A FUNNY OLD GAME

Les has a night out at the Linnets (King's Lynn FC)and gets confused

I decided to take up an offer from a friend of mine and attend a football match at Kings Lynn when they entertained Bedford Town, now whether they entertained me was another matter but that's by the way.

We left home at 6-45pm for a kick off at 7-45pm, that's on the same day of course. The journey to Lynn was uneventful until we got in to the vicinity of the South Gates where we duly engaged in a battle with Lynn's notorious traffic. Even so we somehow managed to arrive at the Stadium some 15 minutes after the game had started.

Now this was the first match I had seen "live" for some 30 years, I seem to do most of my football watching from the comfort of my arm chair. I felt somewhat apprehensive as I took my seat. Football today isn't the same as I knew it as a young man. Today, according to some of our national newspapers, it's football sex, and then more sex; at least if you can believe the shenanigans that go on by some players. Then of course there is the antics of Sven, England's Team Manager.

I wondered would I be subjected to some amorous assault by Miss Kings Lynn 1929 or for that matter any other vintage year. After all, it's not uncommon for some supporters to try and emulate their football playing heroes. As it happened the dear ladies present got up to their usual tricks of completely ignoring me.

This left me free to devote all of my attention to the game in hand and it wasn't long before I started to develop more than a passing interest in a certain Lynn player, well when you are ignored by the opposite sex what other options are open to you.

The player in question seems to operate in a forward position, I don't know what that means, it's an expression I picked up by watching football on TV. In my day you were either a centre forward or an inside right, or something like that.

At some stage the Lynn team was awarded a penalty and I questioned the justification of this to a person who sat nearby to which responded, "How should I know I was talking to my friend?" Judging by the appearance of his friend, a member of the opposite sex, well who could blame him.

It was at this stage that I realised that football at Kings Lynn isn't much different from the game I see on TV in so far as most of the time play seems to be down the centre of the pitch, with the result that least at a third of the pitch near the main stand is not used.

I am now wondering, being a person possessing a some entrepreneur spirit, if at my next visit to the Lynn stadium I could bring my car boot stall after all if the Lynn team doesn't require all of the pitch it seems a shame to let it go unused.

At the close of the game I decided a glass to two at the bar was for and it was here that I caught up with my friend again. Asking what he made of the game he ignored my question and started to about Madonna and with that I decided that enough was enough.

A return trip to see another game one day? I'm undecided, I might just go shopping with my Wife!.

Les Lawrence