My Father, the Sportsman

My father was a very keen sportsman, his particular interest being soccer. In the 'Life' she wrote of him, my mother told how, when he went to Leyton County High School, he was "devoted to football and was good enough to be put into the first eleven on his arrival at the school. He was very proud of this and wore the cap of the First Eleven straight away."

This picture shows him with a team called Harrington United Football Club, a club which today, according to the internet. only exists in the town of Harrington in Australia. The only connection I can see to the club is that, in another picture, of the choir in which he sang at his local church, the choir master is a Mr Harrington. I wonder if he organised the club.  My father is second from left in the top row.

The Harrington United picture must have been taken just before he left for Port Sudan where I would be surprised if there had been a team, but he was playing again in 1930 when he worked in Beira - again, he's second from left, top row, and he continued to play....

....after he moved to Zanzibar: I just love this picture of him!

I don't remember seeing him play football - but the time I was born he was 43, so he had probably hung up his boots by then - but he was also a keen cricketer. Again, I don't remember seeing him play but I have vivid memories of him umpiring at the Sports Club in Mombasa, standing behind the stumps in a white coat with the bowler's white sunhat perched on his head.

He followed football on the television when he retired to England but hated the way the game became increasingly commercialised. I accompanied him to some matches - I remember going to watch Fulham at Craven Cottage - but his main interest steadily moved to cricket. While he lived in Hastings he followed Kent, and my mother and he went with their great friends, Bill and Margaret Solly, to watch Kent at beautiful grounds like the one at Canterbury.

When he came to live in Maldon, back in the county of Essex where he was born, he returned to watching Essex, and the last game we went to together was at Chelmsford, where Essex was playing the visiting Australian test team. I remember it as a very happy day.