An Odd Early Start, A Strange Rattle, A Random Spitfire and A Curious Town Crier…
(Watching Lutterworth Athletic play at Dunley Way, February 2011…)
Strangely, something made me leave the house at 12.45pm, although on that day I nearly didn’t go to football at all. The lady behind the bar at Oadby the previous week had suggested a visit to Lutterworth Athletic, where her husband helped out and so I made that early journey on a sunny, spring-like February afternoon. I noted the huge Spitfire sculpture on a roundabout near Lutterworth, a memorial to Whittle. It reminded me of Castle Vale’s larger structure, also on a roundabout and a memorial to Castle Bromwich airfield, where an aunt of mine had worked during WW2.
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| THE SPITFIRE... |
I arrived at the ground at 1.35pm, finding the small car-park strangely full for that level of football, for this was the Everard’s Leicestershire Senior League and it was so early in the day.
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| THE SIGN... |
I thought it was odd that the players were already warming up after I had parked in a nearby side street and strolled to Steve Rendall Park. The fellow on the gate took my £2 and introduced me to the husband of the lady from Oadby, who gave me the team sheets to copy out, so that I would be able to write a sensible match report. I thought it was strange that he was in possession of those as early as 1.45pm but I ignored my doubts and we chatted unconcernedly in the bar until I was shocked to see the teams emerging onto the pitch at 1.55pm.
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| THE PICNIC AREA... |
I turned to the guy and blurted out the silly question, “Is it a 2pm kick-off..?” Puzzled, he nodded in affirmation and I felt such an idiot. Lucky I had left home when I did. A strange day indeed…
Lutterworth won the game 1-0 when a right side free-kick took a touch forward off Heathcote’s head and the ball rebounded to him, 12 yards out, from whence he volleyed a chest-high goal just inside the right upright.
THE WINNER...
Atho’s goalkeeper Green, after earlier worrying moments, made sure the three points remained in the grasp of his team. One of the two Laywood brothers almost became involved in two retaliatory scraps, after being cynically fouled by Sileby Town players but the referee’s demeanour left much to be desired, failing to issue cautions for two foot-up challenges and reacting to the advice being hollered at him by the rather robust Sileby coach. Eventually, a discussion was held between them on the pitch, carried out with one of the coach’s index fingers erect. He was like a modern town-crier, who’d lost his bell. Odd, that…
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| THE TOSS... |
Strangely, one home supporter, a veteran fellow, sat in his picnic chair on the rather unusual, uncovered rectangular concrete section of floor directly opposite the two dugouts and watched the game whilst eating his victuals. He also made some rather odd loud bellows, like, “Come on, you Greenies...!” then produced a small, plastic, child’s football rattle to whirl around for a few embarrassed seconds. Odd and twee and very random. You don’t get this when you watch Birmingham City…
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| THE CHAIR... |
Another spectator had decided that the visiting coach should be handed the referee’s whistle if he wanted to officiate so desperately, which made me smile. Looking at the size of the vociferous coach, it was unlikely that the supporter would have said anything at all had he been standing at the opposite side of the pitch…
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| THE CONFRONTATION... |
Incredulously, a photographer asked me if I knew the name of the visiting team, then one Lutterworth player, unable to reach the ball which was being shielded out of play by a Sileby defender, decided to kick his opponent in the leg, a moment of belligerence ignored by the main official, who then booked the offending player for innocuously preventing a free-kick from being taken. Strangely then, maybe the whistle should have been awarded to the Sileby coach after all…
I left the place scratching my head and wondering about what I had been told when I asked if Lutterworth actually played evening matches at Dudley Way, having noticed their smart floodlights but no evidence of evening kick-offs on their website listings. The chap who gave me the team sheets explained about the lights: “We haven’t used them this season.” The reason was that a neighbour had complained about the brightness at the bottom of his garden. The man had also groaned about parking, had counted heads at games and seemed to note down anything detrimental to the club.
Cowls were apparently to be installed onto the floodlights and the strange neighbour’s odd behaviour and bleating would have thus been satisfied by the local council. Maybe…
Subsequently, Athletic left Dunley Way for their current abode at Hall Park in the same year, where Lutterworth Town had been playing and the Swifts moved, er, swiftly into Dudley Way, where I have seen them play three times this season…
Certainly an odd, curious, random and strange situation…
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