THE DASH

Printed in the National League South game v Braintree Town Saturday 29^th April 2023. The last game of the season. We drew 1-1 in front of 1,163

Hundreds of us stood outside a packed crematorium listening to the speeches when the vicar read out a poem. ‘The Dash’ by Linda Ellis tells us not to focus on the birth and death date – but the dash in between which marks out your life.

The vicar confessed he didn’t usually read it, but it seemed very appropriate for the person we were saying our goodbyes too, because Ian Dean certainly filled out that dash inbetween.

I got to know Ian when we was coaching my eldest. He said he wanted to set up a football team with children from the local estates and Wellesley FC was born. Going from 5 a sides to 11 a side on full sized pitches took some getting used to for the youngsters but they went from losing 15-1 in their first game to winning the league 3 seasons later.

A miracle? Not really – hard work, top coaching and fun was a game changer for so many. With home matches at Brightons Lancing training ground and the Albion in the Community minibus taking them to training and matches, meant that there were no barriers to playing.

Ian and the other coaches never gave up on anyone, providing boots, extra sessions and an arm round a shoulder when it was needed. I loved watching on a Sunday morning seeing the team grow and compete – and finally win the league against our nemesis Crawley Down! Memories I will cherish forever.

I was thinking of this poem walking around Weymouth, a lovely seaside town that I first visited one sunny weekend in 2014 with my family and my Slough family, in the knowledge that this wasn't an FA Cup jolly but a bread and butter Southern Premier league game. Slough had finally arrived back in the Big Time (well, relatively speaking) and were playing Weymouth for the first time ever. Where locals knew that they had a football team and knew where the ground was. As Weymouth beach quickly filled with kiss-me-quick Slough Town hats everyone seemed to be nodding their heads in disbelief after season after season of play-off defeats. Did we finally get promoted or had Tom the Herschel landlord given us one to many free shots?

Fast forward nine years and here we were again with Slough’s league status more of less secured, but with Weymouth's stay in the division hanging by a thread. This season has been a hell or a ride and not a very comfortable one at times, but the Slough support hasn’t wavered or criticised but actually increased in intensity and certainly in surrealness.

If the Prime Minister is serious about wanting to improve everyone's maths skills – short of actually properly funding education - then get them a football spreadsheet from a team facing the drop and let them work out all the permutations. If you’re in a relegation battle, believe me, you will need all those numerical skills and a bucketful of headache pills.

This season was probably the first one ever that I’d visited every ground in our league before a ball was kicked. So hoping for a few new grounds, attention turns to whose coming up and whose coming down. We’ve replaced Ebbsfleet with Maidstone and it’s some way out west trips to Weston-super-Mud and Torquay, while Yeovil are back as opponents. They were in the Championship in 2013 so its a hell of a fall from grace. I’ve never been back since that FA Cup second round defeat all those years ago and never really forgiven them for the way their fans behaved (grown men spitting at 15 years old etc.). Hungerford are gone and you do worry about them, with their charasmatic chairman also leaving. Chesham or Bracknell in the play offs please rather than Truro ‘bloody miles away’ City.

Coming from a town that is the butt of so many friendly-bomb jokes I don’t like to criticise other places, but I won’t miss visiting Concord Rangers. I was there on a cold Tuesday in March, when our away support seemed to make up half the paltry crowd. How there are two senior football clubs on the Island is beyond me. I arrived an hour before the game and there were 2 other people in the clubhouse. No Stewards, flags, songs….. just don’t let Canvey Island replace them! I would prefer Enfield Town, massive opponents years back, lost their ground and became the first supporters owned football club in England. It would be good to see them do well.

It’s welcome back to Bishops Stortford whose programme notes years back coined the phrase ‘misery of Slough fans’. While we are now a lot more cheerful behind the goal, they might well be shoved in the Conference North again. With play off games to come we wont know all our opponents for a couple of weeks.

And finally, can I say a massive thank you to everyone behind the Slough Town scenes who put so much work into the club, so much of it unseen. You are the dashes and without you’re work, our club wouldn’t be thriving. And thank you to the Ian Deans of this world, we need more people like Ian, who showed what a massive difference just one person can make. See you all next season.

THE DASH

I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates on the tombstone
from the beginning...to the end.

He noted that first came the date of birth
and spoke the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
that they spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved them
know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own --
the cars...the house...the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.

So, think about this long and hard.
Are there things you'd like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
to consider what's true and real,
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger
and show appreciation more,
and love the people in our lives
like we've never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect
and more often wear a smile,
remembering this special dash
might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy is being read
with your life's actions to rehash,
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent YOUR dash?

GOOD OLD SUSSEX UNDER THE SEA

Printed in the National League South game v Farnborough Town Saturday 15^th April 2023  We won 2-0 in front of 933. 

Easter is a time to not just gorge yourself on chocolate shaped eggs but football. The Good Friday miracle of Slough scoring six meant I could enjoy the weekend a whole lot more, and after watching my little ‘un play football I jumped on the train then bus to the most far flung Sussex footballing outpost – Selsey. Now I could finally sing ‘I drive up to Muswell Hill, I’ve even been to Selsey Bill.’ Total Madness.

Buses are just £2 a trip at the moment but as we huttled through the countryside I pondered why the bus had no more than a dozen passengers. Chichester is a very well to do place; not that you would know it from its run down bus station, as dirty water dripped on my head (even more worrying was where it had come from, as it was a sunny day) and no realtime bus info – this is hardly the facilities to get people out of their cars.

We headed through Selsey 'Bungalow' Bill and past the beach before I hopped off at their tidy high street with small independent shops and pubs and a football club just where it should be. No, not next to a big co-op supermarket but bang in the middle of town.

Who hasn’t shouted Hi Di Ho as their entered their Seal Bay Stadium past the old Pontins gates – part of the old holiday camp which was flattened in the Great Storm in 1987 and is now a massive housing estate. Jutting out to sea, Selsey is on the frontline of floods and rising sea levels while its landmass slowly sinks. Selsey was once virtually an island. Even now, there is only one main route into the town – the road from Chichester. It was on Selsey island that Christianity was introduced to Sussex around AD 680 when St  Wilfrid was driven ashore during a storm and subsequently founded a monastery and cathedral there. Both have long disappeared beneath the sea due to coastal erosion.

I paid a fiver but there was an online programme only and I reckon they missed a trick today with a bumper crowd of 381. Which is very impressive for a town of just 11,000 and for a game ten leagues below the Premier. Selsey are the Southern Combination Division One’s best supported club averaging 180. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many families or mascots at a match. Being out in the sticks, it’s not as if you can go and support another club easily but with their programme plea for more volunteers and coaches to support all their teams, they are obviously a popular and proper community club.

It was Selsey who had inflicted Shorehams first defeat of the season at the end of February – a run that made the Musselmen the last team in the football pyramid to lose. They’ve sat top of the league for most of the season and a win today would more of less guarentee them promotion. As for Selsey they are hoping to be in the play offs and back to the Southern Combination Premier. The highest they have ever played.

The ground had everything – well apart from a stature of a seal. Plenty of space for kids to kick footballs, hitting each other with sticks and poking in mudpiles. There were Narnia type houses whose back garden gates lead into the ground with tortoiseshell butterflies enjoying the nettle patches. But the pitch. Blimey, it was in perfect nick which is just as well cos the youngsters made use of it at half time and after the game.

It was a very decent, if goaless first half and it ended all square at 1-1. So champagne on ice till Monday where Shoreham were hosting near neighbours Mile Oak – which is literally a bus stop in Brighton.

Bank Holiday Monday and I couldn’t get to Taunton, so like some glory hunter I headed to Middle Road to see Shoreham hopefully win the league. There was only one problem with this plan. As the rain lashed down, the players training outside the ground got the shout. The ref had called the game off. To say Shoreham would be disapointed is an understatement. The chance of winning the league in front of a big bank holiday crowd scuppered by the good old British bank holiday weather.

I know people love a grass pitch, but we do need to invest at this level to give all clubs who want it 3G. Instead, too many will be struggling up and down the country to fit games in before the play-offs start. The climate times are a changing and just like everything else in our society, lower league football needs to change and adapt with it, if it has a chance of continuing to thrive.

FROM WETLANDS TO WEMBLEY

Printed in the National League South game v Chippenham Town Good Friday 7^th April 2023. We won 6 - 1 in front of 845

You can’t help but feel deflated after a 94^th minute equaliser. But once the dust had settled, it was another monumental Slough fight; down to 10 with the obligatory handball sending off with half hour to go. A saved penalty and as the Rebel army stepped up the noise, we hoped and prayed for the 3 points to move us further away from the drop zone. This is squeaky bum time on steroids.

I’d sacked off Brighton v Brentford for a trip to Hemel Hempstead a town I just can’t make out. A rural idyllic mixed with skyscrapers and wetlands – with Easter bunny activities on the green. The pub of choice that looked like the Alpha Arms and the back streets of Slough (albeit after a bloody good scrub) didn’t open till 2pm but there was enough places for a quick pint with Spreadsheet Stuart before a cab to the ground. Has Hemel even got a high street?

Hemel's ground reflects that urban-countryside mix. There’s a fabulous stand with deep terraces next to a concrete carbuncle on stilts that resembles a guards tower overlooking a Russian Gulag. Their clubhouse looks ready to host a wedding reception at a moments notice. While Nick the Trumpet had turned ‘These are all Slough Things’ into an internet sensation – well amongst Slough fans anyway - no one could find the drum and assorted instruments. Lucky I had a couple of sticks and commandeered the mankiest bin I’ve ever seen. This didn’t stop the steward police moving in during the second half. To be fair, that bin was so dirty they probably saved me from getting cholera but it was Clubshop Sue who was the health and safety fire risk. Her arthritis means its easier for her to lean against the wall than climb steps. But couldn’t she see this was fire escape. Jeez, we could all burn to death with you standing there.

The previous Saturday it was an early kick off for the first ever televised National League South game, which also happened to be Non League Day. Nearly double our average gate of over 1200 came along to what felt like an FA Cup 1^st round game. I love Non League Day; a brilliant initiative that gives clubs the chance to show off their wares. And it works. The man who came up with the plan said there was a cumulative attendance of 141,619 in Steps 1-4. Which compared to previous weekends was an increase of 20-30%. Bingo!

We were up against the league leaders Ebbsfleet who are head and shoulders above everyone – well they should be on their budget. We taunted them about all the Slough inventions (see Nick the Trumpets song) while they could only sing about being a fast train stop to France (which doesn't even go to Europe at the moment). They hit the woodwork twice and were the better side but it took a wonder goal by their top striker - whose been compared to Jamie Vardy - to undo us.

I had arrived in Slough too early so I decided to visit Langley, which used to be my pre match pitstop to see my nan. There’s no chance of finding a pub in the village anymore. There were cars and wood outside the Willows, the Harrow has become a nursery and the Merry Makers is just a pile of rubble. As I took photos of the pub carnage one old guy said he coped with the lack of Langley pubs by giving up drinking. At least the co-chairman of Langley FC wants to build a community sports hub in Kedermister Park and create a space where people can meet. I'm just not very convinced about their idea of League football in a few years. 

I just had to pop into the local bakers for old times sake for a crusty cheese and tomato roll. But blimey, £2.85 just shows how expensive everything has become. Or maybe I was becoming my nan who used to tut whenever I told her the price of anything. I think her head would explode if she saw how everything costs now. From food to electricity bills, train fares to beer to drumsticks, everyone is feeling the pinch. So with that in mind, just how do we get people through the Slough turnstiles? Look I know me and Kieran Wonder Wall are like the drunk blokes at the bar repeating ourselves about signing up to the 500 club, but its such a simple way of the club raising cash – while you might even win some yourself and pay off that gas bill.

I’ve been really impressed with all the latest club initiatives – going into schools, deals on the gate, food vans. There’s a spring in the Slough Town step at home but there’s got to be an opportunity to wrestle more control of the ground from a bankrupt Slough Council? The image of club secretary Kay lugging cases of beer along the terraces to the far side bar, summed up just how much effort goes into matchdays but wouldn’t be better if we ran Arbour Park? There’s so much potential, but council workers are not going to care as much as people who love the club.

As for me I’ve got an end of season, cost of watching two teams financial crisis. With Brighton getting to Wembley, I’m looking behind the sofa for cash and hoping to win the 500 club jackpot.

Soon it will all be calm for a few months as I tend our community gardens and worry about tomato blight and slugs rather than relegation and annoying stewards with attitudes.