Sunday morning
action at Perivale with Kurd Stars on the attack.
Wings of Pegasus
By David Barber. Tuesday, 11 April 2006.
The superfan saw six more games last week, taking
him up to 218 for the season, and those included an FA Vase semi-final
second leg at Hillingdon Borough that went to extra-time.
The super six were Alba 0 Pegasus 6, Accenture 1 Athletico Chips 1,
Hayes 2 Lewes 2, West London Phoenix 1 Kurd Stars 1, Hillingdon Borough 2
Bury Town 1 and BNP Paribas 2 Eastern Promise 2.
Alba’s crushing defeat in the London Football League’s Spring Cup
came on an evening when their goalkeeper was still at home as the game
kicked-off at 6 o’clock.
He had thought it was a 7.30 start.
Pegasus didn’t need any more encouragement and ran riot, scoring with
almost every shot at goal.
Pegasus", of course, is a famous
name in non-League football. The team formed from Oxbridge students by
Harold "Tommy" Thompson in 1948 – he said they would beat any amateur team
in the country – won The FA Amateur Cup twice in the early 1950s, playing
before 100,000 crowds at Wembley. Dad saw them beat Harwich &
Parkeston 6-0 in the ’53 Final, which just happened to be the same
scoreline as last Tuesday at the Rec.
I went to Hayes v Lewes on
Saturday, with the former desperate for points at the bottom of the
Conference South and the latter looking (I thought) to consolidate their
place in the play-offs. But I read in the programme that ground problems
will prevent any promotion this year.
Nevertheless, this game had a cracking second half, with Hayes
scoring twice in the last five minutes to grab a point.
Sunday
began as it normally does, with "The Barber" joining a queue for a tube
ticket behind fifty tourists, none of whom could speak English or had any
idea where they were going. My morning game, eventually, was a Chiswick
& District League Division Three fixture at Ealing Central.
There was no score for an hour; then the Kurd Stars’ ‘keeper,
wearing a baggy tracksuit with a hood, was finally beaten. The Asian
players were finding it hard to compete physically with their opponents
but their skill level was high and they managed to conjure up an equaliser
near the end, just after three crows had ambled onto the
pitch.
After that I took a tube from Perivale to Hanger Lane,
walked to Park Royal, took another tube to Rayners Lane, another to
Ruislip, then walked about two miles to Hillingdon Borough’s ground for
their Vase semi-final. A crowd of 723, more than ten times their average,
saw Boro book their place in the Final with a 2-1 win in
extra-time.
The chap in front of me in the stand was certainly
enjoying it. Leaning back in his seat, he said: "It doesn’t get much
better than this. I’ve got the sun beating down on me, I’m eating a lovely
burger, I’m watching a football match and my team is winning". I think
we’d all like some of that.