By Dan Ferguson
I used to play football.
I was fairly good. Never great, but as a teenager I was certainly better than most.
I did the London circuit from the age of 12-17.
QPR in 1985, training in my scratchy school PE kit among kids with their most current gear. Then Spurs in 1987 with Darren Caskey, (but never played a match – just trained but they gave us subs! They gave us money to come to train!).
I also captained Senrab under-15s in 88/89.
This was the club which produced Sol Campbell, John Terry and Ledley King. I moved on to Leyton Orient with Chris Bart-Williams (along with Haringey and Middlesex), but soon went to Chelsea (with Andy Myers), who wanted a ball-playing centre back. I played a few games and did well, but in September 1990 I tore my ACL and never quite recovered.
All things considered, I didn’t have the right attitude to be footballer because I loved watching it too much.
I would miss a game to watch a game, if that makes sense? I avoided the occasional Sunday league game to go to watch the Arsenal.
I watched Adams and O’Leary obsessively, and learned the art of reading, playing and killing a game.
It wasn’t rocket science, but to play the ball, play the man, or literally lose the ball (in the next field), with 5 minutes to go when you’re winning 1-0 were all important skills. Back then, to be a centre back was about speed, a jockstrap and being tall. I wasn’t going to wear a strap, and I had other ideas, owing to a video of Tony Adams setting up Winterburn against Spurs in 1988(?), and another of Maldini playing through the lines.
My Senrab manager Big George figured if I played in front of the defence when the ball was in the opposition half, I would win enough possession to counter and create/score 5-10 goals a season.
It worked wonders. It was all from watching these guys who maybe weren’t conditioned like Gary Cahill or Vincent Kompany, but they had the control, vision and power to create and succeed. Anyone who says that Adams was a ‘donkey’ clearly had never watched him.
I grew up near the Vauxhall garage at the top of Inderwick Road, on Tottenham Lane in Hornsey N8.
It wasn’t a big Arsenal area, but I knew what I loved. I stood Paxton Road end among the Spurs fans with school friends in October 1987, applauding Nico Claesen as he opened the scoring against us. Only to stiffen in muted elation as Rocastle and Thomas scored to win the game. All this instead of turning up to Wanstead Flats in the Echo League fighting for the title. I just didn’t have it in me to scale the heights.
I remember watching people sitting on the roof of the North Bank during the opening game of the season against Liverpool. Or standing with my mate Nicky Charalambous in the North Bank watching Martin Hayes beat Papin’s France 2-0, all for a fiver. In what world does this happen now?
All of these memories are compartmentalized into school years.
It was so convenient as football seasons pretty much ran in parallel with education. GCSEs, won the title at Anfield. A levels, passed driving test and won title again. FA Cup and League Cup, second knee operation and Chris Bart-Williams turned up at a kickabout in Edmonton wearing Ian Wright’s FA Cup final shirt. We almost fainted.
These memories are gold, and a lot of the games I can find on YouTube now. They help square a circle of such vivid times, when we couldn’t take selfies, and diarize the most meaningless of events. We learned football and seasons through key moments and key events.
Before Michael Thomas scored against Liverpool in 1989, I was a virgin, had never heard of De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising, and was crapping myself about taking my GCSE exams.
And to ground it all into the chaotic mess it really was, I listened to the game at Anfield on the radio in the bedroom of a girl I was trying to pull (when the game was live on ITV downstairs).
Football eh?