The Three Thousand
Not long after my cousin Mike and myself started watching
football on a regular basis in the late 1970’s he came up with the genius idea
of keeping a record of all the games he’d watched and I decided to do the same thing.
It’s something I’ve kept doing ever since, which is how I now know that I am
fast approaching the 3,000th game
mark, possibly even before the end of 2021 if all goes well.
Given that I was six when I attended my first match and I
started the recording of them a couple of years later, details may be a little
sketchy of the early games, but I’m pretty sure my first match was Bromley V
Folkestone & Shepway in the FA Trophy in October 1977. My Dad took me to
the game on a rare Saturday off for him and the moment I walked through the
turnstile and saw Hayes Lane in all it’s glory I was hooked.
My Mum was good enough to take me to Bromley home games on
Saturday’s from then on and then also the reserve team matches when the first
team were away until I was old enough to go on my own and my Dad took me to the
Tuesday night games. Without doubt the majority of the matches I have watched
have been at Hayes Lane and Bromley will be the team I have seen the most with
Cray Wanderers second having first gone to Oxford Road back in the spring of
1980.
Since my son was born in 2010, I started taking him to games
and I have marked each match he has come to with me, so that if he inherits the
anorak gene and is ever interested I can give him a record of the matches he
has watched. Although to be fair, this doesn’t seem to interest him at all
right now!
My peak football watching came when I was in my late teens,
clocking up over 100 games a season, following Bromley home and away, while
also going to Monday night games at Fisher, Carshalton or Dulwich Hamlet and
Wednesday nights at Welling Utd. Charlton Athletic Reserves also played at
Hayes Lane on Thursday afternoons and at the start and end of the seasons Cray
Wands and other local Kent League teams like Alma Swanley, Darenth Heathside
& Crockenhill would have plenty of early midweek kick offs with the lighter
evenings. Some of my happiest football memories are of going to Cray games with
my Dad at Oxford Road for a 6:15pm kick off, hoping the light would hold for
two more hours. Seeing Tony Cascarino playing against The Wands for Crockenhill
and a particularly brilliant 6-0 destruction of Kent Police.
From then on, there was an average of two and sometimes
three games a week with Cray Wands moving to Hayes Lane in 1998 and playing
midweek games on Wednesdays, which also meant precious time watching games with
my Dad.
From 2008 onwards I have been lucky enough to report on
games for Kent Sports News, combining my love for football with writing and it
also meant I was in the privileged position of being able to see the behind
closed doors Bromley home games during lockdown last season. Work and family
commitments aside I am still lucky enough to see one and often two games a week
now, usually with my son Mikey, mostly Bromley or Cray Wands home games, with a
few visits to Holmesdale every season and the occasional other local game. Having an amazing wife certainly helps and she used to go games with me back before parenthood.
The enjoyment of watching a game of football is still as
great as it was when I first started going, although the experience has changed
a lot. From going with my parents, to hanging out with mates, travelling to
games on coaches & trains, catching up with friends and now to taking my
own son. Watching a good game of football in nice surroundings with good people
is something very special and I don’t ever wany to stop.
I’ve been lucky enough to see football matches in Ireland (Rep
of Ireland, Cork City, Galway Utd, Finn Harps, Bohemians, Castlebar Celtic,
Crossmolina, Shelbourne, Bohemians, Shamrock Rovers & Dublin City), Scotland
(Celtic & Partick Thistle), Wales (Newport & Wrexham), Portugal
(Imortal DC), Italy (Inter & AC Milan), Sweden (Hammarby & AIK) and USA (San Jose Earthquakes). I’d
love to add to these one day, but it’s great to have done this and have so many
good memories to look back on. Genoa, Juventus, St Pauli & Boca Juniors would be on
my bucket list.
It’s hard to make a list of favourites, there’s always
something I remember later, but right now it would be as follows:
Top 5 Favourite Grounds:
Hayes Lane (Bromley)
San Siro (Inter & AC Milan)
Celtic Park (Celtic)
Landsdowne Road (Ireland)
Green Pond Road (Walthamstow Avenue)
Five Most Memorable matches:
Ireland 0 Brazil 0 – 2003 (International Friendly)
Bromley 1 AFC Wimbledon 0 – 2007 (Play Off Semi Final)
Bromley 2 Leyton Wingate 1 – 1986 (Promotion winning game)
Gateshead 1 Bromley 1 – 2018 (FA Trophy Semi Final 2nd
leg)
Horsham 1 Bromley 3 – 2005 (Promotion Play Off Final)
Landmarks
Game No1 – Bromley 1 Folkestone & Shepway 1 – 1977
Game 100 – Bromley Reserves 1 Welling Utd Res 0 – 1982
Game 1,000 – Leyton 1 Bromley 2 – 1994
Game 2,000 – Bromley 1 Cray Wanderers 1 – 2005
Most recent match: 2,996 - Cray Wanderers 1 Folkestone
Invicta 1 - 2021
Game 3,000 - ??????
Col
