The old ground

I had some time on my own today,  and visited the parks pitch where I played football for a local team in the early 1970s. I haven’t been there since 1978. It looked in reasonable condition. There are no flat pitches in Torquay, and this is one of the best the Council can provide. There was a game going on. A man with a dog saw me taking this photograph and we had a conversation. ‘Isn’t it great to see football being played here again’, he said, referencing Covid I thought. I told him I was on a nostalgic mission. He was four years younger than me, and also played amateur football when I did. By the time we finished talking, we had elevated ourselves to local legends of the Sunday league who only missed out on professional glory  because Torquay is a football backwater, and at the fag end of the country. It is even more isolated and disinterested now as there is no Sunday league, but there is a new optimism and attitude at Torquay United and let’s hope it galvanises grassroots football. We both agreed they were happy days. and we loved playing, probably sounding pathetically wistful. We mentioned a few teams from the time. I was in a local pub team that mainly lost every week but we did win the fair play award. He had to go so we didn’t mention the fact that the South Devon league once  had the distinction of having the most broken legs of any league in a season, or the story of the player in a match I was in, who disenchanted with his own form took his boots off and hung them on the corner flag, never to play again. 
We feared going to Newton Abbot to face the Torbay Reds - the local branch of the Manchester United Supporters Association. They were the hard men of the league. I didn’t remember you could see the sea from the pitch which probably distracted me. As often happens when you stir old memories, I couldn’t get to sleep.