'Lest we Forget'

Set like a diamond in a Tiffany ring the Burgh Island Hotel is a unique and stylish retreat. Built in 1929 the English Art Deco style hotel is now completely restored, offering history and period opulence wrapped up in 21st century standards.

At low tide Burgh Island, off the coast of south Devon, can be reached on foot and at high tide the Sea Tractor, operated by the Hotel, provides a ‘ferry’ service.

Over the years the Island has been closely linked with many famous people and events. Agatha Christie was inspired by the setting. She wrote Then There Were None and the Poirot mystery, Evil Under the Sun, as a result of her many visits to the Hotel. Then in 2002 the TV adaptation of the Poirot mystery used the Island and Hotel as a filming location.

Visitors to the Hotel have include Noel Coward along with King Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson. And, secretly, Eisenhower and Churchill met there in the weeks leading up to the D-Day Landings.

Our autumn break was great. But I have suffered, just a bit, without my football……

A draw at Crawley and then victory at home in the FA Cup was followed by an away win at Weymouth. Aldershot into the First Round of the Cup and top of the League…..I missed it all.

Sitting not far from the away dugout at the Rec is certainly not a place for the shy and retiring. For more years than I care to remember, unfriendly banter, directed towards the men in the ‘away hutch’, has crashed down over our heads like a tidal wave of insensitivity.

But in all of those years I have never experienced an aggressive coming together of the two sets of management. Just my ‘luck’ then, that when Halley’s Comet passed across the Recreation Ground night sky…..I was in south Devon…..and missed the ‘excitement’.

So I had to be satisfied with just a brief report on the alleged incident between the Aldershot and Crawley coaching staff, in a text from my brother, followed by comment on the Shots message board.

Now, the coming together of players and management outside the Laws of the Game is undoubtedly a funny thing.

Verbal abuse is increasingly commonplace among managers. The press love it. They stoke the fire….and the majority of managers respond by playing out the sordid ritual as if their future depended upon it. Wenger, Ferguson, Mourinho….all consummate masters. Steve Evans, Crawley Town FC………

But physical contact between managers and coaches is rare. When it does happen, I guess the two parties quickly realise how pathetic they look and move on…..

Or in the case of Wenger and Pardew…one moves Club and gets relegated.

But between players.?

The favoured approach is, for many, the head-butt. Take for example, Luis Figo’s attack on Mark van Bommel in the 2006 World Cup. No. Perhaps not. In some quarters, I guess his hair could be considered a ‘weapon of mass destruction’. But not even George Bush would go to war over it.

Of course the head-butt properly delivered can be an effective form of attack. Take Zinedine Zidane. He is no doubt an expert. And not only an expert. But a clever one too. Head on head hurts. Head on sternum. Yes, that would work.

Stefan Freund, when playing at Leicester City, experienced big Duncan Ferguson at his ‘best’. Dunc was never a man to upset. ‘After you Duncan. Sorry I trod on your toes. I’m a member of the Tartan Army at weekends’.

Not enough to appease Dunc I’m afraid, and Stefan had his head ‘removed at the neck‘.


‘When the seagulls follow the trawler. It’s because they think the sardines will be thrown in to the sea’.

Yes, Eric Cantona of - Auxerre, Martigues, Marseille, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Nimes, Leeds United and Manchester United was no Isaac Rosenberg. But he did become infamous for an incident that occurred on 25 January 1995. In an away match at Crystal Palace, and after being sent off by the referee for a vengeful kick on Palace defender Richard Shaw, he launched a ‘Kung-Fu’ style attack at a Crystal Palace fan, Matthew Simmons.

After the seagulls had left the trawler far behind, Cantona was sentenced to 120 hours of community service after an appeal court overturned a 2 week prison sentence for assault.

But all of this crude aggression should have no place in the ‘beautiful game’. They are simply acts of violence born out of mental frailty and nurtured with the acceptance of child-like petulance.

Aggression in football is of course the ingredient that sets it apart from netball….and the all-time best illuminators of the passion and power.?

Dave Mackay and Billy Bremner.

Bremner, who sadly died in 1997 at the age of 55, was a diminutive but hard midfield player who made 587 appearances for Leeds United. Mackay, despite standing just 5ft 8in, exuded an awesome physical presence. Muscular thighs and a barn-door chest. He tackled like a granite avalanche. Not for him the kiss of the badge on his chest to signify his passionate desire to win.

Mackay was a man to whom you answered ….‘yes, I will’.

Dave Mackay’s career was made famous at Spurs where he won the League in 60/61 and the FA cup in 60/61, 61/62 and 66/7. But his passion was born in Edinburgh with Heart of Midlothian.

The words ‘Lest we Forget’ form the refrain of ‘Recessional’, Rudyard Kipling’s poem, composed on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The phrase passing into common usage after the First World War, becoming linked with Remembrance Day observations - and often found as the only wording on war memorials.

And as our thoughts turn towards Cambridge United on Saturday….just a moment to remind ourselves of the sacrifice made by so many. How is it that our Leaders still think ‘going into Iran’ would be a good thing?

On the 26th November 1914, with Heart of Midlothian comfortably leading the Scottish First Division, sixteen players exchanged their football boots for Army Issue. They enlisted to fight in France inspiring many others to do the same.

Seven members of the Hearts team were killed.

Another, Paddy Crossan, was so badly injured that his right leg was labelled for amputation. He pleaded with the German surgeon, ‘I need my leg - I’m a footballer.’ His leg was saved but he died after the war from the effects of poison gas, which had destroyed his lungs.

In The Trenches

I snatched two poppies
From the parapet’s ledge,
Two bright red poppies
That winked on the ledge.
Behind my ear
I struck one through,
One blood red poppy
I gave to you.

The sandbags narrowed
And screwed out our jest,
And tore the poppy
You had on your breast…
Down - a shell - O! Christ,
I am choked….safe…dust blind, I
See trench floor poppies
Strewn. Smashed you lie.

Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918)




Saturday will be just another game of football…..

‘Lest we forget’