Mum's the word

If I should die tomorrow I go to my grave in the knowledge that there is nothing more to see in the world of football.

You've heard it said many times before 'now I've seen everything' but there is always something else which you didn't expect. 

I've seen streakers, I've seen riots and floods, I've seen games played in foot deep snow or mud, I've seen countless dogs, pigeons, children on pitches, once I had to stop a game because of geese,  I even saw a game stopped because the groundsman drove his tractor onto the pitch.  I've seen many broken bones, bloodied noses and concussions.  There have been players smoking, talking on the mobile, chatting up the spectators, I knew one substitute who ran off with the centre forward's girlfriend.  I remember a coach leaving his injured player lying in the mud while he took a call on his mobile.  We all know the story about the seagull.  There have been incidents where the cross bar has broken, there was an occasion when, just as a corner was about to be taken a stanchion suddenly fell onto the pitch, I've seen drunk players, blind players,  blind drunk players, some without boots and many, many players without the slightest hint of any talent.

Now dear reader, have you ever heard of anything like this;  at a recent Surrey Senior game a player approached me as we left the field at half time, "Ref" he said "have you seen our new strip".  I looked him up and down and could see nothing remarkable about his strip that would warrant this remark, he then proceeded to lower his shorts to reveal a pair of white, see-through ladies knickers.  "Er" I said "won't your wife miss them".  "They're my mum's" he said!

I tried as much as is humanly possible to put the image out of my mind but it's not easy, I hope I'm not scarred for life.

About fifteen minutes into the second half his team scored a goal and, as is the latest fad, a certain amount of celebration took place.  This particular player took it into his head to drop his shorts in front of the trainers benches revealing his mum's knickers and much else besides and then ran down the touchline to show several women and children spectators.  His team thought this highly hilarious but the opposition took a very different point of view.

Well, what does one do?  I walked towards him very slowly giving myself as much thinking time as possible to decide what I was going to say.  I decided I had to caution him because this not behaviour we should be encouraging.  I thought, if Premiership players get a caution for taking their shirt off what would happen to this chap.  It would certainly make the national papers.

I think I made a good job of  keeping a straight face when he said "I'm looking forward to reading your report, ref".

This is, to my knowledge, the only time in the history of Association Football a player has been cautioned for wearing his mum's knickers.

Dave Churchley