Me 5: KK Sixes
An exclusive, all-male club with questionable rituals, practices and entry criteria at one of the UK's poshest universities and it's called the KK. Oh dear. The Kate Kennedy Club is its full title, though I can't quite remember who the titular Kate Kennedy was. Some excluded female of some sort or another, I suppose.
Notorious throughout St Andrews, membership of the KK was envied by some, disdained by many. In truth, many of us were happily prepared to bite the hand that fed us, for though we mocked the KK, they sure put on good events, including the biggest, most enjoyable student ball of the year, and an annual six-a-side football tournament where everyone who was anyone vied for what, in the grand scheme of the things, was a minor sporting bauble, but happened to provide me with one of my proudest sporting achievements.
That was almost exactly 15 years ago. 35 now, I haven't played competitive football for over five years, having had my leg broken in November 2008 and been becalmed by the complications. I actually didn't miss it much for a couple of years - I threw myself into my long distance running and, in truth, knew that my standards had been declining significantly in the years leading up to the break. But I miss it now, now it's so far in the past and I'm a cumbersome graceless lump. I was always thus, or appeared so, but the fact that when I got on the football pitch I could every now and then be something else, something more inventive, dextrous and graceful than anyone expected of me, I'm quite sure helped shore up my ego in difficult times. I used to skin people and I miss skinning people, to put it simply.
That's not to say I couldn't be a disastrous footballer. I could be ineffectual, grumpy, selfish, couldn't head, couldn't tackle well, lost my mind in front of goal, endlessly frustrating, but I could play. I could pass, cross, find space, keep possession, read a game fairly well and primarily, I could dribble.
In some ways, 6-a-side football was where I was at my best. 11-a-side saw ups and downs, good and bad seasons. In 6-a-side, by and large, where there weren't aerial battles and long ball games and long periods without touching the ball to descend into one's dark inner life, and oddly, intimidatingly large and focusless goals, I knew I could hold my own with anyone.
I have blissful memories of 6-a-side throughout my life. Winning the Haileybury Sixes (an inter-school competition) as an 11 year old, with a flick header in the last minute against my school's oldest adversary, Dulwich College, which, in my dual role as reporter on the event for the school newspaper, I still remember recording thus; "McGaughey rose to brilliantly flick the ball over the outstretched arms of the despairing goalkeeper." I got some abuse for that. No wonder I was unpopular at school ...
And another 6-a-side tournament, a funny one this, while working at Blackwell's, someone decided to enter us in a Bookseller's 6-a-side tournament. No disrespect, but selling academic books and running around really didn't seem to go together. My colleagues were hopeless, awful, hilariously so. We were unavoidably a one-man team, and I put everything I could into it and I don't think, freed by the responsibility and that my team mates told me they didn't even want me to pass to them, I ever played football so singularly well as on that day. A man possessed, I scored all but one of the team's goals over the course of six highscoring games, and ran myself into the ground. We'd lose the games 10-5, 11-4, stuff like that, but it was so much fun (often the opponents would score a run of goals in the last couple of minutes as I gasped for air, having done all i could to stop the tide). At work on Monday, having previously been a quiet and relatively unknown member of the large staff, I started getting looks of new found respect and people coming up to me saying "I hear you're amazing at football" as if I was some kind of alien. "You know, I'm ok, it's kind of relative ..."
Conversely, it was through playing 6-a-side that I really grasped I was finished as a player. After my first DVT, in 2007, I came back and played casual 6-a-side under the Westway with Chris, my Saturday team's captain, and mates of his. Some of them were really good players, but still, I tried my best, but I couldn't do it. I could no longer beat a man. Everything I did seemed to be in slow motion, I'd make my move and realise the defender was still right on me. Depressing. In 11-a-side, I could deny the truth, because if I played sensibly and carefully, did all the boring stuff, I could still make an effective contribution. But I was no longer a footballer, not by my own terms.
[Having said that (gosh, sorry, a lot of false starts to this post), on the day my leg was broken, which was a month or so after my first marathon, so I was both a) in shape and b) finally recovered from the rigours of the race, that was the first day in a couple of years I'd had genuine optimism before the game that I'd really play like the old days again. I felt sharp. Perhaps that sealed my fate - with my first touch of the game I was quick to the ball, so quick and going away from the guy who lunged from a mile away and snapped my lower leg. Ah well, at least my last touch showed promise ...]
Anyway, as you can see, when it comes to football, I've so many memories and it's hard to keep them in, so I won't, I'll just go where this takes me. Which, for now, is back to the the furthest extremity of the East Neuk.
I turned up at St Andrews having had a chequered school footballing career, but eager to enjoy and impress. I turned up at one University Football Club trial session and was immediately put off. Everyone seemed to know each other, no one putatively in charge was really watching or assessing, there was a practice game and I only got about ten minutes on the pitch. Lots of big Northern lads talking the talk and looking the part. Not many of them seemed all that good, but they were on the inside already. Not for me, this set up.
I had more luck with the team from my Hall of Residence, the Atholl, captained by Dennis Johnson, a little chap from Essex whose acquaintance I made on the first night out of the academic year. The university operated an internal Sunday league of three (later four) divisions and Atholl were one of the top teams. Perennial outsiders, who rarely had people who actually played for the Uni, but from choice rather than exclusion, I felt I'd fit right in.
I did fine at the Atholl trial and was a regular member of the team that year. I did ok, but not great. There were other star players and, to be honest, I felt I was mainly in the team by default. Someone else was always injured, so I usually made the XI. Don't get me wrong, it was a quality team and a nice bunch, all good memories, but I was useful but peripheral. Dennis was one of the stars, in truth one of the best players in the University and, of my own contemporaries, there were regular spots for a Glaswegian midfield dynamo called Rob Kelman and a Belfast right back, Pete Maginnis.
In the end, in a nailbiting deciding fixture against arch rivals Chattan Daemons decided by one goal, we won the league. Or, as Pete and I repeatedly and shamefully shouted on that night of drunken unpleasantless which still appals me, "We won the fucking league, you c****"
My vulgar triumph was a little hollow and I knew it. Dennis had won the league. Rob and Pete and Danny had won the league. I'd helped out a bit, but I could have been a lot better. I wanted to enjoy my football properly, to play like I knew I could play, and there were other ways.
So, the story begins. My friend John and I were sitting in the front hall of the Atholl dicking about one day. A packet of the Camel Lights I relentlessly smoked must have fallen on the floor. Hmm, we said, Smooth American Blend. We then posed as if we were an American soft rock band releasing their eponymous debut album, Smooth American Blend. Japes.
Shortly afterwards, a pub quiz. What shall be our name? How's about Smooth American Blend? Super. We won. This is a winning name!
By the end of the year, me and my year-mates in Atholl were quite a closeknit bunch and we thought "Hey, let's start our own football team." Mainly, we weren't expecting much. Besides Rob, Pete and myself, it wasn't really the folk who'd been in their school first XI, if you see what I mean. But, equally, there were decent athletes, rugby players, golfers, etc. Who knows? A name? A few were touted around. some repellent, some just too wordy even for a wordy repellent fellow like me. This kind of low level league football has a tradition of absurd and sometimes unpleasant names. Me and John fought for Smooth American Blend, and we got it. I was gratified that I emerged from discussions as unanimous choice to be captain.
Jamie Drysdale sorted out our (bright yellow) kit and sponsorship from St Andrews Taxis, we persuaded Dennis (who liked the cut of our jib) to play a few games for us if he wasn't too knackered after playing for the Atholl. We told him Rob, Pete and I wouldn't stop playing for the Atholl, we'd play for both (in different divisions). That's young bodies for you, where folk would routinely play a couple of games per Sunday, sometimes even three.
All the silly, boyish joy in the details, our nicknames on the back of our shirts. Dennis was The Brutal Truth, Richard Smith was Moon Boy, John was Winston Kitsch, Pete was McManus McSkilfulness (the best nickname ever), I was incongruously and I assure you inaccurately, The Doctor of Ganja.
We entered the league, and were assigned to the new bottom division, Division 3 (behind the Carnegie Premiership, where the Atholl played, Division 1 and Division 2). Fine, that'll be our level. Crushingly, we lost our first game, 4-2. I can't remember the name of the oppo, it was either something to do with Todgers or Pies, or both. But despite our outwardly low expectations, this was gutting. We didn't want to be the lowest of the low. I thought, at this low level I'd be able to influence the game more, but I had a poor game.
I remember the next thing. Getting a lift back to town, probably from Jamie, 'Stay Young' by Oasis came on the radio. Silly, I know, but it was inspirational. "Our faith's unshakeable ...". Thanks, Oasis.
Next game, we realised the first game had been a blip. We won 12-2. It would have been embarrassing but we were suddenly hungry to show what we could do. And so the season continued - 10-0, 5-0, 6-1 etc. It emerged that the team we'd played in our first game were the other good team in the division. They went on winning too, but there would be two teams promoted.
It also emerged that we had some unexpected talents - fiercely aggressive and competitive defenders, guys who seemed like lunks who were actually very good at kicking the ball into a goal, John himself who proved a great central defender, both defensively and offensively, Alex, a goalkeeper who developed an overstated reputation elsewhere for eccentric mistakes, but hardly ever made any when playing for Smooth American Blend, just save after save. Dennis was a boon whenever he played, and with Rob doing all the hard work in central midfield, I was able to give myself the role I'd always wanted, roaming around, doing my jittery, offputting but occasionally effective thing. Because I was captain, because these were my friends, I got away with it in this team in a way I didn't elsewhere. And because we kept winning. Because if I dribbled down a blind alley one time, my team mates had evidence that the next time, I might pull something out of the bag. I'm sure I was frustrating at times, but you know, if anyone gave me a black look, I'd just substitute them.... ha ... Power, eh?
So our march carried on. We won every game of the league season on cruise control, as did our first rivals, so we were promoted in second place. Job done. I'll return in due time to the history of the Blend as an 11-a-side team.
But the end of the season brought the KK Sixes - we entered two teams and I picked my "A" team. Alex in goal, Pete, Dennis and Rob, the mercurial Richard Smith and myself, with John and Jamie on the bench.
The previous year's Sixes, when I'd played for the Atholl, had been a washout - I think, despite being league champions in waiting, we'd lost all three group games. Now, here we were, unfancied outsiders from the bottom division.
But we knew we were good. All of us. We started well, winning our group games, 1-0s and 2-0s, but always on top, playing a sensible game. Goals coming from Dennis, Rob and Richard, none from me yet, but I was playing well. We were still in that precious youth when the body can stand an awful lot of nonsense - I smoked, drank and was far too heavy, but I still had enough natural fitness and sufficiently forgiving muscles to run around (almost) all day back then.
Hmm, interesting, we thought. We had momentum. This is where I owe John and Jamie a big apology - the sensible and also the decent thing would have been to rotate subs, to give them a half here, a game there, and they would have kept the team strong, but I was terrified of breaking the spell. Six guys with a formula that was working.
In the quarter-final, we played a team with some of the top Uni players in it. That was the first time we got the feeling, "They've noticed us and they don't like it". A small crowd gathered to support against us, we were under pressure, but a goal came from somewhere, and we held on for a 1-0.
Into the semis, still no goals against. The semi was against ... ahem ... Beavers, a famously posho team, just sporty types but not really natural footballers. We knew they were nothing special, and actually I think we cruised it, 2-0. Can't remember who scored, but it wasn't me, and I was tiring, and worse, cramping up.
The final was against one of the classic University teams, I think they were called Big Prizes. Who cares? A sizable crowd was there, mainly supporting their mates. The mutterings against us became explicit. "Who are this lot? Nobodies. Dennis and 5 others. They're just lucky. They're boring. Just defending". As I eavesdropped on this, I grew outraged. Who did these fuckers think they were? It was hardly the Manchester United Academy. They were mediocre footballers who thought they were something because they were big fish in a small pond.
I'd show them. Except, as soon as the game started, I cramped up severely. If I stayed on, I'd be a liability. I grimly took myself off for John (or Jamie). I stood on the sideline and the jibes continued. They even booed us. I couldn't bear it. I brought myself back on at half time (it was rolling subs), this time going up front as I couldn't do enough running to play anywhere else.
Well then, a ball played hopefully up to me near the halfway line. I got it to it first. I had one defender on me and another nearby, but the cramp stayed away, thank goodness. I stood them up, sent them the wrong way once then twice. My main strength was always two-footedness, which meant I could naturally drag a defender either way and then dart the other. Here I was, in front of goal, on my right foot (stronger but less reliable), bang, just inside the post, my first and only goal of the day. The only fitting way to celebrate was with V signs to the now silent throng. I'd have got a five-game ban if it had been the Premier League.
We still had a few minutes to see out. There were alarms, Alex made a couple of vital saves, but actually, I remember getting a couple more good chances and blowing them. We were the better side, simple as that. Just us, me and my friends, on a level playing field, we were as good as these jumped-up goons.
They were graceless. Wandered off, didn't credit us, typical. We didn't care. It may be a low level, but if, in sport, you get a chance to be the underdogs, the outsiders, with your friends, and you hold together to come up with an unlikely victory, there's nothing better.
Celebrations lasted for days ... weeks. Ask us, any of us, who played that day where it ranks in our memory of our time at University. In our young lives, even. Until the more important things come along, these feel like the most important things.
Mirroring my absurd self-aggrandisement in the press 10 years earlier, it so happened one of my flatmates was writing about the tournament for the student newspaper. Alex and I tried to feed her the story in our own words, full of references to Rocky and Homeric epithets. To our disappointment, she wrote up the story pretty straight, leaving out all our florid details. Of course. What fools we were, but what fun it was.
The good times carried on for that football team, both 6 and 11-a-side. I passed the captaincy to Alex the next year, and we jumped a division to the second tier. Much tougher now, there was the odd loss, but we were getting better, growing in our own confidence and adding to the squad here and there - TV's Michael Byers and David Caves were valuable new blood. We won the season decider against Happy Choppers 3-0 (aah, those names - we'd put our promotion in doubt a couple of weeks before with a shock loss to ... wait for it ... Islamic Jihad). I scored another goal to be proud of, to keep indulgent amigos bored for years to come. We were champions.
So, Alex handed the captaincy to a guy called Russell for the last year, in the prestigious Carnegie Premiership. What an ascent! The name was now New Ultra Smooth (Camel had brought out Ultra Lights, I know - it's disgraceful). We still had the momentum, we actually won our first three games, we were top of the league. From the bottom right to the top.
Then I had to miss a game, my first missed game ever for the Blend. It was lost 4-0. I remember John smiling "You're going to think it's because you weren't playing, but I promise it wasn't. They were just good" and yes, sure, but equally, it made the difference for the same reason I hadn't dared to bring on John or Jamie in the Sixes. Not because of a qualitative difference, no. Because sport can be about magic spells, trances, momentum and fragile structures just about holding it together, cartoon characters running off cliffs and keeping their legs moving till they suddenly realise, and fall. I'd played every single game, hogging, babbling, making things happen for good or bad. It will have made some difference.
That was the first game of a bad spell, my return made no difference, we dropped down the table, but as the season end drew near, the end of that team, the end of our time at St Andrews, we pulled it back together. We won our last couple of games and finished the season 4th. The 4th best team in the whole big university of St Andrews. Not bad for a bunch of jokers. Our very last game, ironically, was against our alma mater the Atholl, no longer the force of old (what with what would have been their senior members defected and with Dennis having left the Uni).
God, I was such a dick that game. A hyperactive, spoilt nightmare for opponents and team mates, shouting, insulting, trying to do everything, such was my desperate determination to end on a high. I rememer Russell doing so well to keep control of the team from me: "David, I promise I will substitute you unless you stay in your position". It was just what I needed. We pulled away, I scored a nice goal to cap it all off and we won 5-2. I apologise to everyone who was on a pitch with me that day. I was emotional, I suppose, that that team was coming to an end. That was a small version of the sporting dream and perhaps I knew i'd never find another team like it.
As for our continued history in the KK Sixes, it was still a favourite event of the year, though we never won it again. In 3rd year, we were super confident, scored loads of goals in winning our group, but then just, suddenly, lost a tight game 1-0, just the way we ourselves had won all our games the year before, and were out. And in the 4th year, gosh, what fun again, we wangled our way to the final. This time, the opposition, another team of Uni boys, were actually really nice, I remember that. It was a good-natured, banterous game, and perhaps that made the difference. I remember, I had another chance, probably when the game was 0-0, almost identical to two years previously, weaved a lovely path between two defenders, then hit my shot clean, but it shaved the outside of the post. There we go. No siege mentality, no killer instinct. We lost 2-0, but I don't think we minded that much.
I played once more in the KK Sixes, a funny little postscript. This was four years later. In London, old St Andrew boys had started a team called Atholl 1965. Dennis played and organised, plus a few others from the old days. I had many good football days with them too in the parks of London in the West End Amateur League. In 2005, we decided to have a little tour back in Fife to play in the Sixes.
Now, what's the main thing strangers ask me when I tell them I went to St Andrews? Did I know Prince William. No. We didn't coincide. I left the year before he arrived. It was a different kind of hood back then, mean fucking streets, I say. You know what I mean, only minor European royalty ...
But, anyway, first group game in the 2005 Sixes, against a team sponsored by the notorious "yah" pub Ma Bell's. Who's this strapping lad in defence? Yes, indeed, welcome to St Andrews, the 2005 version. Merry football vs heirs to the throne.
How was he? Well built ... pretty average at the game, I'm afraid. I hate to brag, reader, but, with a classic republican move, I double skinned him and left him flat on his regal backside. It's surreal, but it did happen.
Aging came into it in that tournament. We thought we'd win because we were big strong men, and we might have done, but in the semis, or maybe quarters, our muscles seized up like they do for 26-30 year olds and not 20 year olds, and we were beaten. But actually quite relieved not to have to play anymore!
So, there we go, a pretty comprehensive tale of football through the ages, of skinning everyone from princes to little fish. I played football ineffectively so many times, but every now and then, with my friends, with camaraderie, with the freedom to play in my own hit-and-miss way and other guys prepared to do the dirty work, I do remember this - I ... we ... could play a bit.
Notorious throughout St Andrews, membership of the KK was envied by some, disdained by many. In truth, many of us were happily prepared to bite the hand that fed us, for though we mocked the KK, they sure put on good events, including the biggest, most enjoyable student ball of the year, and an annual six-a-side football tournament where everyone who was anyone vied for what, in the grand scheme of the things, was a minor sporting bauble, but happened to provide me with one of my proudest sporting achievements.
That was almost exactly 15 years ago. 35 now, I haven't played competitive football for over five years, having had my leg broken in November 2008 and been becalmed by the complications. I actually didn't miss it much for a couple of years - I threw myself into my long distance running and, in truth, knew that my standards had been declining significantly in the years leading up to the break. But I miss it now, now it's so far in the past and I'm a cumbersome graceless lump. I was always thus, or appeared so, but the fact that when I got on the football pitch I could every now and then be something else, something more inventive, dextrous and graceful than anyone expected of me, I'm quite sure helped shore up my ego in difficult times. I used to skin people and I miss skinning people, to put it simply.
That's not to say I couldn't be a disastrous footballer. I could be ineffectual, grumpy, selfish, couldn't head, couldn't tackle well, lost my mind in front of goal, endlessly frustrating, but I could play. I could pass, cross, find space, keep possession, read a game fairly well and primarily, I could dribble.
In some ways, 6-a-side football was where I was at my best. 11-a-side saw ups and downs, good and bad seasons. In 6-a-side, by and large, where there weren't aerial battles and long ball games and long periods without touching the ball to descend into one's dark inner life, and oddly, intimidatingly large and focusless goals, I knew I could hold my own with anyone.
I have blissful memories of 6-a-side throughout my life. Winning the Haileybury Sixes (an inter-school competition) as an 11 year old, with a flick header in the last minute against my school's oldest adversary, Dulwich College, which, in my dual role as reporter on the event for the school newspaper, I still remember recording thus; "McGaughey rose to brilliantly flick the ball over the outstretched arms of the despairing goalkeeper." I got some abuse for that. No wonder I was unpopular at school ...
And another 6-a-side tournament, a funny one this, while working at Blackwell's, someone decided to enter us in a Bookseller's 6-a-side tournament. No disrespect, but selling academic books and running around really didn't seem to go together. My colleagues were hopeless, awful, hilariously so. We were unavoidably a one-man team, and I put everything I could into it and I don't think, freed by the responsibility and that my team mates told me they didn't even want me to pass to them, I ever played football so singularly well as on that day. A man possessed, I scored all but one of the team's goals over the course of six highscoring games, and ran myself into the ground. We'd lose the games 10-5, 11-4, stuff like that, but it was so much fun (often the opponents would score a run of goals in the last couple of minutes as I gasped for air, having done all i could to stop the tide). At work on Monday, having previously been a quiet and relatively unknown member of the large staff, I started getting looks of new found respect and people coming up to me saying "I hear you're amazing at football" as if I was some kind of alien. "You know, I'm ok, it's kind of relative ..."
Conversely, it was through playing 6-a-side that I really grasped I was finished as a player. After my first DVT, in 2007, I came back and played casual 6-a-side under the Westway with Chris, my Saturday team's captain, and mates of his. Some of them were really good players, but still, I tried my best, but I couldn't do it. I could no longer beat a man. Everything I did seemed to be in slow motion, I'd make my move and realise the defender was still right on me. Depressing. In 11-a-side, I could deny the truth, because if I played sensibly and carefully, did all the boring stuff, I could still make an effective contribution. But I was no longer a footballer, not by my own terms.
[Having said that (gosh, sorry, a lot of false starts to this post), on the day my leg was broken, which was a month or so after my first marathon, so I was both a) in shape and b) finally recovered from the rigours of the race, that was the first day in a couple of years I'd had genuine optimism before the game that I'd really play like the old days again. I felt sharp. Perhaps that sealed my fate - with my first touch of the game I was quick to the ball, so quick and going away from the guy who lunged from a mile away and snapped my lower leg. Ah well, at least my last touch showed promise ...]
Anyway, as you can see, when it comes to football, I've so many memories and it's hard to keep them in, so I won't, I'll just go where this takes me. Which, for now, is back to the the furthest extremity of the East Neuk.
I turned up at St Andrews having had a chequered school footballing career, but eager to enjoy and impress. I turned up at one University Football Club trial session and was immediately put off. Everyone seemed to know each other, no one putatively in charge was really watching or assessing, there was a practice game and I only got about ten minutes on the pitch. Lots of big Northern lads talking the talk and looking the part. Not many of them seemed all that good, but they were on the inside already. Not for me, this set up.
I had more luck with the team from my Hall of Residence, the Atholl, captained by Dennis Johnson, a little chap from Essex whose acquaintance I made on the first night out of the academic year. The university operated an internal Sunday league of three (later four) divisions and Atholl were one of the top teams. Perennial outsiders, who rarely had people who actually played for the Uni, but from choice rather than exclusion, I felt I'd fit right in.
I did fine at the Atholl trial and was a regular member of the team that year. I did ok, but not great. There were other star players and, to be honest, I felt I was mainly in the team by default. Someone else was always injured, so I usually made the XI. Don't get me wrong, it was a quality team and a nice bunch, all good memories, but I was useful but peripheral. Dennis was one of the stars, in truth one of the best players in the University and, of my own contemporaries, there were regular spots for a Glaswegian midfield dynamo called Rob Kelman and a Belfast right back, Pete Maginnis.
In the end, in a nailbiting deciding fixture against arch rivals Chattan Daemons decided by one goal, we won the league. Or, as Pete and I repeatedly and shamefully shouted on that night of drunken unpleasantless which still appals me, "We won the fucking league, you c****"
My vulgar triumph was a little hollow and I knew it. Dennis had won the league. Rob and Pete and Danny had won the league. I'd helped out a bit, but I could have been a lot better. I wanted to enjoy my football properly, to play like I knew I could play, and there were other ways.
So, the story begins. My friend John and I were sitting in the front hall of the Atholl dicking about one day. A packet of the Camel Lights I relentlessly smoked must have fallen on the floor. Hmm, we said, Smooth American Blend. We then posed as if we were an American soft rock band releasing their eponymous debut album, Smooth American Blend. Japes.
Shortly afterwards, a pub quiz. What shall be our name? How's about Smooth American Blend? Super. We won. This is a winning name!
By the end of the year, me and my year-mates in Atholl were quite a closeknit bunch and we thought "Hey, let's start our own football team." Mainly, we weren't expecting much. Besides Rob, Pete and myself, it wasn't really the folk who'd been in their school first XI, if you see what I mean. But, equally, there were decent athletes, rugby players, golfers, etc. Who knows? A name? A few were touted around. some repellent, some just too wordy even for a wordy repellent fellow like me. This kind of low level league football has a tradition of absurd and sometimes unpleasant names. Me and John fought for Smooth American Blend, and we got it. I was gratified that I emerged from discussions as unanimous choice to be captain.
Jamie Drysdale sorted out our (bright yellow) kit and sponsorship from St Andrews Taxis, we persuaded Dennis (who liked the cut of our jib) to play a few games for us if he wasn't too knackered after playing for the Atholl. We told him Rob, Pete and I wouldn't stop playing for the Atholl, we'd play for both (in different divisions). That's young bodies for you, where folk would routinely play a couple of games per Sunday, sometimes even three.
All the silly, boyish joy in the details, our nicknames on the back of our shirts. Dennis was The Brutal Truth, Richard Smith was Moon Boy, John was Winston Kitsch, Pete was McManus McSkilfulness (the best nickname ever), I was incongruously and I assure you inaccurately, The Doctor of Ganja.
We entered the league, and were assigned to the new bottom division, Division 3 (behind the Carnegie Premiership, where the Atholl played, Division 1 and Division 2). Fine, that'll be our level. Crushingly, we lost our first game, 4-2. I can't remember the name of the oppo, it was either something to do with Todgers or Pies, or both. But despite our outwardly low expectations, this was gutting. We didn't want to be the lowest of the low. I thought, at this low level I'd be able to influence the game more, but I had a poor game.
I remember the next thing. Getting a lift back to town, probably from Jamie, 'Stay Young' by Oasis came on the radio. Silly, I know, but it was inspirational. "Our faith's unshakeable ...". Thanks, Oasis.
Next game, we realised the first game had been a blip. We won 12-2. It would have been embarrassing but we were suddenly hungry to show what we could do. And so the season continued - 10-0, 5-0, 6-1 etc. It emerged that the team we'd played in our first game were the other good team in the division. They went on winning too, but there would be two teams promoted.
It also emerged that we had some unexpected talents - fiercely aggressive and competitive defenders, guys who seemed like lunks who were actually very good at kicking the ball into a goal, John himself who proved a great central defender, both defensively and offensively, Alex, a goalkeeper who developed an overstated reputation elsewhere for eccentric mistakes, but hardly ever made any when playing for Smooth American Blend, just save after save. Dennis was a boon whenever he played, and with Rob doing all the hard work in central midfield, I was able to give myself the role I'd always wanted, roaming around, doing my jittery, offputting but occasionally effective thing. Because I was captain, because these were my friends, I got away with it in this team in a way I didn't elsewhere. And because we kept winning. Because if I dribbled down a blind alley one time, my team mates had evidence that the next time, I might pull something out of the bag. I'm sure I was frustrating at times, but you know, if anyone gave me a black look, I'd just substitute them.... ha ... Power, eh?
So our march carried on. We won every game of the league season on cruise control, as did our first rivals, so we were promoted in second place. Job done. I'll return in due time to the history of the Blend as an 11-a-side team.
But the end of the season brought the KK Sixes - we entered two teams and I picked my "A" team. Alex in goal, Pete, Dennis and Rob, the mercurial Richard Smith and myself, with John and Jamie on the bench.
The previous year's Sixes, when I'd played for the Atholl, had been a washout - I think, despite being league champions in waiting, we'd lost all three group games. Now, here we were, unfancied outsiders from the bottom division.
But we knew we were good. All of us. We started well, winning our group games, 1-0s and 2-0s, but always on top, playing a sensible game. Goals coming from Dennis, Rob and Richard, none from me yet, but I was playing well. We were still in that precious youth when the body can stand an awful lot of nonsense - I smoked, drank and was far too heavy, but I still had enough natural fitness and sufficiently forgiving muscles to run around (almost) all day back then.
Hmm, interesting, we thought. We had momentum. This is where I owe John and Jamie a big apology - the sensible and also the decent thing would have been to rotate subs, to give them a half here, a game there, and they would have kept the team strong, but I was terrified of breaking the spell. Six guys with a formula that was working.
In the quarter-final, we played a team with some of the top Uni players in it. That was the first time we got the feeling, "They've noticed us and they don't like it". A small crowd gathered to support against us, we were under pressure, but a goal came from somewhere, and we held on for a 1-0.
Into the semis, still no goals against. The semi was against ... ahem ... Beavers, a famously posho team, just sporty types but not really natural footballers. We knew they were nothing special, and actually I think we cruised it, 2-0. Can't remember who scored, but it wasn't me, and I was tiring, and worse, cramping up.
The final was against one of the classic University teams, I think they were called Big Prizes. Who cares? A sizable crowd was there, mainly supporting their mates. The mutterings against us became explicit. "Who are this lot? Nobodies. Dennis and 5 others. They're just lucky. They're boring. Just defending". As I eavesdropped on this, I grew outraged. Who did these fuckers think they were? It was hardly the Manchester United Academy. They were mediocre footballers who thought they were something because they were big fish in a small pond.
I'd show them. Except, as soon as the game started, I cramped up severely. If I stayed on, I'd be a liability. I grimly took myself off for John (or Jamie). I stood on the sideline and the jibes continued. They even booed us. I couldn't bear it. I brought myself back on at half time (it was rolling subs), this time going up front as I couldn't do enough running to play anywhere else.
Well then, a ball played hopefully up to me near the halfway line. I got it to it first. I had one defender on me and another nearby, but the cramp stayed away, thank goodness. I stood them up, sent them the wrong way once then twice. My main strength was always two-footedness, which meant I could naturally drag a defender either way and then dart the other. Here I was, in front of goal, on my right foot (stronger but less reliable), bang, just inside the post, my first and only goal of the day. The only fitting way to celebrate was with V signs to the now silent throng. I'd have got a five-game ban if it had been the Premier League.
We still had a few minutes to see out. There were alarms, Alex made a couple of vital saves, but actually, I remember getting a couple more good chances and blowing them. We were the better side, simple as that. Just us, me and my friends, on a level playing field, we were as good as these jumped-up goons.
They were graceless. Wandered off, didn't credit us, typical. We didn't care. It may be a low level, but if, in sport, you get a chance to be the underdogs, the outsiders, with your friends, and you hold together to come up with an unlikely victory, there's nothing better.
Celebrations lasted for days ... weeks. Ask us, any of us, who played that day where it ranks in our memory of our time at University. In our young lives, even. Until the more important things come along, these feel like the most important things.
Mirroring my absurd self-aggrandisement in the press 10 years earlier, it so happened one of my flatmates was writing about the tournament for the student newspaper. Alex and I tried to feed her the story in our own words, full of references to Rocky and Homeric epithets. To our disappointment, she wrote up the story pretty straight, leaving out all our florid details. Of course. What fools we were, but what fun it was.
The good times carried on for that football team, both 6 and 11-a-side. I passed the captaincy to Alex the next year, and we jumped a division to the second tier. Much tougher now, there was the odd loss, but we were getting better, growing in our own confidence and adding to the squad here and there - TV's Michael Byers and David Caves were valuable new blood. We won the season decider against Happy Choppers 3-0 (aah, those names - we'd put our promotion in doubt a couple of weeks before with a shock loss to ... wait for it ... Islamic Jihad). I scored another goal to be proud of, to keep indulgent amigos bored for years to come. We were champions.
So, Alex handed the captaincy to a guy called Russell for the last year, in the prestigious Carnegie Premiership. What an ascent! The name was now New Ultra Smooth (Camel had brought out Ultra Lights, I know - it's disgraceful). We still had the momentum, we actually won our first three games, we were top of the league. From the bottom right to the top.
Then I had to miss a game, my first missed game ever for the Blend. It was lost 4-0. I remember John smiling "You're going to think it's because you weren't playing, but I promise it wasn't. They were just good" and yes, sure, but equally, it made the difference for the same reason I hadn't dared to bring on John or Jamie in the Sixes. Not because of a qualitative difference, no. Because sport can be about magic spells, trances, momentum and fragile structures just about holding it together, cartoon characters running off cliffs and keeping their legs moving till they suddenly realise, and fall. I'd played every single game, hogging, babbling, making things happen for good or bad. It will have made some difference.
That was the first game of a bad spell, my return made no difference, we dropped down the table, but as the season end drew near, the end of that team, the end of our time at St Andrews, we pulled it back together. We won our last couple of games and finished the season 4th. The 4th best team in the whole big university of St Andrews. Not bad for a bunch of jokers. Our very last game, ironically, was against our alma mater the Atholl, no longer the force of old (what with what would have been their senior members defected and with Dennis having left the Uni).
God, I was such a dick that game. A hyperactive, spoilt nightmare for opponents and team mates, shouting, insulting, trying to do everything, such was my desperate determination to end on a high. I rememer Russell doing so well to keep control of the team from me: "David, I promise I will substitute you unless you stay in your position". It was just what I needed. We pulled away, I scored a nice goal to cap it all off and we won 5-2. I apologise to everyone who was on a pitch with me that day. I was emotional, I suppose, that that team was coming to an end. That was a small version of the sporting dream and perhaps I knew i'd never find another team like it.
As for our continued history in the KK Sixes, it was still a favourite event of the year, though we never won it again. In 3rd year, we were super confident, scored loads of goals in winning our group, but then just, suddenly, lost a tight game 1-0, just the way we ourselves had won all our games the year before, and were out. And in the 4th year, gosh, what fun again, we wangled our way to the final. This time, the opposition, another team of Uni boys, were actually really nice, I remember that. It was a good-natured, banterous game, and perhaps that made the difference. I remember, I had another chance, probably when the game was 0-0, almost identical to two years previously, weaved a lovely path between two defenders, then hit my shot clean, but it shaved the outside of the post. There we go. No siege mentality, no killer instinct. We lost 2-0, but I don't think we minded that much.
I played once more in the KK Sixes, a funny little postscript. This was four years later. In London, old St Andrew boys had started a team called Atholl 1965. Dennis played and organised, plus a few others from the old days. I had many good football days with them too in the parks of London in the West End Amateur League. In 2005, we decided to have a little tour back in Fife to play in the Sixes.
Now, what's the main thing strangers ask me when I tell them I went to St Andrews? Did I know Prince William. No. We didn't coincide. I left the year before he arrived. It was a different kind of hood back then, mean fucking streets, I say. You know what I mean, only minor European royalty ...
But, anyway, first group game in the 2005 Sixes, against a team sponsored by the notorious "yah" pub Ma Bell's. Who's this strapping lad in defence? Yes, indeed, welcome to St Andrews, the 2005 version. Merry football vs heirs to the throne.
How was he? Well built ... pretty average at the game, I'm afraid. I hate to brag, reader, but, with a classic republican move, I double skinned him and left him flat on his regal backside. It's surreal, but it did happen.
Aging came into it in that tournament. We thought we'd win because we were big strong men, and we might have done, but in the semis, or maybe quarters, our muscles seized up like they do for 26-30 year olds and not 20 year olds, and we were beaten. But actually quite relieved not to have to play anymore!
So, there we go, a pretty comprehensive tale of football through the ages, of skinning everyone from princes to little fish. I played football ineffectively so many times, but every now and then, with my friends, with camaraderie, with the freedom to play in my own hit-and-miss way and other guys prepared to do the dirty work, I do remember this - I ... we ... could play a bit.
Comments
Post a Comment