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Football teams you've played in

Blacksmith

Blacksmith

master brummie
I used to play for a team called Shirley Comets, but it should really have been Shirley Comics. However, we did win an award one season, The Sporting Losers Award. We really were that bad.

We had one match against the doctors and patients at Monyhull Colony, a mental hospital in Kings Norton and we lost 12-0, but that pales into insignificance with our worst ever defeat.

We were due to play the top of the league, a team called Bulford Sports, and after our poor results, several of our players decided enough was enough and didn't even bother turning up, leaving us with just eight players to start the game. Our goalkeeper played a valiant game, but ended up being taken to hospital with broken ribs, such was the onslaught we were under.

It was like shots in, but our seven remaining players stuck at it and finished the match losing 26-0

Did you, or you partner or parents play for any of the teams in the various Birmingham Parks leagues. I wonder if any of you played in that match when we got such a thrashing?
 
Very brave of you owning up to this Blacksmith. But respect to you for at least carrying on. Hope someone remembers playing in the match, and gets in touch.
 
Oh it's easy to be brave when it's over 40 years ago. We were a pretty poor team, but we still enjoyed ourselves playing. I did manage to play for some reasonable teams as well, so my football playing experience wasn't all that bad.

Mind you, I reckon some of the modern footballers could do with the boots we wore in those days rather than the slipper they wear now. Mine were even more bulky because they were the rugby boots I wore when I was at school.

Also, we wore no vests or gloves like they wear nowadays. I sometime wonder how many of the today's footballers would have coped playing in a blizzard on Billesley Common, or changing in tin sheds.
 
What about the buckets of water one per team at Daisy farm & those changing rooms how did a team get in them they were so small. They were like cages, when they put showers in they were at knee height, just right for Ronnie Corbett.
At Billesley Common the big dread was playing on pitch 24 I think which meant a long long walk just to get to the pitch & then after 90 minutes in the mud, rain etc the even longer walk back, that's why we were fit!!!
I can remember when puddles were a common occurrence at most parks pitches & I was made once to take a free kick from the middle of an ankle deep one where the ball almost floated away & the silly B of a referee wouldn't let me move 2 yards onto a dry bit. The puddles in the goal sometimes became a second goalie as well as frustrating the potential of a goal when it stuck before crossing the line. Happy days!!!
Cheers
Dave
 
They certainly were happy days, Dave. We were doing something that most schoolboys and blokes always wanted to do - play football. We were at our happiest with a ball at our feet.

As well as playing 'proper' matches, we also ejoyed just having a kick about with mates at the park with 'jumpers for goalposts'. I wonder if anyone remembers a game we used to play that we called 'Germans' but it might have had other names elsewhere, because I really have no idea why we called it that.

You were only allowed to score with your head and so we just sent in centres to each other. If you scored it was a goal to the individual who scored. If you missed it was a goal to the goalkeeper. The idea was to see who could get to 3 goals first. If it was an outfield player we all started again from zero. If it was the goalkeeper who got to 3 first he became an outfield player and the person who missed the header that gave him his 3 points took over in goal.

We would be often play that game until it got too dark to see, or until the park keeper chased us off.
 
Not sure when you are both talking of but hubbys grandad was a referee for the Sunday teams League, we have a medal he won for it. That must have been in the late 50's/early 60's I guess, as he died in 1964 at the young age of 50. His name was James "Jim" Meredith, don't know if anyone will recall him.
Sue
 
My ex played for a team in the Festival League in the late 60's. They were called Valencia Nomads.

The first year they played they lost two matches 12-0 And still came back for more the following weeks.

I wonder where all the 'lads' are now?
 
sistersue61 said:
Not sure when you are both talking of but hubbys grandad was a referee for the Sunday teams League, we have a medal he won for it. That must have been in the late 50's/early 60's I guess, as he died in 1964 at the young age of 50. His name was James "Jim" Meredith, don't know if anyone will recall him.
Sue
Click to expand...

It was mid to late 60s when I played, Sue, so his refereeing time would have been before me. After that I moved out of the area when I got married.

How lovely that you've got the medal he won. Mind you, I think all referees in parks football deserve medals, it's such a thankless job and, from what I've read, it is worse nowadays with the abuse, both verbal and physical, they receive.
 
TheresaTreadAnywhere said:
My ex played for a team in the Festival League in the late 60's. They were called Valencia Nomads.

The first year they played they lost two matches 12-0 And still came back for more the following weeks.

I wonder where all the 'lads' are now?
Click to expand...

I'd forgotten about the Festival League, Theresa. Thanks for reminding me.

It was the Coronation and South Birmingham Leagues I played in. I never got chance to play in the Festival League.

Dave
 
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