Postcards and red cards

With the weather still quite summer-like, the superfan clocked up another six games to take him up to 41 for the season and 5,714 all told. He expects to have to recall the anorak from its loan period at the Natural History Museum within the next few days.

The six results were: Hayes & Yeading United 0-3 AFC Wimbledon (FA Youth Cup), Sporting Bengal United 3-4 Erith & Belvedere (Kent League), Clissold Casuals 5-2 West End (Islington Midweek League), Bexhill United 3-2 TD Shipley (Sussex County League Division Three), Bexhill United Reserves 1-0 Little Common Reserves (Reserve Section East) and Baldon Sports 2-3 London Maccabi Lions (FA Sunday Cup).

So there were 28 goals. And six red cards too, including FOUR in one game.

Bexhill is on the East Sussex coast near Hastings and when my parents lived in that area, I was a big fan of Bexhill Town (now ‘Bexhill United’), following them both home and away in the Sussex County League. I still remember the trauma of their relegation from the top flight in the ‘90s. They had three games to play at the end of the season, all away, and they had to win all three to avoid the drop.

They won the first of those, a night game at Stamco, 5-4 with a header from a corner in the last minute. Phew. Then they faced a local derby at Hailsham on the following Saturday. Bexhill’s ‘keeper was outstanding as he kept them at bay until the 80th minute, when the goal was scored that sent them down. Bexhill fans behind the goal remarked on the scruffy appearance of the ‘keeper’s tracksuit bottoms. “We’ve been using them as the dog’s blanket”, he explained.

There was a particularly vicious-looking dog on the Eastbourne to Bexhill leg of my train journey down on Saturday. It was the sort that you would see in a ‘Wallace and Gromit’ film wearing a collar with spikes sticking out of it. If it hadn’t been sitting on its owner’s lap, and held by it, I’m sure it would’ve gone for me.

The first team kicked off at 2pm against newly promoted TD Shipley from Crawley and I was quickly joined behind the goal by a friend from the days when Dad and I used to watch games at Bexhill’s ‘Polegrove’ ground, only 50 yards or so from the sea front. It was 1-1 at half-time and I would’ve settled for a point, but table-topping United played very well in the second half to win 3-2.

With the reserve game against Little Common not due to start for half-an-hour or so, we went to the café by the beach for a cup of tea and a biscuit. I wouldn’t like to guess Peter’s age but he told me he’d attended a couple of the football matches at the 1948 Olympics, when we last hosted the Games. He mentioned Sweden v Korea at Selhurst Park, which he thought had finished 12-0.

Yesterday’s FA Sunday Cup Preliminary Round tie at Dulwich Hamlet’s ground was bizarre to say the least. Baldon Sports from the London and Kent Border League lost 3-2 to London Maccabi Lions after extra time and by the end they only had seven players. Four had been sent off in completely separate incidents and three of those were brothers! I’d never seen anything like it.