Up Close And Personal

In accordance with my pursuit of broadening my learning about the beautiful game, I have been to see a Conference League match today.

My local team is Forest Green Rovers, who were at home to Woking today. So off we trotted, my lover and I, my lover wearing a pair of my purple tights under his trousers (should I be worried I wonder?)

I thought at one point I might get in for free when the car park official mistook me for Stuart Fleetwood's mother. He rumbled me though when he spotted my Leicester City shirt.

The experience was a bit confusing in some ways because although FGR are my local team, we met up with three friends of my lover, led by Luton Andy, who are Woking fans. So I found myself in the away supporters end.

I think it would be fair to say it was not quite like a visit to The Walkers. For a start off the pitch was just a few feet away. Indeed, the warm up period was something of an ordeal, with the threat of a wild ball heading your way at any moment. These fears proved well founded when at half time a stray ball hit a woman carrying a pie, a cone of chips and two coffees. Strangely, she did not seem to find the spectacle of these items flying into the air and landing on the floor nearly as funny as the rest of us.

I was treated to a running commentary from behind by a Woking fan, who clearly missed his vocation as the team manager. Expressions such as "They need to do something with the ball once they have got it" and "Make space, make space" rang in my ears.

And then there was the referee. Who was a girl! Despite the fact that all the players were bigger than her, the Woking team in particular (blimey what do they feed them on Surrey?), she took no messing.

There is something a little bit sexy about bossing all those boys about whilst you run around in shorts don't you think?

Anyway FGR won with a creditable 2 -1 final score. As we left, a lone female steward stood facing us with her back to the pitch, presumably to stave off a mass pitch invasion from the 50 or so Woking fans who had made the trip.

The rest of the day was spent with my new friends, talking about - yes you've guessed it - football. And other stuff too of course. It was a great opportunity to watch boys 'doing' football up close though. One of the three football musketeers, Bruce Grove, told a great story of how years ago he watched Jimmy Greaves score an amazing goal. Several years later Greavesie was signing books at a local shop and he took the programme from the game and got him to sign it.

Now that really is up close and personal!