Local Football

Murphman · February 24, 2021

I always had it in my head how much I enjoyed playing football at a local level. From 14 (ridiculous) to 36 I played in the Slough leagues, Saturdays and Sundays, Premier Divisions for years then sliding down the tables as I got older and fatter. The amount of friends and erstwhile enemies who became friends once we got bored kicking each other made over the years was astonishing A huge fraternity was created and when my kids started playing football the amount of old faces on the touchline was simply great.

So one day a couple of years back I had an idea and created a Facebook page 'Slough football, when balls had laces and men were men', just for something to do and to satisfy a curiosity, were there many like me who missed our days on the parks and tiddly little stadia? I guess the standard was pretty irrelevant although of course you would know and relate more to people of similar ability a you played at the same level, in the right bit of the pond.

After a slow start it grew, and all of a sudden we have a snowball effect, by the end of March we will have over 500 members. The paraphernalia and memorabilia being put up is astonishing, the conversations are fften unreal but you can sense a real sense of kinship amongst everybody on the site. I make the rules which are simply, no politics, no Gifs (I hate Gifs), nothing non related to Slough Football (this also applies to Slough Town and only respectful behaviour, zero tolerance for t***s basically.

The feedback has been simply tremendous, just yesterday we lost a member to a heart attack, know simply as 'Stitch' the place suddenly came alive with stories about a really tough centre back who took no prisoners on the pitch but never opened his gob, one lad said 'I think I still have one of his studs in my knee, but he ws a lovely fella', and his son came on telling us how wonderful to see his father was so wll loved, which he most certainly was.

Managing the thing is becoming a bit of a problem, and ideally we should start a Forum I guess but I see a very short queue of people to kick that off and I for one most certainly won't be getting involved. If any of you are in a similar position and would love to see old photos of teams from days gone by simply set it up and let a few of your mates know. Put as much stuff up as your footie scrapbook holds and wait for the thing to build. It's been enormously rewarding in so many ways and everybody on there absolutely loves it, you get virtual pubs during lockdown, this has been our virtual changing room, I get so many messages telling me how great it is, plus about 5 new members a DAY currently, i wonder where it will end. Probably with us all dead I guess?

cymrococh · February 24, 2021