Here's one I did earlier, promoting this historic FA Cup tie at 5pm today, a tie involving two teams in this 3rd Round, placed further apart on the pyramid (8th-1st tier) than any other two competitors in history:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3994718670252035536/2848728996723639926
So, using a paragraph from another recent blog, Marine FC meet Spurs at their home, Rossett Park. The two clubs have a gap in the footballing pyramid of 7 levels, a first in history. Marine, having "waded" through 7 rounds already, becoming the second club only from the 8th Tier to get this far in the Cup. 13 years ago Chasetown FC became the first to achieve this honour. Marine have attempted to make money by selling "virtual" tickets (5,000 sold so far creeping near their actual capacity), progammes etc. This has gone down very successfully, as a popular offering.
The coincidence (or is it?) is that the Community Officer of Marine AFC is a Geography teacher, and we all know that any student teacher who has chosen Geography as their major subject, must also be a sports' teacher! Apparently it is a nice comfortable "academic" subject to study, parallel to the major degree subject, PE. My main degree was Geography, I taught the glorious subject for more than 40 years and I also taught History, Geology and Social Studies, when required. Of course my other timetable contribution to the school was as a sports' coach, mainly football and cricket coaching outside the "academic" timetable.
Barry Lenton is the Marine AFC community officer, attached to the club for nearly 60 years. Barry is a practical all rounder, who has held many posts at the club. He taught Jamie Carragher, Geography, of course. Jamie, whose local team is Marine of couse, would spent the first minutes of every lesson chatting with Barry about Marine's performance at the weekend. Barry's anecdotes include a story about the team bus driver who had a wooden leg, which is why he never left the coach to watch the game. On another occasion, Barry had been ill for a while and he was in conversation with a committee member who told him that another committee man was a doctor. Barry took his issues to the "doctor" who politely advised Barry to "look after himself". A while later, Barry found out that he had been advised to seek help from a "docker". Amongst Barry's experiences this week include an interview with the Lithuanian branch of the Spurs' supporters' club and a bottle of red to enjoy from a neighbour! So, when Jose and his large Tottenham entourage drive down College Road towards the Rossett Park "Stadium", they will have to cope with finding a place to "park the bus"; then walk to the main grandstand entrance and change in the converted "function" suite. The pitch might be the worst experience (ecology comes into a Geography syllabus). The crowd (if there was one) would normally be very close to the "dugouts", as will the referee's assistants (sociology). A number of the crowd will watch the game from neighbouring gardens, where sausage sandwiches might be on offer! (yesterday a cherry picker was on show (possibly a hospitalty pod?) overlooking the Chorley ground ("aerial" photography).
What a pity the Marine locals can't experience this piece of football history without restrictions. One thing about the FA Cup 3rd Round is that it brings clubs into the public domaine. Many football supporters will have no idea where they are located in England and Wales-It's all Geography. Yesterday's blog focussed on Chorley and some placename education! What about Marine?
Geography also takes in maths (statistics for example) and the betting at midday today is: Marine to win 66-1, 18-1 the draw......the next qustion is, where is the best place to site a Betting Shop in a town, like Marine? Geographers know where they are!
Big giant killings: 1989 Sutton Utd (Isthmian League) 2 v Coventry 0: 1972 Hereford (Southern League) 2 v Newcastle Utd 1: 1948 Colchester (Southern League) 1 v Huddersfield 0: 1910 Swindon (Southern League) 3 v Tottenham 2: 1906 Southampton (Southern League) 6 v Middlesbrough 1.
Barry shows off his 20,000th item of sports' kit, collected from the Marine FC locality, for Sefton Kit Aid-sending kit out to countries world wide.
No comments:
Post a Comment