Our family, and many of our friends and their families, have regularly camped in the summer holidays on a small, family run, campsite on the north coast of the Llyn peninsular in North Wales. Earlier this month Sue and I were camping there, where we met Simon from Shropshire who reminisced about the years that he and his wife Jane had been coming to the site. Simon was particularly keen to recall the evening football matches that took place in ‘the top field’ in the late 80s / early 90s – ‘England v Wales, often 40 a side,men and boys …. men and boys!’

We routinely camped in a different field and our children were too young to be involved in these matches – but it was impossible not be aware of them.

The following is based on memories of actual events ……..

It was an expansive, anarchic game, played out nightly in the ‘top field’ to the accompaniment of much shouting, cheering and laughter. Simon was nearly right – it was largely ‘men and boys’ but I saw girls playing too – though never any adult women (who were presumably too busy sorting out younger children for bed etc).

The matches were competitive, with a crowd of younger children (hereafter referred to as ‘the swarm’) constantly contesting possession of the ball, with the men usually waiting patiently for it to emerge from these frenetic exchanges when a few passes would be strung together and sometimes a goal scored. The score counted, they were representing their countries after all, and it wasn’t unknown for younger children to be on ‘post duty’ – ready to pick up the goal and run away with it if their goalie was out of position and the opposition looked certain to score. Nevertheless, as the evening wore on (and quantities of beer / pop were consumed) the actual score, initially an issue for vigorous discussion, eventually became of no interest what so ever.

There were three impressive aspects to the pitch; it was reasonably flat, kept well mown and had two heavy duty plastic tube 5 a side goals, complete with nets. However, thereafter there was little resemblance to a proper football pitch – there were no touchlines or dead ball lines and thus the matches sprawled across the entire field and often into adjacent ones. As the evening wore on and the light faded it became more confused and disjointed. On one memorable occasion we encountered a swarm of children hacking at the ball in a ditch along the lane to the sea in almost complete darkness a full quarter of a mile from the campsite.

However, most of the matches were contained within the ‘top field’, which was ringed by touring caravans, most of which had awnings. Inevitably the ball would on occasion find its way into an awning. The men, being responsible adults, would take a step back at this point and use the interlude to rehydrate themselves, happy to let the children retrieve the ball. However, this was far from a ‘Please mister can we have our ball back’ approach, as the ball would be followed into the awning by the swarm, still intent on contesting possession and resulting in sides bulging with shapes of arms, legs, bums and heads until either the ball was hacked back out into the field or an irate adult (usually a woman) came out shouting and the men would then sheepishly intervene.

 This state of affairs was largely tolerated as most caravans had representatives ‘on the pitch’ and awnings would be zipped up to reduce the incursions. Unfortunately John from Merseyside, whose caravan sat roughly where the halfway line might have been, had an open sided awning which seemed to attract the ball like a bear to honey. John was an amiable guy, friendly and helpful to everyone, but as each night wore on and his space was regularly invaded he became…. well less amiable and although from Merseyside, and a Liverpool supporter, struggled to remain true to Bill Shankley’s dictum that football was more important than life and death.

On one particular evening when he had been tormented by the actions of the swarm even more than usual he came out of his awning very red faced with the ball in hand and shouted ‘If this bloody thing comes in here again I am going to…to .. to… DESTROY IT!’ The men ambled over, gave him a beer and reassured him that there would be no further problems as it was virtually dark and the game would soon finish. Not entirely convinced John returned to the centre of his awning and settled into a camp chair beer in hand – to watch the game.

It was routine to restart the game from such stoppages with a ‘dropped ball’ either at the place where play had stopped, or more usually close to it………….

As was the custom the drop ball was contested by 2 youngsters (who were deputed the following day to go round to John’s caravan to apologise for subsequent events on the premise that he would find it difficult to sustain his pissed offness with 2 apologising children).

The ball was dropped, both lads took huge kicks at it, one connected and struck the ball onto the knee of the other, from where it flew unerringly straight back into John’s awning … over his head in fact … followed by the swarm of younger children. They didn’t actually go over his head, but they might just as well have done as his chair tipped back in the face of the onslaught leaving him on his back, his beer spilt over his shirt.

The men knew this was serious and acted with a speed that many had doubted they were cognitively or physically capable of at that time of the evening, rushing over to intervene and unwittingly adding to the crush, shouting and general mayhem now concentrated in the confines of the awning. The whole match was now in John’s awning, some helping John to his feet and trying to calm him down, others yelling for the game to be stopped and a not insignificant number continuing to push and stumble around in their efforts to hack at the ball.

By a superhuman effort and with no little bravery John regained a semblance of control over the increasingly agitated and confused crowd in his awning. He grabbed the ball and then, leaning through the door of his caravan, grabbed a large kitchen knife. The whole field fell silent as he marched across to where the centre spot might have been and, without a word, stabbed the ball three times before throwing it to the ground and turning back to his caravan.

The two teams gathered around the deflated ball and a heated discussion started.

‘What are we going to do now?’

‘Yes what are we gonna do?’

‘What do you mean what we gonna do?’

‘We’ve trampled through John’s awning again, really upset him and he’s gone and knifed the ball – what are we gonna do?’

‘It’ll be alright in the morning’

‘When he’s calmed down a bit?’

‘When I go over to Abersoch and get another ball.’

‘Better get two in case he loses it again.’

‘Good idea.’

‘But what we gonna do now?’

‘Next goal is the last and the decider?’

‘But ..’

‘Drop ball here in the centre?’

‘ Well it won’t bounce .. but OK.’