YOU ARE VIEWING ARTICLE - ID:20040711017

‘I Told You About The Field, You Know The Place Where Nothing Was Real,Well There Was Another Place You Could Go’

The area around Evelyn Avenue has been the scene of development in respect of the housing over the last 30 years, under a number of re development schedules the houses have been modernised. These schedules was when the houses owned by the council and came about in the mid 70s,mid 80s,and early 90s.the areas of deep consideration and practical areas of modernisation differed over the years, in other words some got walls and others did not.
The first area of modernisation was the Cracy road, Wiltshire road areas. Whilst the work was under way with these properties, the top area of 'our’ Aylesbury football ground was used. The sheds circled the top of Cumberland Avenue and Aylesbury road green, I remember the workers putting the huts up. Before they put the huts up a large lorry came and dumped tons of white hardcore stones, which was placed over the grass. As we stopped our football game and watched them dump the stones we thought they would stop there for years. Over a period of days we watched the huts go up and at such an early age we did not know what they were for. I recall the huts been there for around four to five months. Of course as children we did what we was not suppose to do and climbed into the complex in the evening and weekends. The easy thing was to climb in from one side where you could lift yourself on to the roof by climbing onto this bar and pulling yourself up and down on to the other side. Strangely once in there was not a lot to do, tragically once in it was quickly visible that it was easy to get in but virtually impossible to get out, so you had a panic attack before getting out, mostly because of this I did not venture into the yard too many times.
During one bad spell of wet weather effecting intake and the surrounding areas, the complex area got flooded. Paul, Malc and myself decided to use this very long piece of wood as a ramp and zoom our toy cars from it and into this massive deep puddle, now as I watched in amazement and then horror as my blue Mercedes car plunged from the ramp into the muddy depths of the larger than average puddle, as there was no way of retrieving the cars we realized quickly it was a daft thing to do .so I presumed my dinky car Mercedes was lost forever in the depths.
After a few months the house modernisation {stage one] complete our football game was stopped as we watched them pull down the huts, it didn’t take to long for the huts to be pulled down and it did leave the top part of the green messed up. The area once covered with grass now a wet patch with thousands of white stones. The ground would remain indented for years and even today it is possible to find the markings of the complex.
The white stone was different in sixes and made good missiles that we threw at each other. Yes, right, a real great game to spend your time. It was during one of these battles between Malc, Tommy, and myself; we were in battle with Burt (Malc's brother) and Adam Boyle. I picked up a large stone and it missed Burt, he picked up a stone and threw it high into the air. Quite a few comments were shared between Malc and myself who was stood around five meters away as to the height the stone was thrown. We both watched it ascend into the sky and watched it in return descend which I pondered to the possibility of moving out the way as it was getting rather close, then like the famous builder joke it was too late, I fell to ground, blood squirting from my head, I decided to run home fairly quickly.
A few weeks past by and I kicked the ball far into the air and it landed in the area of the now decreasing number of stones, as I ran to retrieve it I ran into the large soggy wet area of grass and kicked the ball and I fell on to a hard object, placing my hand into the water I lifted a blue object. It was damp, dirty and sodden but it was good to be re-united with my blue Mercedes car.
I would not to like to guess how many hours we had spent playing football mostly, cricket in the summer, hide and seek, British bulldogs, hot rice, thrown grass at each other when it has been cut by tractor, thrown the arrows made out of canes with the playing card as a flight and wrapped around your finger with the string, golf, walked my dog, on the field whilst living in intake, but it must have amounted to a good one or two, in all weathers.
It is funny but I do still recall the greatest of goals, catches and saves I made there in those years. Some would dissolve at moment of contact but some would remain with me for years. The games took on many formats with many of fellow intake lads joining in. However it was mostly with Paul, Malc, and myself we spent most time.
I am not actually sure when I was introduced to the great game of football, but I do recall one of my first great goals, before the days of using a cricket wicket as a goal post, we would use the road sign posts of Aylesbury and Shaftsbury. It was a good advantage to have Aylesbury sign as your goal as this was much smaller, in those days traffic going down Shaftsbury was a lot smaller and you could go days for cars to go down Aylesbury.
Well the four of us ran on to the field, Malc, Tommy, Burt, and myself, Burt decided he wanted to be on his own side whilst he felt he could beat the three of us on one side, obviously he was destined to lose, three to one but he would give it a go. Our goal was the Aylesbury road sign, between the tree of us we were beating Burt by two or three goals, Burt was on attack to our goal and he kicked it wide so Tommy picked it up, he passed it short to me and I looked up and in the distance I saw Burt's goal. I kicked the ball ahead and a thought came to mind what would it be like if I would run up and score with the big run .I carried on kicking the ball on ahead and in the distance I could hear Tommy and Malc shouting pass it back, yes, as I ran, I was going to do this. The thought of turning running back to our goal and risk losing pocession, giving Burt a chance to score was not an option so I ignored them. I also became aware of Burt running to me, but I quickened my pace as I kept thinking of this super goal. Burt’s pace quickened, as he must have became aware of my intent, it was then I heard him shout in slow motion ‘c o m e h e r e y o u’. With my intent growing by the second I belted the ball quicker ahead, it was then Burt must have decided to use the final act to stop me, I felt my feet give way and felt my feet leaving the ground. Both feet landed back and I regained my balance in front of the ball kicking it again, it was then I realized I was running short of ground, my angle was wrong as I headed to where the corner flag was, it would have to be kicked immediately, which I did, I torpedoed the ball to the goal and it hit the far post which brought horror to my face, but before disappointment came, it bounced into the goal. I really supposed if I had missed the goal the incident would have been lost forever. It became a fleeting moment in a lifetime but the moment it bounced of the post I realized it was a moment that would remain with me. The people who witnessed it was few in number but I suppose it was like a rarity as any Eddie Gray Wembley goal, Ricky Villa FA Cup Final goal, Paul Gascoigne Euro goal, Pele world cup goal,
It was the summer when the field would come alive, in school holidays, often you would get up to three games taken place, from the early afternoon up to the darkened hours of the summer evening, often Malc, Paul, and myself would be seen playing football in to the night with no worries that you often could not see the ball never mind the goal, or our kites would get tangled together as we flew them to close together, especially stunt kites.
Generations before, generations after, all use the field, maybe it is haunted by the spirits of all our childhoods, and is that what is heard on a warm summers evening.

There are no pictures to accompany this article