Sometimes he talks about the football
Preface – this is not a demotion.
It’s more of a sideways move away from the weekly match reports to what was supposed to be a monthly review of what’s been happening, both on and off the pitch. It means I can concentrate on non-footballing matters while the match reporting duties are undertaken by our team of young, hungry reporters.
I say “supposed to be monthly” because the astute amongst you will notice this version covers pre-season, the FA Cup game, and the first game of the season. I guess it’s on brand if nothing else.
Either way, I hope you enjoy the first offering from a new series of writings, still called Sometimes he talks about the football.
Things seemed easier growing up on the mean streets of south Warwickshire in the 1970s.
We had three channels, no internet, and our alarm clocks weren’t the chiming of mobile phones, but the trajectory of the sun. Once it had dipped behind the ridge of the Cotswolds, and we couldn’t see whatever the ball de jour was in the dusk glow, it was time to go home.
Holidays meant caravans, weekends meant grandparents, and Sunday afternoons were spent taping the Top 40 onto a cassette, thumb poised on the stop button to avoid the DJ’s chatter.
It occurred to me recently that my 13-year-old will never understand the power and fear of compiling a mixtape for someone he likes. The agonising choice of songs, the balance of side A and side B, and the terror of what they might read into your selections. Not that he’d care — I’m not sure what he listens to could even be called music. It’s basically a cacophony of noises that apparently originate from his gaming obsession.
Looking back, it’s probably no different from how my parents felt about Pop Will Eat Itself and Half Man, Half Biscuit. But I’ll never admit that to him.
I suppose it’s a generational thing. And when his kids are tormenting him with the latest in AI-generated pop, he’ll feel the same. I’ll make sure I’m there to watch (if not listen).
Nothing really changes, I guess.
The biggest difference between my youth and his seems to be as simple as perception and labels. When I was growing up, kids and contemporaries didn’t have autism or ADHD. They were “slow” or “troublemakers.” There were no interventions, no tailored learning plans, no counselling sessions. There were detentions. And there was the ruler.
It was definitely simpler. But was it better? Viewed through the prism of nostalgia maybe. But viewed through the lens of life, things have improved immeasurably.
Not that everything has changed, of course. Some of the things that blight society today were still evident in the ’70s and ’80s. Incompetent internal leadership, a screen star as president across the pond, and Forest in Europe. Some things, apparently, are eternal.
Racism too was prevalent, still wrapped in the flag of national pride but targeted more at race than religion. It was still being peddled to the masses by everyman toffs, play-acting as snake-oil salesmen.
The biggest change between the Baylis generations can be seen through football — and irony.
While my football-loathing son can watch a game on most days of the week, growing up a football fanatic in the pre-Premiership days, when Sky was still just an island in Scotland, casual fans were limited to two choices: Ceefax and Match of the Day.
It’s almost impossible to explain the joy of Ceefax. Even to someone who lived through it. Describing it to anyone beyond Generation X would be folly. But imagine a beta version of football Twitter, with just scores and blocky graphics resembling space invaders. It also probably had the highest viewing figures of any given Saturday afternoon.
Match of the Day was, and remains, an institution. An institution that hasn’t really changed much in four decades, other than the hairstyles of its presenters, and in that time you still rarely got to see any Cheshire-based teams featured.
To watch an actual football match, start to finish, you had to wait for Cup Final day. And that wasn’t just a match, it was an event. From Saint and Grievsie to the open bus parade, it wasn’t 90 minutes – it was timeless.
My brother and I crossed the Worcestershire border annually and absorbed every minute. We watched Alan Sunderland’s last-gasp goal in the five-minute final of ’79. We sang along in ’81 as Ossie’s knees went all trembly.
Cup Final day was mystery, pageantry, ritual. These days there’s a good chance I won’t even know when it’s on, never mind who’s playing.
The argument, I suppose, is that morel is better. But I’m not convinced it always works out that way.
If you’ll allow another tangent from my youth, one of the programmes I loved across my trifecta of channels was Scooby Doo.
On the face of it, it was nonsense: a talking dog who couldn’t really talk, his owner — who today would no doubt be reported to the RSPCA — and a gang of college friends who seemed to spend less time in class than I did during the early ’90s.
Add a mystery, a spooky fairground or castle, and a middle-aged man in a monster suit, and you had perfection.
But more is better, right?
More, in this case, came in the form of Scooby’s nephew. A character so bereft of reason to exist that he became the poster child for programmes “jumping the shark.” That moment when a show tips from must-watch to unwatchable.
Scrappy Doo ruined a dynasty. That’s a hill I’m happy to die on.
Pre-season: hope and false dawns
Another thing changed by 24-hour football coverage is pre-season. Before Twitter, finding out who your team had signed, or even who they were playing, was an active pursuit. It lived somewhere between obscure websites and word of mouth.
Now, arguments break out because one team calls a deal a loan while the other insists on the proper procedure. That genuinely happened.
For Willand, there was early movement westward, as George Burton and Jacob Wellington crossed the M5 to Tiverton. Most of last season’s squad stayed put, though, and David Steele wasted no time in getting business done. Tom Bath — my favourite non-league footballer — returned to the club, joined by Helston pair Jordan Copp and Rikki Shepherd. The number one shirt was also filled early with the signing of Andy Sowden-Bird.
Pre-season itself is always a haberdashery of hope and innocence. This one was no different. Willand went unbeaten — though without ever really showing their teeth, or their starting eleven.
Fans often put too much weight on pre-season, but in non-league it’s usually a pointless endeavour. Holidays, late signings, and early injuries mean the first-choice side is rarely seen. The manager, of course, sees options and formations and opportunities. Intelligence that will matter more as the season rolls on.
The results were encouraging: a win at Bishops Lydeard, draws with Tiverton and Taunton, a gritty win over Bridgwater. The final game, a 4–0 home win against Honiton Town, felt like a statement.
But it turned out to be a false dawn.
I can’t tell you about the first game of the season — an FA Cup tie against Devon rivals Barnstaple. Not that I wasn’t there. I was. I just don’t want to think about it.
Everything that had looked promising in pre-season seemed to have been left there, sipping margaritas on the beach of meaning nothing at all.
Instead we got a dark mild. Drunk by old men in mining towns. Not a great analogy, but you get the point. We were expecting a Ferrari and ended up with a Fiat 500.
The lesser Italian motored on into the first league game soon after. Another defeat. I can’t tell you much about that one either, because I was 35,000 feet above the Atlantic at the time. Apparently, I missed very little.
It’s not the start we wanted. And it’s not the start pre-season promised.
Sometimes life comes at you fast. And all you can do is play the cards you’re dealt.
I suppose that’s why I still watch Willand, and why I’ll keep writing about them. Not because I expect Ferraris every week, but because I’ve lived through enough Fiat 500s to know that, one day, something special will roll up.
In the meantime, we’ll take our false dawns, our nostalgia, our dark milds and our missed Cup Finals — because that’s football. It never really changes.
And maybe that’s why we love it.
