. His work was cut short by the outbreak of the First World War, when Kirwan returned to London.

After the war, he went back to his native Ireland to manage Bohemians of Dublin for a season and then spent two seasons in Italy, guiding Livorno to third and fifth-placed finishes in the northern section of Prima Divisione (the predecessor to Serie A). He had one final spell in professional management at Bohemians in 1924, before returning to London to settle for good.

He was a sportsman to the end, and after a brief couple of years owning a sweet shop in Wealdstone, he worked as an engineer for Lyons and Co, where he served until he was 79, all while managing the Old Lyonians FC.

While not the most famous or successful manager in Ajax’s history, there can be no doubt that the Irishman (via East London) sewed the seeds which helped Ajax become the club they are today.

Kirwan wasn’t the only former club player to have success managing abroad though; last season, we looked at Billy Barnes, who won three Copa Del Reys at Athletic Bilbao (you can read that on walthamstowfc.com), and more recently, Hasan Oktay led Gor Mahia to the Kenyan Premier League title in 2019.

The things that ‘feel’ the most football, aren’t really football

andrzej.perkins — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 07:57:53 +0000

There’s so much to love about football. The last-minute winners, the incredible cameos, the club legends…

But if the enforced absence from grounds and changes to pre-match routines of the last 18 months have taught us anything, is that the best things about football very rarely have anything to do with the game itself.

Some of the best things about the game we love are the sights, smells and feelings we experience from everything that goes on outside of teh game itself.

Someone, somewhere must have written a thesis on how the smells you experience growing up shapes your future. The smell of deep heat or damp grass at night will never not take me back to Wadham Lodge as a ten or eleven year-old. And I will fight anyone who disagrees that the smell of fried onions isn’t one of life’s best pleasures. It just isn’t the same at home. The onions have to be cooked on some decrepit grill, with decades of accumulated grease, and a very questionable approach to food hygiene.

And what about Bovril? You’d struggle to find a single person here today who has ever had a mug of Bovril at home. But as soon as you get to a football ground… cup of beef juice? Sure, why not. But standards must be kept! One Stow fan still has sleepless nights about the crushed up Oxo cube which was passed off as Bovril at Barking last season.

Save a space for big-money advertising for things you can’t actually buy too. Far-east gambling websites aside, how many people watching the average Football League game are in a position to buy metal Rainham Steel, on what one can only assume is an industrial scale? Their committment to supporting football must had admired. And how much impact on sales of the luminous energy drink has Carabao’s sponsorship of the League Cup had?

Sky Sports are responsible for some pretty reprehensible things, but it’s difficult to argue that their early-era Premier League adverts are amongst some of the best ever made on TV. Simple Minds’ Alive and Kicking will never not bring up images of Vinny Jones in the shower, or 19 other of the Premier League’s first stars sweating it out down the gym. Sean Bean’s performance in the 1997-8 season opener remains one of his finest two minutes to date.

For many though, there’s only one winner when it comes to celebrating things about football that have nothing to do with the game itself. Putting on your lucky pants, meeting up with your mates, and travelling to some far-flung hole with no train stations within 20 miles can be such a crucial part of a football supporter’s life. Many have felt the pain of going without since the start of the pandemic, and it’s only then that we realised what we had. Hopefully we never have to go so long again.