Victoria Park was the home ground of my football team, Atholl 1965. We played in the somewhat misnamed West End Amateur League - amateur we certainly were, but Victoria Park is not the West End.
We chose Vic Park, basically, because it had the best pitches, at the best rates, of the available options. They were flat, large and kept well during the winter. But, jesus, it was a long way there and back.
For the first season, I was still living at my mum's in Ealing, and that was some trek. Either tube it all the way via Highbury and Islington or even walk through Acton then get there all the way round on the North London line. Either way, it was 2 hours there, 2 hours back.
Not that much better when I lived in Clapham really, especially if the trains from H&I to Hackney Wick were delayed (pre-Olympic upgrade), as they frequently were. Still, at least that line was free.
The problem was not getting there, of course. It was getting back. Even at the best of times, my body has a pretty weird drainage system, but nowhere was this more significant than when playing 90 minutes football 2 hours from home. Basically, I'd get ill every week. I'd play the game, gradually drain and acquire a headache, then usually be sick. It was to be expected, accepted.
Not if the game was nearer. We played away games all over - Regent's Park, Hackney Marshes, Wandsworth Common, Wormwood Scrubs, Barn Elms, Wandsworth Park, South Park, Kensington Gardens, Tufnell Park, Queens Park, Poplar, Essex, and if the journey back was quicker, I'd probably be ok for the evening.
It's not that I didn't try everything to stave it off, or that it was fitness-dependent. I tried every combination of water and isotonic drinks, fruit and salty snacks, not drinking/drinking the night before, it didn't make much difference. It was, I think, the fact of the travelling back, the long period of time before my body could relax.
And yet, that never tempted me to not play football, and not for Atholl. I might still be playing now if my body had let me. It seems strange to me that it was only seven years, from the very first game, in Fairlop, Essex, in late summer 2001, to my last game, in Kensington Gardens, in November 2008. That's for Atholl 1965, the London offshoot of our uni team, Atholl (named after our hall of residence) for whom I played four seasons.
Football is such an enormous part of the hierarchy of being a young man - obscenely so. For the natural advantage I had of being quite good, I certainly didn't make the most of it. I love playing football, but I never got the hang of doing it right. Playing for Atholl in London was my best shot.
They were guys I liked but not, as such, mates, so I felt obligated but knew I couldn't take the piss. Although I regret not doing fitness work on the side, I tried my best, when I turned up on Saturday, to do a job, to cover my shortfalls by knowing where to be. There's something oddly thrilling about knowing where to be - standing on the goal line for opposition corners, marking the thrower on throw ins, edge of box for our corners etc the ritual and shared responsibility.
We'd play all sorts - Essex wide boys, violent nasty kids, city boys, teams of exiled Northerners, Turkish students, Angolans, Brazilians, and a lot who were, just like us, mish-mashes of uni friends and their friends, randoms, whoever you could get.
We were a nice, diverse team who tried hard and got on well. We had some very good players. Occasionally we threatened to be really good. I remember a season we started the league with 3 wins, played a team from the league above in a cup competition and beat them 7-1 and it was beautiful. I scored the first goal, nothing special but a bit of pace, a bit of strength, a bit of "i can really do this". Then the next week, we played out in Essex in a preliminary round of the actual FA Cup and played ok but went 2-0 down and then I had an identical chance to the previous week, did everything the same, shot and grazed the outside of the post, and we lost 3-0, and we were never quite so good again all season.
So it was with my own form. I'd have runs of a few weeks where I could really play, it's hard to describe. Fitness is one thing, confidence another, but sometimes the ball just came off my foot right, and i'd want to take free kicks, corners, and I'd do something good with them. And then that feeling would go, and it would be more of a lottery again.
We had better players, but I could contribute. I could do the difficult bits of football better than the easy bits. Left-foot volleys. I've got a collection of left-foot volleys in my memory bank anyone would be proud of. Beat a man. Just like that. And your team mates will say "go at them, take them on" but as soon as you've done that a couple of times and it's not quite worked, you can sense the frustrations.
People called me McHoggy when i played football, said I was selfish, but I swear, looking back now, my regret is that I wasn't more selfish, i wish i hadn't listened to any of it, that I could have just taken my one footballing USP and used it to its utmost. Ha! Maybe not.
Anyway, I tried, with Atholl, to not be too selfish, to work hard and do the job. I was no good at tackling, heading, shooting, but I'd try. I'd try to be knackered by the end. Some weeks, it was out of my hands. The game just didn't come to me. Too windy, too muddy, too small a pitch. Those days were a bummer but I wouldn't beat myself up, especially if we won. I'd only blame myself it it actually had fallen my way ... if i had plenty of ball early on and did nothing with it.
aah well, but Victoria Park, I still have fond memories. Out of the train station, past a scrapyard, over the A12, into the park, nets up, nice, flat, big pitches. So many great games we played there. Haven't been back for years. Can't imagine how fancy it all is now.
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