XYLOPHONE ON YOUR HEAD

 

Printed in the FA Trophy 2^nd round proper game v Havant & Waterlooville Saturday 27^th November 2021. We won 1-0 in front of 373

‘This has got a bit surreal’ chuckled Radders as superfan Max ran around behind the goal placing a child's xylophone on various peoples bonce while everyone sung ‘You’ve got a xylophone on your head’ Surely that’s a football chant first?

At Eastbourne it was a tambourine – and its only a matter of time before it becomes a doughnut on someones head. Which is the best way to describe the steward at Eastbourne who angrily stomped off with the bin we had been banging while we serenaded him with ‘please don’t take our wheelie bin away…’.

To be fair Eastbourne is a proper community club; the first senior football cub in the country to become a Community Interest Company. A CiC operates as a limited company but must fulfill and abide by certain criteria which benefit the community including an asset lock on its ground. Formed in 1964 they didn’t even move to the Priory Lane until 1983 which volunteers predominately have built up out of a swamp. There’s even a primary school nearby that has water buffalo. Apart from the bin police they are a great bunch who work hard with limited resources to stay competitive at our level.

And everyone loves a trip to Eastbourne as the Slough hoards once again descended on another Sussex town by the sea. I could only stay for the Friday and was recommended the View which promised a sweeping vista across the sea; well apart from my room which looked onto fire escapes. My alarm clock was the clanking hum of an air conditioning unit. They even left a leaflet on my bed asking if I fancied a visit ‘to the vibrant city of Birmingham.’ Er, no thanks. Although my eldest was heading there Saturday to watch Brighton play at Aston Villa.

Now Eastbourne is greedy when it comes to football clubs. Although the town of 100,000 have finally settled on just three senior non league teams after Eastbourne United and Shinewater got married and Langley Wanderers disbanded after only 11 years existence.

Last time I visited was to see the oldest club in Sussex - Eastbourne Town -demolish Shoreham in the County Cup the night before Lock Down Eve 2. I got chatting to some old timers who had moved from Brighton to Langney (not to be confused with Langley) and told of how friends remortgaged their houses to do up Boroughs ground as they powered up the leagues. Over the decades that balance of power has shifted between the three clubs with Borough now on top while United and Town hang out in the Southern Combination Premier. Its Town who used to be our old rivals when the Langney estate was just a bog. Unusually for a county league side they have noisy ultras, that even crowdfunded and built their own stand so they can make some noise and leave other supporters in peace. Their picturesque place is smack bang in the middle of town and I wonder over the coming years if they will once again vie for top footballing spot.

Letters in the local paper complain that Brighton is a dump compared to Eastbourne. But maybe that’s because hardly anyone goes there. Friday nights pub crawl was punctured by quiet streets and closed restaurants, while I had the beach to myself in the morning (OK maybe that’s because it was raining) whereas Brighton is rammed to the rafters day and night.

Saturday midday and the seafront pub was packed with travelling Rebels then in walked Dean and Kieran, Sloughs very own Laurel and Hardy, bickering for hours about the use of the word ignorant. Dean spent most of the night in his car despite having booked a hotel unable to find his room.

I’d bought along an assortment of children's instruments but many broke under constant thumping; the ringing bells didn’t even come with a bell. We made a hell of a noise using the bins as is pre-ordained until one stupid steward said we were going to break it and whisked it away. This is when Kieran WonderWall tried to get chants from Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells going. Quite difficult when it is mainly instrumental and half our support is youngsters who’ve probably never even heard of the album.

Our five match unbeaten run came to an end but we didn’t stop singing and Ben Harris notched up 100 appearance, another goal and the captains armband. This follows Sean Frasers 350 games a couple of weeks previous. Which says a lot about the loyalty that our two managers engender. It’s also worth mentioning how the club rolled out the red carpet for Noreen on her 90^th - another act of class . Helped of course by putting one over the King of Dorking.

Today is all about the FA Trophy which hasn’t exactly been kind to us in the past few years . As Mr. Motivation Rebel Radio Ade pointed out - we have been knocked out of it at home 6 years in a row, all against teams from our level. So you can imagine how thrilled we were to pull Havant out the hat. But I would love a run in the competition. Hornchurch managed to win it last season and its beneath many of the National League sides who would much rather concentrate on trying to get out of the Bastard League as Sutton United's Gandermonium blog so eloquently put it.

The National League is certainly unforgiving and the way things are going for Southend, we could be visiting there next season for another kiss-me-quick bobble hatted seaside jaunt. What a wonderful topsy-turvey fluid world of lower league football we live in. Some might even say, surreal.

THE BIN BANG THEORY

Printed in the National League South game v Dorking Wanderers Saturday 13^th November 2021. We won 2-1 in front of 756

It’s amazing what a couple of drum sticks can do. With the club realising that the towns invention of the wheelie bin is something worth banging on about, we now have our own one to help make some noise at Arbour Park and get behind the team.

Under the lights for the first time this season against Bath City was fantastic. And we got to sing Slough invention classics such as ‘You’ve got Bath Spas, We’ve got Mars Bars’ and ‘You had the Romans, we discovered Uranus’ which in the cold light of day doesn’t rhyme even slightly. Trying to sing songs about Thunderbirds, zebra crossing, snooker and Slough Trading Estate is proving a little trickier and we are open to suggestions. No, not you can stick that annoying drumstick up your...

Talking of Uranus, I do remember getting into a spot of bother when the Herschel Grammar school magazine we edited celebrated Sir William Herschel's discovery by asking on the front cover ‘Have you looked up Uranus today?’ What witty teenagers we were.

Ironically the extra noise has increased at the same time as our crowds have nose dived with the attendance at Concord our lowest in the National League ever on a Saturday, taking our average to below 600 for the season.

Covid has obviously played a big part in our dip in attendances but it’s more than that. I often pop into the Grill Garden on Stoke Road before the game for an halloumi burger. The décor is a mish-mash of what the town is now about. Inside is a mural with Thunderbirds and the trading estate taking centre stage with a sign on the counter saying they are closed Friday for an hour for Jumu’ah prayer. Next time I’m in I will bring them a poster and that’s something we should all be doing for the club, getting posters up around town and spreading the Rebel gospel. Better still if we should bring back the free tickets, to tempt people to a game for the first time. Extra people means extra cash for golden goal tickets, refreshments and food.

In the early 70’s when Slough were a very successful team, Bishop Stortfords programme included an article in which home supporters suggested collective nouns appropriate for the followers of opposing teams. Ours was "a misery of Slough supporters". But no more! How about bin-bangers?

I’ve always been interested in the psychology of crowds. How just a few people can sway a crowd for better or worse at events and demonstrations, but its never more clearer than with football fans who can either get behind their team or give them earache when things inevitable don’t go their way. Football can make us feel we belong which clubs also use to make us do or say anything to defend their team. Newcastle fans were on it Saturday against Brighton. A game so boring even Match of the Day refused to show it. They targeted one of the Albion players whose up on police charges, while conveniently forgetting that their new owners don’t even bother with any of that judicial nonsense and go straight to imprison, torture, kill for anyone who dares cross them. Maybe the Geordies were being ironic.

So I was pleased to hear one supporter say that after we clapped off our players after the defeat to Ebbsfleet, that this was a team he wanted to support. It’s easy to get behind your team when they’re winning, a lot less so when things aren’t quite going to plan. It’s also a lot more fun!

Crowd psychology can be seen in the wearing of masks. When our Prime Minister can’t be bothered to wear one while sitting next to 95 year old David Attenborough or when visiting a hospital is it any wonder so many people don’t bother on public transport. It’s such an easy thing to do to stop the spread of covid yet you’d have thought people were being asked to rub cheese graters across their faces.

Car driving is another thing. We all want to do something about climate change as long as we don’t have to give up anything. I’ve heard Slough drivers blame roadworks, bus lanes, marsbar wrappers in the road for traffic jams and yet for a town dominated by roads - surrounded by motorways and intersected by dual carriageways - it’s still gridlocked half the time. Maybe, just maybe its because there are too many cars and like so many places needs millions invested in public transport. The town is crying out for trams – we could even take one all the way along the Bath Road next time we get to visit Bath.

And that’s the thing, if we all changed diets and recycled and bought less crap – well it’s the right thing to do but 100 corporations cause 71% of global emissions and its they and governments who really have to change. Otherwise as the Prime Minister of Barbados pointed out at COP26 - a 2% increase in sea levels will mean the death sentence for the people of Maldives, Antigua, Barbados, Fiji, Kenya, Mozambique and Samoa. Meanwhile residents of major cities across the world from Amsterdam to New Orleans to Bangkok will be catching the boat to work by 2030. Infact our last home opponents Concord Rangers must be looking nervously over their sea wall at the massive container ships that go past and wonder just how long they’ve got left before their ground goes down the plughole.

Humans are innovative, adaptable and as we saw when the pandemic struck can be kind and caring when it matters. We will have to be all these things if we want to stop climate chaos. So I will keep banging the drum for a better world – and for a better atmosphere at Slough games.

Otherwise we will soon start having to travel to games in an amber submarine.