MonoMonday: Beginnings

Not very original, I'm afraid, but this is the beginning of the book I've just started reading called The Bromley Boys by Dave Roberts. It charts the progress (or lack of it!) of the football team I, like the author, followed as a boy during my teenage years and, in particular, the 1969-70 season when they had one of their worst seasons ever - and that was saying something in those days.

Already the book has reminded me of a litany of players' names some forgotten, some still etched in the memory. One of the latter was the diminutive, ginger-haired and irascible winger, Johnny Warman, who once had an argument with my best friend Mart & I while the game went on around him (as it often did!). The crowds were sparse in those days and we always stood right on halfway line against the white, wooden picket fence that surrounded the pitch so when our perhaps over-enthusiastic barracking of him finally got too much he took time out from playing to come over and remonstrate with us.

There certainly were some characters in that team and I guess those teenage years saw the beginning of my love for football and for supporting struggling teams, like Bromley and now Yeovil from the lower divisions where you still can feel a connection with the players. Bromley are in the league below Yeovil now; the way things are going we could be playing them next season and I'll be able to make a sentimental journey to Hayes Lane, still the home of Bromley FC and just up the road from the grammar school I attended.

Talking of beginnings, tonight sees the beginning of a new year of Keep Fit (or Keep Fat as we participants affectionately know it). This will be my 37th year of going to this same class. As you can tell from all of this, I'm a glutton for punishment in all sorts of ways!