Sometimes in our game it's the little things that count. The good challenge to stop the onrushing striker during the fifth minute of the season opener might be forgotten two minutes later; but it could be the difference between a 2-1 win or a 2-2 draw, or come the end of the season be the deciding factor between another mid-table finish or continental football. Football is often described as being a boring game due to the lack of goals scored - but it just means that every little action is that much more important. Every corner, every tackle, every free kick; all can have a massive outcome on a game, something that not every sport can boast.
In the past week I found out that I'd been successful in my application for a pair of Champions League Final tickets through UEFA's lottery system, meaning my other half and I can mark a trip to Wembley in our diaries for next month. At the same time though, I was feeling an itch for football now, and with my next EPL fixture not for a few weeks, I thought I'd sample some of the most local fare I could find. Enter the Ryman Premier Division, tier seven of English football, where the winners receive promotion to the Blue Square Conference South, and the football league is three massive promotions away. Yet there's probably nowhere better than somewhere like Longmead Stadium, home of Tonbridge Angels Football Club, to learn to love the little things we should treasure in this game.
Pricier tickets don't always mean better entertainment
Just like it says on the tin - at Tonbridge I was treated to a scissor kick goal, a screamer of a free kick, a few good laughs, and six goals as the Angels battled out a three-all draw with Tooting and Mitcham United. About five hundred or so people enjoyed a beautiful sunny English afternoon (I'd forgotten such things existed) watching some football with a pint in one hand and a Longmead burger in the other; all for not very much at all. What better way to spend a Saturday?
The same can of course be said of state league football back home. Each to their own of course, but I can't quite see the logic of those people who sneer at so-called 'eurosnobs' only to turn up their nose at Green Gully, Sydney United or Mandurah City in much the same way the objects of their ire avoid the A-League.
nib Stadium could learn a thing or two
At Longmead there was no aggressive security to hassle you, no announcements of my spectator rights over the tannoy, and plenty of undercover seating if you thought eighteen degrees Celsius was pushing your UV exposure to the limit. What's more, Longmead has not one, but two 'sheds' - one at either end of the pitch. The potential for banter to be belted out from one end of the pitch to the other was well and truly there - assuming away fans turned up in a reasonable enough number.
Recent history at nib has been dominated by complaints about the fact that the family stand end doesn't get enough noise going. Well, put another tin-topped acoustic generator there and perhaps it will? Or here's a better idea - why don't we make the whole stadium covered? It's just a little bit annoying to find yourself standing next to someone in the Glory Shed who has no interest in cheering the team, singing, or shouting - they've just taken shelter from whatever elements decided to make their life a bit uncomfortable on the day.
My god, Perth Glory cannot execute set pieces
I seem to remember a time when Perth had players that could make a ball curve, swerve, dip, rise, and spin on a whim. A 'Boutsi' free could send the crowd into an absolute frenzy before the ball was even kicked; and if we had a deadball situation anywhere inside our own half you always felt like something could - and most probably would - happen. I think I speak for all Glory fans now when I say that feeling has well and truly gone. Now I know set pieces are just a very small part of football, just a little thing, but in recent years it seems our coaches have thought that they're something best ignored in training.
Yet on the weekend I watched a bunch of very much semi-professional footballers execute set pieces of the like not witnessed at nib for many a moon. Not every corner was deep to a man who failed to arrive! Corners found heads, short passes, or the chaos of a box after swinging in. Free kicks were dispatched to the head of a colleague - or in the case of one particular missile - the top corner of the net at about 100mph. In short, players actually looked like they had been drilled in set piece tactics and strategy. Glory don't. And this is the seventh bloody division of England, people!
Fans make Football
There were only 534 people watching Tonbridge Angels play Tooting & Mitcham United at Longmead, but there was still a group of vocal supporters who stood in the shed behind their team's goal each half. They chanted, they sang, they abused the keeper - in many ways (not least the chants, accents, and beer guts) it was like being back in the Glory shed itself.
But it isn't just active support that best demonstrates this little home truth. The game itself was dedicated to the memory of a former club director, who sadly passed away after only recently continuing to play for the masters side. A minute's silence was strictly observed; a collection box for the local hospice yielded about five hundred pounds. Then, sitting at the bus stop after the match, I struck up a conversation with an older Tooting & Mitcham supporter who had travelled to Longmead to watch his side. This gent had Parkinsons, and had taken it upon himself to travel to every away ground in the league through the course of the season under his own power, using no more than his legs and public transport.
Tonbridge was his twenty-third stadium of the season. He'd been to FA cup matches, league games, and he'd essentially been all over the south of England to watch his side. I asked him if he was raising money for Parkinsons - no, he said. He'd do that at the last home game of the season. He was just doing it because he could. With a self-deprecating laugh, he said "after all, I don't think it will get any easier next year".
Now I've been to the Olympiastadion Berlin, I've been to Old Trafford, I've been to many a cavernous stadium. But sometimes it is the little things that humble you - and this was one of those.
So next time you switch on the telly and watch Barca glide their way around the field, or wail at the piffling sum of thirty million offered for your favourite striker, or even decry the fact that people won't pay thirty bucks to watch your A-League team play live - why not pause to think about the little things that make this game great... and those things which are far more important.
