Hello! How are you?

On Saturday 28th of September at 3.00 pm (western European time) we entertain at our shiny shed the infamous And Leicester from England’s Waist lands.

I’ve been struggling with this fixture and I have no idea how to write about it .I want to apologise in advance, the only way I can write this preview is to find some different (narcissistic) angle that can get me motivated, otherwise I just can’t get there.

As a kid in the 1970s, we often went down to Dymchurch on the south coast and rented a static caravan there. Meaning; retch-inducing tinned ravioli, finding severed sheep’s tails in the field behind the caravan (“here mum, what’s this?”) and mostly overcast days on the polluted beach and a freezing grey-green sea, that is if you could actually cross the busy road to get to it without being reduced to tomato purée. Laughable it it might have been to some, but it was exciting and full of new and phenomena to digest , I wouldn’t swap it for other lives or memories made.

For some strange reason we would hang out where the sewage pipe came out on the beach whilst trying to avoid the mysterious dark clumps that some comedian said was onyx ( we didn’t check), whilst playing our favourite game of filling up a plastic bottle (plenty left behind by the conscientious sharing, caring litter distributors of life) until it floats properly and then bombing the shit out of it with bigger stones to try and make it sink. As you can see it was big laughs in our family, and if you’re clever, pollution can be used to entertain you! Odd thing was I loved playing that game but would get impatient and soon find a massive rock and turn into Bomber Command and sink the fker, much to the irritation of the other players, these days I’m much more accommodating and patient. Honest Guv!

That camp site was massive and my brother and I being little Herbert’s would sneak off and explore. I can still remember us hiding under someone’s caravan watching utterly green-eyed (as alienated kids) while these two groups of families had set up a three-a- aside tournament and all their relatives were watching in deck- chairs and cheering them on. It was really cool and genuinely impressive to watch people supporting each other and having a good time, each game seemed to have the power of those late 70s late afternoon/early evening Wimbledon semi-finals; everyone giving it all and fighting to the end. Dang, I wanted to get up and play. I can’t tell what I had to eat last week, but can still remember the long-haired flash- harry kids name who dominated the tournament. This was before 1977 so the Gunners weren’t quite yet in my life in those days. But football was.

Another time I came into contact with football on holiday was on the Gower. A Jujitsu club of Asian lads had come down from Birmingham and they would run in circuits around the caravan field as part of their training, often going past ours. Slowly we got to know these two brothers that were roughly the same age and we started having a kick around with them then got grafted in the Jujitsu boys makeshift-teams.

My bruv and I really clicked with them, and for a week or so we were all best friends, young kids, no agendas, strangers, yet united by friendship in football. We did some training with them, and also joined in and ran around the Caravan park as they did endless circuits and played in some more matches as the summer nights were long. 

Then they left and we never saw them again. I can still see their faces even though I’ve forgotten their names and yet can still remember some of the things we talked about. I’ve often wondered how life treated them. Odd isn’t it that through football (and other sports) you can strike up friendships very quickly? Now I’m starting to sound like the Grandfather in Jon Boorman’s film ‘Hope and Glory’ when he’s utterly assholed and lists off all those he knew as a youngster that were now old or dead. But he was sincere, and so am I.

There was one school in our area that I played against and they had burnt down their art department the week before, so you can imagine that school had a reputation. We lined up and the opposite kid in front of me on the right wing called me a c*nt then ran his studs down my leg. Spiffing. Nice to meet you too. I was used to sports injuries by then, some tool thought I was mouthing it off at him( I wasn’t) and he spiked me (more like lacerated, I still have a massive 6″x1″ scar on my leg) at an athletics meeting, and being in the good old days he avoided any kind of punishment. Weird thing was I didn’t go off in some injured sulk but still did the 400m relay with chopped up leg in tow. He was a pill- head and was totally blocked, not much of an excuse though.

I also busted my collar bone playing rugby, trouble was I tried to carry on (it broke after getting in a three-part sandwich from which I emerged effing and blinding all dazed and confused and not giving a crêpe about what any teacher thought, such was the utter agony) and then like a tool I carried on, and tackled this guy and got up looking a bit peaky and said “sorry I’ve got to go off”. I didn’t like egg chasing too much though and after that it was the end of my career as I knew the old collar bone would just snap again. Rugby was a weird one, I played full back and was pretty fast (by 12 summers I could get under 12 seconds in the 100m and for a skinny shrimp is wasn’t bad) so I just used to run with the ball. “run Forest run!”. Scrums weren’t mine, there was a big kid kid at my school called smelly Smith. Poor bastard, he was actually a good bloke, but no-one wanted to get in behind him in the scrum as his nomenclature did him justice.

Of course (like you) I have millions of stories playing football: I recall about fifteen of us up the park all smoking cigs aged about 11 and playing football at the same time (someone shouted out “football with fags!” and we all sparked up-Woodbines or something horrible like that, but pissing ourselves laughing while we did it). But our commitment to football meant playing before school, at break, lunchtime, after school, if there was no ball, then with stones, kick arounds in the almost dark up the affo (the athletic ground), trying to avoid the creepy jimmy bastards who lurked in the park down by the swings. House school matches (we had a Rolls- Royce of a team), school matches(once in a blizzard, I was so cold I just walked home in my boots as I couldn’t get them off) and often on half frozen pitches, half quagmire, half permafrost but also playing in some really exciting games where other team wanted to turn you into Hackfleisch afterwards for beating them. Playing in the boiling summers heat and feeling knackered and sloth-like but still carrying on…

I didn’t ever win a final, played in some, but didn’t win any. I did score some goals that made golden memories(including scoring a goal that won a league) and often I was made captain, but was too shy once the title was conferred on me,( Japan: Ghosts), would often clam up and really I was a better supporter (pseudo-captain) helping as a team player more than leading people up the garden path. Plus often there were sensitive psycho’s in our team, they didn’t like being barked at, and also I was moving away from wanting to play football, it was done, I knew I could achieve no more , I hated the last team I was in as it was too divided and half the team couldn’t be bovverd. Sometimes I would play those games over in my head, the pure ecstasy of smashing that ball in the back of the net…losing and being close to tears, being severely anxious before the games, and sometimes hating every second of it. I supposed its daft as a brush to think like that but even so some of those games would make a great yarn. 

I played for several outfits at club level, one was really full of talent and sophisticated and one lad went professional and others that were just as skilful, sadly didn’t. Some became a successes, some failures (whatever that actually means) and some tragically killed themselves, others OD’d. Some found heavens and some found hells; kids, cats, dogs and divorces. Many of the places where we played have now been built over for housing and the worlds turned enough that none of those old memory- ghosts haunt anymore.

As the years fall away like autumns leaves, many of those connections come undone, and even names get lost in the tackles of time but somehow, the faces of memories don’t, and for that I’m grateful. Places like PA are a still a shed for a natter and place to potentially work things out, even if there isn’t a black and white answer.

Everyone needs a shed for a pillow?

This summer I contacted some old friends from my days working in Leeds (Karen’s a LUFC fan and Jon’s a YC fan, and yes he was at that match!) and I was blessed to swap some long emails with Karen and she was telling me about her dad who was a miner and detailed his experiences underground but also she had this to say, which really touched me:

“before I stop talking about dad, I will tell you one over thing that you will appreciate. When he was young he set up a football club called Dominoes, made up of lads who were not judged to be good enough for other locals teams that were part of the local leagues etc-Fitzwilliam Boys etc. He ran it for years, mum washed their kits and brought them half-time refreshments, and they very, very rarely won a game(not sure if they did win anything actually)but I know some of the people who played and they always say it was the best team to play for and that they had a great time”.

Sometimes just to be a part of something is so important in life, some people ridicule the idea of inclusivity but its one of the most important ideas we have as humans. But unsung heroes like Karen’s mum and dad, doing all that for those rejected lads, makes me well up thinking about how kind-hearted and decent they were. Everyone needs a chance.

Leicester? I know zilch all about them, I didn’t mind them too much back at the Filbert Street days with that low stand behind the left hand goal ( as the camera looked), but since they moved I have no relationship with them at all. I’m sure its all very insulting to them and means psychologically that I should be excluded for not being as accommodating as some hippy from Woodstock and that I’ll never work for the BBC. But that’s the way it goes.

They seem to want to be rivals with us, and got pretty irritating when it came to the end of the season some years back and they were taunting us about not qualifying for the champions league and the Spuds were ‘having a laugh etc’. Soporific guy. Soporific.

I can’t even bore you to tears with some kind of nostalgic guff where I supported them in a Cup final. Because I didn’t. I won’t.

Historically head to head we are W 72  D 45  L 33. Our first game was back in 1895 and we lost 3-1. They were called Leicester Fosse in those days , we were the boys from Woolwich and it was a 2nd division affair. Our last game with them was in Feb 2023 and we won 1-0. Their historical silverware haul is 1 FAC, 1 PL and 1 LC. At the time of writing this( 21.9.24) they lie in 15th.

Manager Steve Cooper’s overall win rate is 47.60%, his Leicester stats I’m not putting up as he’s a brand- new manager. Veteran Jamie Vardy is still their club captain the man that said that he wasn’t interested in Wenger’s offer to come to the Arsenal as ‘nothings happening there’. Well nothing doesn’t exist son. And you were wrong.

Well that’s it, lots of bits and pieces that I’m sure have made you check into a sanatorium to save your minds. I’ll be in the bed next to you also getting treatment.

Even so, here’s to a great game for us and lucky horses! 

COYG and keep on keepin’ on!

Mills