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  The game was against Forresters FC and it would kick off at 10.30am. I decided to go home and get an early night so I would be fresh for my debut.

  I was in bed by 8.30pm, happy to sacrifice Match of the Day for the greater good of the Hayesford Park Reserves team.

  ISTHMIAN LEAGUE HOW THEY STAND

  29TH SEPTEMBER 1969

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I arrived at Derek’s house at 9.30am the next morning, having spent the previous half-hour cleaning my boots, which now smelt heavily of Chelsea Dubbin polish. This seemed to be suspiciously similar to ordinary Dubbin, but since it had been advertised in Charlie Buchan’s Football Monthly, I assumed it was a superior product.

  Derek’s kit was neatly packed, in stark contrast to my overstuffed duffel bag. We were playing at Norman Park, which was right behind Bromley’s ground and it only took ten minutes to get there on the empty Sunday morning roads.

  Peter and Roy were already there, together with four or five scruffy, unshaven characters who I didn’t recognise. I later learnt they were all binmen who worked with Roy.

  Peter was dressed in a dark-blue tracksuit, the bottoms of which were tucked into yellow football socks. He was wearing football boots and holding a bucket that contained a sponge in one hand and a huge blue laundry bag in the other. He had decided he would be more use as our trainer than as a player.

  Once the groundsman had come along and unlocked the changing rooms, Peter opened his bag and removed a pile of slightly worn red football shirts with white cuffs and threw one to each of the players. It was never explained how he had acquired these but I later learned they had once belonged to Hayesford Park, who were, in theory, our first team. I caught mine and looked to see what number I had been given. It was the number nine – Alan Stonebridge’s number. Although I was trying to appear calm, I was deeply excited. It meant I would be leading the attack, possibly based on the exaggerated claims made concerning my footballing abilities at the tea-hut the previous day.

  I proudly put my shirt on, hoping no-one would notice the fabric stretching uncomfortably over my midriff.

  We then set off to put the nets up. I had never played a game with proper nets before, which only led to increase my anxiety and feeling that I didn’t really belong there.

  During our warm-up, three things were immediately apparent. Derek was, indeed, an outstanding goalie. Roy, however, was a terrible full-back. He wore his glasses and stumbled around the field like a newborn foal, swinging wildly at the ball with his long, skinny legs and usually missing it. The other thing was that I was completely out of my depth. These were grown men I was playing with, who were faster, fitter and, with the exception of Roy, far more skilful.

  Peter had decided we would play 4–3–3. I would be upfront alongside Cavan, an Irish dustman, and Raymond Arthur Smart, a plumber, whose middle name and occupation I knew because they were written in large letters on his van, which was parked on the side of the pitch.

  No-one had turned up to watch. I had been half-hoping that one or two of the Bromley players would come along to support their supporters, but it seemed they had resisted the temptation.

  I touched the ball only a few times in the entire game, usually when we were kicking off after conceding yet another goal. If it wasn’t for Derek, we wouldn’t have found ourselves only 6–0 down with a couple of minutes left and with the interest having long gone out of the game.

  He’d been outstanding, making save after save once the Forresters winger had worked out he had pretty much got a free ride down Roy’s side of the field and put over a succession of crosses.

  But now it was our turn to mount a rare attack. A Forresters goal kick found me midway between the half-way line and penalty area. I kept taking the ball towards the goal and the defenders kept backing away.

  The nearer I got to goal, the more panic I felt. I was desperately trying to find someone to pass to, but they were all being tightly marked. Eventually, as I was only about ten yards from the goal, I decided I might as well have a shot. From that moment on, everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.

  I mishit the ball with the inside of my right boot and it spun away from the goalie, who had been wrong-footed. He and I watched in disbelief as it trickled towards the goal line and then kept on going over the line, before nestling in the net. I went berserk, charging around as though I’d got the winning goal in a Wembley cup final.

  I replayed the goal in my mind literally hundreds of times in the hours following the game and made sure I’d never forget it by drawing a detailed diagram in my scrapbook as soon as I got home.

  I then asked my mum to wash the shirt straight away so I could wear it back to Sevenoaks, under my school shirt. It would be several days before I could be persuaded to remove it.

  There was to be a perfect end to my perfect week. When I got the Bromley Advertiser the following Saturday, there was a small match report on the inside back page, which Peter had undoubtedly contributed. The final paragraph of three finished with the words ‘David Roberts struck a consolation goal for Hayesford Park Reserves just before the final whistle’.

  I cut it out and stuck it alongside the diagram in my scrapbook.

  •••

  My first proper game of football was followed a day later by my first proper game of rugby.

  It was the 4th Form inter-house competition and I was playing for Johnson’s against another boarding house, Lambardes. It wasn’t really fair as we had several boys who played for the school and we won comfortably.

  The highlight for me was scoring a try to go with my goal the previous day. I’d been passed the ball just out from their line. Picking out the smallest boy, I closed my eyes and launched myself at him. His skinny frame was no match for my 12-stone bulk and when I opened my eyes again, I was over the line, touching the ball down.

  The first thing I did when I got back to Johnson’s was to find a blank page in my autograph book and sign it with a slightly bored flourish. Then underneath, I printed the words:

  D.A. ROBERTS. HAYESFORD PARK RESERVES AND JOHNSON’S RUGBY TEAM.

  In the space of a week I had uncovered a previously undetected sporting prowess, scored a goal and a try as well as getting my name in the paper. That was the good news. The bad news was that Bromley had lost two in a row.

  I hoped it wasn’t about to become three.

  Alan Bonney, who had come so close to scoring an own goal on the previous Saturday finally succeeded in a rearranged fixture at Ilford on the Tuesday. But his contribution was unnecessary. They still would have won without him.

  Once again, I was stuck at Johnson’s and once again, I had to rely on furtive visits to the phone box. Having sensed some hostility when I’d repeatedly rung Leytonstone the week before, I decided to try and disguise my voice every time I rang the Ilford ground, in case whoever answered got fed up with the same person always ringing and eventually stopped answering.

  Firstly, I attempted a sort of Scottish accent, which was based on Dr Cameron, a character from the TV series Dr Finlay’s Casebook.

  ‘Halloo, I was wonderin’ if ye could tell ma the score?’ I asked.

  ‘Ilford are 3–0 up,’ said a man who sounded quite pleased with the way things were going.

  I was shocked. This was not what I was expecting. Conceding three first-half goals was an abysmal start, even by Bromley’s recent standards.

  ‘Oh NO,’ I said, completely forgetting about the Scottish accent. ‘How long have they been playing?’

  ‘About half an hour.’

  I thanked him and rang off. By my calculations, Ilford were scoring a goal every ten minutes. If they kept that up, they would end up winning 9–0.

  I was immediately plunged into a deep depression. I felt powerless. My team was disintegrating and I couldn’t even be there to support them.

  I didn’t ring again. I didn’t even want to know what the final score had been, so I just assumed my calculations were correct and we had lost 9�
�0 to fourth-from-bottom Ilford. When I later found out that it had only been 3–0, I was irrationally happy.

  Bromley were drifting back down the table and now only had Walthamstow Avenue and Corinthian Casuals below them, with Ilford and Woking just above.

  I slowly realised that games against these lowly teams had provided all of Bromley’s points for the season and that they still had to play most of the good teams.

  •••

  It took me several attempts to read the team news for the upcoming FA Cup game against Hillingdon Borough, because there was a huge hole in the sports page of the paper where I had cut out the Hayesford Park Reserves match report, which had been on the other side.

  Alan Bonney, who had managed two own-goals in recent matches was thankfully going away on holiday to Greece, but this had come too late to save the great Alan Soper, who had been dropped for the return of Ian McGuire.

  Bonney’s replacement would be Graham Gaston, who I had given the nickname ‘Gasmask’ confident that all the Bromley fans would soon be calling him that. It hadn’t really caught on, though.

  It seemed Gasmask’s printing business would be able to spare him, after the special contract that had kept him busy had almost been completed.

  There was another signing which had me very excited. Although Bromley were seemingly keeping it low-key, I was sure that the news of Dave Clark joining the club would soon get out. It had been tucked away at the end of a preview of the weekend’s game, but I suspected this was deliberate.

  The boys I played football with at the park had assured me that it was the Dave Clark, drummer and leader of the Dave Clark Five, who had been on Top of The Pops a few months ago with a rock’n’roll medley, which I didn’t like as much as their earlier stuff.

  The best thing about him playing for us was that the Crystal Palace fans would be really annoyed – their theme tune was ‘Glad all Over’ by the Dave Clark Five and it was played before every home game.

  Anyway, Clark wasn’t in the team to play at Hillingdon, but I couldn’t wait for him to make his debut. Maybe it was just as well he wouldn’t be playing on Saturday. It was going to be our toughest test so far this season and the local press were already conceding defeat.

  I wasn’t, though. In fact, I was encouraged that Tooting and Mitcham, a middle-of-the-table Isthmian League team, had held Hillingdon to a draw in the previous round before losing the replay. But every time I started thinking that we might have a chance, my mind went back to last season’s debacle.

  The truth was, we had been lucky to escape with a 7–0 defeat.

  ISTHMIAN LEAGUE HOW THEY STAND

  8TH OCTOBER 1969

  CHAPTER NINE

  The confidence that had been so apparent on the journey to our first qualifying round match was more subdued on the journey to our second qualifying round match.

  Hillingdon were in a different league.

  Literally.

  They were in the Southern League that was just one step away from the Football League. They were professional footballers. They had a former England full-back.

  They also hadn’t lost at home for 18 months and 40-odd matches, while Bromley’s away form had been artificially boosted by a win against Corinthian Casuals, which didn’t really count. There was also the small matter of losing the last three games in a row.

  So why was I so confident about an upset? Because the Bromley team was now at full strength. I felt the return of Gasmask (I was determined to persevere with the nickname) was crucial. He was freakishly tall and was virtually unbeatable in the air. Since most non-league attacks were built around long balls into the area, a big centre-half was vital. Preferably one who didn’t have a habit of scoring own-goals, like the man Gasmask was replacing, Alan Bonney.

  The first thing we noticed when we got to the ground was the size of the crowd. It was huge. There must have been at least a couple of thousand spectators and the noise was noticeably louder than we were used to. It was like being at a proper big game and not a Bromley one.

  The programme provided some amusement to break the tension. The Bromley team had presumably been dictated over the phone to a hard-of-hearing person who was putting the programme together – thus our goalie had become ‘A. Foper’ instead of Soper and our left-back was now known as ‘L. Brahnan’ instead of Brockman.

  Hillingdon took the field to applause that was so loud and enthusiastic, we were momentarily confused and looked around to see what had caused the excitement. The home team’s support put our efforts to shame. We realised that that moment that we needed to do more than just watch our team – we needed to support them.

  It felt good to really get behind the players, shouting encouragement and cheering when they did something good.

  ‘Tackle him, Brahnan’ I shouted as the Hillingdon winger bore down on Les Brockman and was delighted when one or two of the travelling supporters actually laughed at my witticism.

  It inspired me to try another one later, loudly praising Foper after a great save, but this didn’t get the same reaction – probably because I’d forgotten that Soper wasn’t playing and McGuire had been recalled in his place.

  We were never going to beat them, of course. But there was a moment at the start of the second half, when Alan Stonebridge scored a great goal (it wasn’t just me who thought so – everyone did) and brought it back to 2–1, that a replay was an outside chance. But Hillingdon scored again and then added a last-minute goal to give them a slightly flattering 4–1 win.

  I don’t think I had ever felt so proud over a losing performance. McGuire had been magnificent and I had to grudgingly concede that Soper couldn’t have done any better. Stonebridge and Pettet were brilliant.

  Yes, I was disappointed to go out of the cup – but I was also proud that Bromley had come so close to causing a huge upset and, more importantly, played so well. It had been 3–1 going into the last minute, which was highly respectable. If Gasmask hadn’t gone off injured after half an hour, it might have been even closer.

  We might have been out of the FA Cup and the league was only a distant possibility. But there were plenty of other trophies we had a chance of winning.

  Plus, I’d have another chance of some football glory the next morning at 10.30am.

  •••

  There comes a time in just about every boy’s life when he realises he’s simply not going to be good enough to play football professionally.

  In my case, the time was around 12.15 the next afternoon, following the match-up between Hayesford Park Reserves and Chelsfield.

  I went into the game on a high, believing it would be simple to repeat last week’s scoring, conveniently forgetting it had been a total fluke. I couldn’t do anything right – my passes were over-hit, I ended up losing the ball every time I tried to dribble and my one attempt at goal went way over the bar. After the referee mercifully blew his whistle for full-time, I trudged off a dejected figure. I had contributed nothing. Once again, Derek had kept us in the game and we had got our first point with a 2–2 draw.

  As football was my whole life, I found the double disappointment of Bromley’s FA Cup exit and my abysmal display for Hayesford Park Reserves ruined what was left of the weekend.

  Before going back to Johnson’s, I tried watching the first episode of a new programme called Monty Python’s Flying Circus, but it was stupid so I did some homework instead.

  At school the next day though, boys were talking about nothing else. Monty Python’s Flying Circus had been a huge hit.

  People were quoting the ‘Genghis Khan’ sketch, reciting the German joke and telling anyone who would listen that their name was Arthur ‘Two Sheds’ Jackson. I was horrified. How had I managed to miss out on this? I was pretty sure it had been a load of rubbish, but maybe I was wrong.

  I wasn’t going to be accepted by my classmates if I didn’t join in. So I started asking people if they’d seen it and wrote ‘I love Monty Python’ and ‘I am Arthur “Two Sheds” Jackson’
on one of my exercise books. I soon picked up a few of the catchphrases and repeated them, despite never having seen them performed on TV.

  This was exactly the kind of thing that can lead to acceptance at school. And since no-one else liked football, it was my best chance.

  •••

  One of the very worst aspects of going to public school was cross-country racing. But it was unavoidable. Once a year, the whole school had to take part.

  The last time I had been to Knole Park, which was right next to the school and where the course was, it had been to see the Beatles. They were making a film to go with their single ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and word spread around the school like german measles.

  The bell for lunch had signalled a mass exodus to the park and soon the Beatles had been joined by hundreds of boys in straw hats. Ringo and John in particular were quite friendly, coming over and chatting with us between takes.

  When asked to sing something, John burst into ‘Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees’. It was one of my best times at Sevenoaks.

  Taking part in the cross-country race was one of my worst.

  I started out fast and went into the uphill part of the course in about 40th place. At that point, I remember thinking that it was much easier than I’d thought and that a top 30 place was within my reach. I had begun to see myself as someone who was good at sport, following a couple of minor recent successes.

  Buoyed by this, I increased the pace, with thoughts turning to a top 20 place. I was sprinting flat out. But it was a pace I could never keep up and it wasn’t long before I realised I was going slower and slower, falling further and further down the field.

  Boys I’d passed with ease not so long ago were now overtaking me just as effortlessly. I was moving further towards the back. My breathing had suddenly become incredibly hard and my legs were barely strong enough to stand on.