Football History?

Nederlands: 2 verschillende voetbalschoenen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dubbing, Last and Pincers were our back three

Since the kick-off you’d been running round like an Iceni chariot with your shin-pads sideways, if they were still in your stockings that is. If they’d survived there, they had to be taken out later when the string you’d tied round your stockings just below the knee was interrupting the blood supply. Just at that point you got kicked on the shins by the opposing centre-half. You lay on the ground hugging your shins and remembered that all your mates had told you to watch out for him. He was one of the well-known ‘shankers’ in the league. If I mention Nobby Stiles, Norman Hunter and Martin Keown you’ll recognise the type. (Tiote, Cattermole, and Shawcross for younger readers)

Our preparations began at home on Friday nights. I would get out the last from under the stairs and fit the inside of one of my football boots over one of its three feet and remove any bent or broken studs with pincers. In their places I’d carefully tap in new, or nearly-new, studs with a hammer. Then I’d put dubbing from the tin of that oily resin on to a cloth and apply it to the soles and uppers of the boots ready for the match the next morning.

My school played in the Spennymoor and District Schools League, maximum age 15 at start of season, and matches kicked off at 10am Saturday mornings. Often the fog hadn’t lifted or much light at all shown through the overcast. It was always in winter. We could never play, of course, on warm July or August days! That was school holidays and the cricket season, anyway. The grass was sodden and the leather ball quickly became the same. We played with a size 4, compared to the adult size 5. To head the ball with the forehead was the avowed aim, but if the bulky leather cords of the lace caught you, your forehead split. Play stopped eventually; iodine and cotton wool were applied. If you did this once, then the next time a high cross came over you ducked a bit, took it on the top of your head and felt as if a telegraph pole had fallen on you. In frosty weather we trotted out on the field sounding like racehorses on roads, and feeling like we needed four legs. With only two each we were wobbly.

The lucky professionals (maximum wage £10 per week), the part-time professionals five pounds a match, not to mention the players in amateur leagues (Long expenses) got to play in the afternoon when the frost had melted.

On the touchline Spectators there were none, only our English master. His tactical advice was straightforward and delivered in roaring style. If you were a defender approaching the ball outside your own penalty area he shouted “Get rid of it”. If you were a defender near the ball inside your own penalty area, he shouted, “Set fire to it”. We tried to ignore the hint of panic in this imaginative use of language. We presumed the second shout meant ‘kick it hard and over a long distance’.

If you were a forward and in the opposition’s half, and as a forward you always were in the opposition’s half in those days, he yelled, “Shoot”. His philosophy seemed to be one of fear of the football. He was urging us to kick the ball away as soon as we got anywhere near it. But we were always glad he came. Fathers were at work on Saturday mornings, and mothers would have shamed their sons if any had turned up.

The one time when we did have spectators, they were of a very participatory type. It was a fixture against an Orphanage. At least half-a-dozen nuns crowded you from the touchline and encroached inward. If you advanced down the wing they would venture further on the pitch to get inside you and drive you toward the line. Other nuns waited there with furled umbrellas. They tried to place these instruments between your feet as you ran. When play was in the middle out of their reach, they shouted, “God save us are you going to kick that ball at that poor, wee bairn in the goal. Have you no pity in you, and you a Christian soul?”

The Christian souls in their charge, the orphans, were a hardy-looking lot, who could quite clearly handle themselves. Showing pity would have been like throwing jelly-babies to a rugby scrum.

We had wingers, inside forwards, half-backs, full backs and a centre-forward. Wingers stayed wide especially if there were any girls, not counting nuns, on the touchline. There were no substitutes and no squad numbers on shirts but we did have a tin of Dubbing, a three-footed Last and a pair of Pincers. And at the time I thought is was all marvellous.

End