A football tale

When I lived up t'North I spent a few years as a committee member of a village football club. My key role was to put up and take down the nets, pleasant enough on a warm sunny day, but rather different on a cold wet day with a gale blowing in from the Pennines.

The reward for this endeavour was to meet every Tuesday evening in the village pub with fellow committee members to select the team for the next match. Usually this took about five minutes, yet strangely the meeting would last for three hours.

The pitch the team played on had been levelled by a local contractor who had made a fortune from opencast coal mining. It was often waterlogged and an inspection of the drains established that they were the driest place for miles around. A site meeting was arranged with said contractor and a groundsman. The groundsman established to the great indignation of the muck-shifter that the problem was that clay just under the surface acted as a barrier to water reaching the drains.

What does tha' know abart pitches? said the muck-shifter.

I have just done Elland Road (Leeds) and Wembley, came the reply. Oops.