David Beckham and The London Legal League
A Thursday night in South East London. The area around the Millennium Dome (to be more accurate, the O2 Arena is its current designation), is eerily quiet. Most of the area around North Greenwich tube station is given over to car parks, and the only life appears to be those people changing from the tube onto local bus services. The dome itself is lit up, with advertising for coming attractions, and behind the dome, one can see across the river where the towers of Canary Wharf are lit brightly against the night sky.
In the opposite direction, there is an inconspicuous building, what appears to be the curved roofs of two warehouses. As one gets closer, you can see that these are not standard warehouses, the roofs and upper walls are made of a fabric which rustles in the wind, and the logo on the end sections are that of a stylised footballer. The building is, in fact, the David Beckham Academy. A place where the youngsters of today have the chance to get a days football training for the not exactly paltry sum of £80. As a business venture, I am sure that it is going to be a success, (there are other similar ventures (without the icons name attached) running in London, and I am sure they will be hitting the rest of the country soon) but this goes beyond just being a training facility. It provides two full size football pitches, (using the most modern of artificial surfaces) inside tents, and therefore protected from all but the worst that British weather can throw.
When the good people met back in 1863 to form the Football Association, they had in mind the ideals of amateur sport which has not survived the subsequent mixing with the real world. One can mourn the passing of these ideals, but had football not grown up; it would have stayed an elitist sport and something else would be the game of the people. There was one group of people that would have no truck with the introduction of professionalism, with the result that the Amateur Football Alliance split from the FA just over one hundred years ago. The split did not last long the AFA returned to the FA fold as a County Football Association, with the ability to run its own competitions. Their game has developed since mainly in London and the South East based on old boys clubs and large sports clubs, (some of which are private, some company owned). It is not co-incidental that AFA members include the sports clubs of large financial institutions, (all the big banks, including the Bank of England and major insurance companies). While there is no absolute model, AFA clubs are typically on large playing fields with many pitches (and often other sports as well as football) and a large club house. The building of spectator facilities are minimal. These clubs do present a style of exclusivity that can make non-members feel unwelcome at first.
The two main leagues are the Southern Amateur League and the Amateur Football Combination. The latter was a merger of two leagues about 10 years ago and includes a large number of Old Boys clubs. The Southern Amateur League is considered to strongest of the leagues until the FA introduced ground facility regulations, SAL clubs could compete in the FA Vase although they were never over successful.
It is another feature of the Amateur game that made the Amateur game of interest to the groundhoppers. This is their regular representative games. When I was first introduced to these, there was a regular series of games, although always organised on a slightly informal friendly basis between the various leagues, the AFA itself, and representatives of the major Universities (Oxford, Cambridge and London only), the Civil Service and the Armed forces. Most of these took place on midweek afternoons, allowing the more crazy football supporter to run around and tick additional games. Although the Amateurs themselves may have been in it for fun, and selected their home venues as ones suitable to put on a bit of a do for the old boys in blazers who run the AFA and followed these fixtures, some of their opponents had more serious events to build up to. For Oxford and Cambridge University, these matches were all about the build up to the Varsity game, and for the Services, it was in preparation for the inter-services competition each spring. The Civil Service may play games against the services and the AFA, but they never stuck to amateur players I have seen players from Enfield (then the top non-League side in the country), Liskeard Athletic and Newcastle Blue Star playing together for Civil Service.
Until this week, I had not been to a representative game for 16 years. I think partly this primarily due to changes in my life, meaning I wanted to use my leave for other purposes. More recently, when I might have gone to a few, I have found the pattern of afternoon games has been lost in recent years, replaced by floodlit matches on standard non-League grounds.
But back to the David Beckham Academy. As well as staging its training courses, the Academy hires out its pitches every evening. One of its regular tenants is the London Legal League, which stages matches there most Thursdays. I would not consider the Legal League to be the pinnacle of non-League football, or even of the AFA game. I have never considered going to one of their league matches, and this is not likely to change. What attracted me to this match was the uniqueness of the venue. In this I was not disappointed, and as a bonus I got to see a half decent football match as well. The entrance to the academy is just like any other leisure centre, but one then walks down a corridor displaying mementos of the icons career some of his England shirts, some shirts from illustrious opponents, and a series of boots.
The pitches themselves are below two curved fabric roofs held up by a steel infrastructure. The buildings have the feel of small aircraft hangers. The pitches are full size, and by that I do not mean legal minimum size for football, but suitable for league and international games. The curves of the roof are not very high at the sides (the supports come to the ground between the pitches) and the ball twice hit them during the game. The referee restarted with drop balls. The pitch is surrounded by inflated sausages about three foot in diameter, and continually inflated with compressed air, like the outside of a massive bouncy castle. There are no spectator facilities as such, and a cafe area for parents use while their children are on the courses was closed.
The Legal League team are drawn from teams which in turn are drawn from the employees of the various legal firms in the city. The visitors, Cambridge University are students vying for places in the varsity game. The remains of the old amateur ethic is still present in two ways. Some uncompromising tackles, which would have David Beckham himself writhing on the ground for several minutes were not actually treated, and the referee was treated with respect, the only cards given being for fouls, not dissent. The first half was entertaining and even, with a number of chances going begging before the University took the lead from a penalty. The Legal League equalised with a powerful header from Rob Carter just on the stroke of half time, and the same player added a second early in the second half. But as the game progressed, the students were demonstrate ably fitter than their opponents and also appeared to benefit from having played together more. It was no surprise they eventually turned out 4-2 winners.
One final feature, and again one of those of the amateur game as the crowd of 30 persons (all but one of them groundhoppers) left the ground, the Cambridge side shouted out Three cheers for the London Legal League!!!