AN ODE TO FUTBOLOGY

United Services Portsmouth 3 AFC Stoneham 2

23^rd September 2023.

I’m just a little too young to remember the 1982 World Cup, so can’t claim to have been inspired by one of the greatest matches of all time, not legitimately anyway. That game, Brazil versus Italy in the group stages at the Estadio Sarria, knocked arguably one of the best Brazilian sides assembled out of the World Cup, whilst simultaneously setting Italy on the path to ultimately win the tournament. It also served as a redemption arc for the Italian striker Paolo Rossi. Implicated, and subsequently banned for two years for his involvement in a match-fixing scandal, his hat-trick in the game set him on his way to win the Golden Boot as tournament top scorer, Golden Ball as the tournament’s best player, and eventually World and European Footballer of the Year. He won every domestic and European honour with Juventus, before retiring in 1987 with Verona. He passed away in 2020, aged 64.

I can’t pretend that I’ve thought very often about him in the last few years. Occasionally, my brain will throw a random footballer to the front of my thinking. Paolo Rossi has probably featured in my sub-conscious clear out, but so would Gus Caesar, Martin Dahlin or Willie Miller. So, it was with a little flicker of pleasant surprise whilst checking myself in at The Victory Stadium in Portsmouth, that the Futbology app awarded me the “Paolo Rossi Badge”. To go with my “Pavel Nedved Badge”, “Alexia Putellas Badge” and “Igor Belanov Badge”. Everyone loves badges, even virtual ones. It’s also probably the only time that Paolo Rossi, one of Italian footballs greatest players and a genuine World Cup legend, would have any connection to the Wessex League Premier Division.

Futbology is a groundhopper’s best friend. For the uninitiated, it can be seen as something to be downloaded by those type of people who just go to football grounds for the sake of going to football grounds. Originally called Groundhopper App, it can be used to log matches that have already been attended, locate games nearby to visit, and keep statistical updates of every ground you’ve ever been to. The annual subscription is under ten pounds, and is the only app I pay for unquestioningly, also having a paid subscription for my daughter so she can check-in to games and keep a record of where she’s been to (current stats: 84 games, 45 different grounds). Pictures can be added and shared with the world, and you can add friends (virtual or actual real humans) and receive the badges for attending games on certain dates, based around the dates of birth of all previous Ballon D’Or winners. For example, Lothar Matthaus celebrates his birthday on the 21^st March, and won the Ballon D’or in 1990 following his captaincy of West Germany’s World Cup win that year. He will now also be linked to Fleet Spurs hosting Andover Town this year, a game I attended and received an electronic badge with a drawing of Matthaus in his classic West German kit.

I can’t remember how I first came across Groundhopper app, but it became a close friend during lockdown in 2020. Its growing archive of matches gave me a task to keep my mind going through the days when going for a walk was a big treat. I decided it would be a good time-filling task to log every game I had ever attended, since my first game with my dad in 1986. Starting from scratch, I went through as many games as I could remember looking for the dates and the scores – there are hundreds of matches I can remember nothing about, but am certain that I would have attended, most of them easily confirmed by finding a tattered copy of the programme in a drawer, or a half-remembered game involving a team wearing yellow, and there was a penalty late on, and I missed the last five minutes as I had to go to a wedding reception. Trawling through Facebook memories, football archive sites and educated guesswork, I managed to account for about 400 matches.

Other games required a little more research. In 1990 and 1991, Hendon’s old ground Claremont Road, hosted an annual Gaelic Football match (then ideally placed, serving the interests of the mainly Irish population in the area). Even now I can only find concrete evidence of the first game taking place, a victory for Mayo over the All-Ireland champions, Donegal. However, I remember a victory for Mayo again the following year, over Down, a game I remember clearly because I went with my best friend from school, and one of the Down players taking umbrage with something said by a supporter in the main stand, and decided to discuss this personally with them, predating Eric Cantona’s conversation with Matthew Simmons by a few years. To this day, I can find no record of this match, so the point I’m almost convinced it never took place. Another game that took some investigation was a game between a Canon Cinemas XI and Jewish Chronicle XI, also at Claremont Road. Not a game I would normally have attended, but the local newspaper trailed the game by saying that Mark Hughes would be playing. Parental permission to attend obtained, I got to the ground an hour before it opened, expecting there to be a huge crowd to swarm to the game to watch Mark Hughes. The huge crowd never arrived. Nor did Mark Hughes, at least not the Manchester United and Wales centre forward. No, the Mark Hughes who played was, I believe, editor of the Jewish Chronicle. I’m sure he was a fine player, but he really wasn’t the crowd-puller our local newspaper made him out to be. As of today, I have 632 matches against my name on the app, and I would say that is accurate to within about five matches, with at least two that I remember attending that I can find zero information on.

The main feature that myself and my daughter use is the ability to locate local fixtures. Colour-coded to show whether the game is at a ground you have attended before, it scours an expanding number of leagues and ground from where you are standing. As an example, I am currently sitting in my office at work. The app is currently telling me that tomorrow evening, I could choose to visit Aldershot, Bracknell, Badshot Lea, Virginia Water, Woodley, or Alfold, the last of which is the only ground in that list I haven’t visited before. It’s excellent for finding a game to go to quickly, linking to the phone’s maps function to provide you with directions to the ground. In the times before smart phones, which feel like the Dark Ages in some respects, my uncle and I would need to obtain a copy of the Non-League Paper for the fixtures and bring a copy of the Non-League Directory for the club info. Finding out a game had been postponed involved arriving at the ground, finding an alternative game meant having an extensive knowledge of the South-east of England, and a car able to move quickly enough to relocate to another ground. Usually, we had the first part covered by uncle’s previous career as a courier driver, but not always the latter, with some of the cars being generously classed as “vintage”.

Whilst my wife and daughter visited a newly relocated to Portsmouth friend for a playdate, I looked for something else to pass the time, with even my wife suggesting I take in a match somewhere. I’m not sure I hid my relief particularly well. Firing up the Futbology app, I found three options available to me, within walking distance of the house. Portsmouth v Lincoln in League One was the nearest option, but a combination of the cost of entrance and that I have already visited Fratton Park previously chalked that from the list. Paulsgrove v Denmead in the Hampshire Premier League, the same division as Fleet Spurs, was a possibility but would have required a brisk pace to get to the ground in time for kick-off. The last man standing was at The Victory Stadium, for a Wessex Premier division game between United Services Portsmouth and AFC Stoneham. A long delay on the A27 meant that it was going to be tight to get to the game in time for kick-off. Thankfully, my ever-patient wife dropped me at a point where I could make it to the game on foot before going to marshal two six-year-olds covering each other in make-up for the afternoon.

There are sometimes when no matter how well I plan things, I forget things. Having successfully navigated my way across Portsmouth, I got to the Royal Navy Sports grounds and realized I didn’t know which one of the many pitches hosted football. There was an Astro pitch, but there didn’t appear to be any spectators around. I asked two blazered gents who were heading to the rugby club for directions. They pointed me towards a security gate, and suggested I asked the guard to let me through. It seemed a little casual, but I went over to talk to the security guard. On the way over, I remembered that I had forgotten to bring any cash, being so used to tapping my card for everything. A calculation was needed. If I went to the turnstile and found out it was a cash only ground, I would have to retreat to find an ATM. Which would mean missing some of the game. It was 15 minutes to kick off. The nearest ATM was ten minutes’ walk away. Running, however, was five minutes away. I returned to the security guard, cash in wallet, breathing and sweating heavily. He cheerily directed me towards the football part of the complex, which I shuffled towards, still recovering from my rather unexpected work-out. A kindly lady at the potting shed / turnstile accepted cards (but of course) and directed me around the ex-running track to the main, and indeed, only stand. The game had already kicked off, but nothing of interest had been missed.

From the entrance to the ground, the view is pleasing, with the stand on the far side of the track framed by a clear blue sky, with the Spinnaker on the immediate skyline. As you venture round, it’s clear the ground needs a little bit of TLC. The running track surrounding the pitch has been removed, leaving a red concrete ring around the pitch, though the relatively modern netting on the shot-put cage suggests that this is something that could be in the process of being renewed. The stand itself is a 1960s concrete facility, rather how Barnet Copthall used to be like before Saracens got their hands on it. Part of the stand was blocked off by scaffolding and tap usually used for safety reasons, but there didn’t appear anything unsafe about the stand. A small building site behind one of the goals did threaten player safety if any over-enthusiastic tackles ended up heading towards the long-jump pit. Two modern Plexi-glass dug-outs on the near side to the main stand were mirrored by two old concrete dugouts, which some spectators used as their personal VIP viewing areas for the afternoon, something I cursed myself for not thinking of earlier. Given the more modern, fresher facilities across the rest of the sporting site (the rugby stadium, hockey stadium, even the Astro football pitches just next to the stadium), it felt like the football club had been served a little bit of a raw deal. Without checking, I would hope that the ground is in the process of regeneration, especially for some of the friendliest officials and volunteers I’ve come across at this level.

The visitors would have been favourites for this game at kick-off, not having dropped a point in the league, and had a run to the 2^nd Qualifying round of the FA Cup which is a financial boost to sides at Tier 9 of the pyramid. US Portsmouth, meanwhile, hadn’t won since the opening day of the season, and were playing their first home league game. The opening exchanges suggested that the match would go with form, with Stoneham maintaining possession, probing the compact hosts defence, with Scott Hills having the best chance, not quite reacting quickly enough four yards out, and seeing his header loop over the bar. After all that possession, it was a surprise that it was the home team that took the lead. It’s been a feature of games at this level that some of the defence splitting passes have been of a standard that, if you were watching Match of the Day and Kevin De Bruyne was making that pass, you’d still applaud. That’s what happened after 20 minutes, when Cameron Quirke picked up the ball in the centre circle and carved the defence open with a low driven pass. Jimmy Walters ran onto the perfectly weighted pass, chose violence, and almost took the leather off the ball with his shot, firing high into the net from the edge of the penalty area. When the visitors did get in behind the United Services defence, Ryan Cluett tried a similar shooting technique, but his effort whistled over the cross bar and bounced away across the steeplechase pit and running track. It wasn’t until the last minute of the half that Stoneham had their first shot on target, with Hills having a shot deflected through to the keeper. Despite their territorial dominance, and the midfield control shown by Owen Fee, the visitors hadn’t done enough to break down the very well-organized hosts’ defence.

The second half was more of the same: AFC Stoneham having a lot of possession, United Services defending with great discipline and relying on breakaways. The main difference was that the visitors were now starting to create some chances. A concerted spell of pressure ended with Pattison driving a shot in from the edge of the area, which was well saved by Logan O’Donnell. Quirke was superb for the home team just in front of the back four, as was Ads Adeniran, whose battle with Fee was highly entertaining all afternoon. For the visitors, their centre half, Yumo Wan, was composed and had excellent distribution throughout. In the end, the game was decided by the two centre-forwards. Hills was now starting to find space but was starting to have “one of those days”. With fifteen minutes left, he raced through onto a long ball over the top of the defence, but got his feet muddled with the ball just stopping dead with only the keeper nearby. A few minutes after, he blasted a shot over the bar. I wrote a note on my phone saying, “AFC 9 having a mare in front of goal”.

Stoneham were made to pay shortly afterwards, a signal for the match to go slightly mental. Quirke again won the ball and morphed into Xavi, clipping the ball through to the ever-willing Walters. He beat Wan, and keeper Lee to the ball thirty yards out, took a touch and stroked the ball into the empty goal from the edge of the area. Nine minutes left, game over? Not even close. Having confidently noted the less than stellar afternoon in front of goal that Scott Hills was having, he then made me reconsider those words by pulling a goal back for the visitors within three minutes, a shot deflected into his path, and he showed a poacher’s instinct to thump the ball home from six yards out. Stoneham were then denied a penalty when Bainbridge was bundled over, which seemed obvious from about eighty yards away, but the appeal was waved away (hey, the ref was closer than me and my poor eyesight). It was definitely game over with four minutes left when Walters completed a classy hat-trick, winning a through ball from substitute Dylan Holgate, and composing himself before curling the ball beyond Lee. Except, it wasn’t game over as Hills then scored again in injury time, sending O’Donnell the wrong way from close range. There was still time for both sides to threaten – Stoneham with bodies thrown forward, United Services on the counter - in the ten minutes of injury time, but United Services hung on for an ultimately well-deserved first three points since early August.

I set off on the long journey back towards Southsea and the playdate I had managed to wriggle out of, and silently offered up thanks to Futbology for allowing me to visit the Victory Stadium. I would be certain had it not existed and offered me the chance to watch a game in the early autumn sunshine, then I would have spent the day being either a climbing frame or make-up model for two hyperactive six-year-olds (and definitely would have been a cash machine for both in Gun Wharf Quay shopping arcade). For that, I will be eternally grateful for my favourite app on my phone. I’m sure Paolo Rossi would have enjoyed the game as well.