when i was still playing in the veterans league...

...a full five seasons ago now as my last was the one that got voided with just two games left thanks to the covids...

- there was talk of expanding WF to include a 45+ league; has that not happened then?

i'll be turning 46 next month and had thought a potential return at 50 was on the cards - though i was always a pace merchant outfield, so relying on seized-up old knees to do any fancy footwork was always a concern.

i used to play in goal too, but my crashing about days are behind me and i retired from vets as i got too frustrated with not being able to competitively do what i still could just a season or two before, with most of my pace having disappeared. so those thoughts and impressions of how i would feel have held me back from being too keen.

but what i wanted to ask then is do the Norfolk FA allow underage players to play in the 50+ league?

when i started in vets, well my second season, my newly formed team were the youngest in the division and we could hold our own. but it didnt take many seasons for it to become popular enough that all the big village teams swamped the divisions and obviously with time passing we were no longer the youngest, so then a load of highly skilled young whippersnappers and teams full of 35 year olds made us feel slow and crap.

20/21, 21/22, 22/23, 23/24 & 24/25 - yep just had to write it down to make sure: five full seasons without playing, having played in the league since the late 90s (bar a barren spell of a good chunk of my 20s when i got fat on the beer & fry-ups during my season ticket years, when i'd only play casual 5s and waddle around in central mid, spraying balls left & right)

just dug up an old article i wrote at the time i retired from saturday league:
User Posted Link
...just to check my last season: 2017/18
i was already playing vets by then (the dark green kit in the gallery of team photos was the old vets kit in their early days).

So as the article says, I was 38 when i stopped saturdays, turning 39 a few days before the official end of season (birthday 22nd june - EoS 30th june).
I turned 35 in the summer of 2014, so my first vets season was 2014/15.
And 2019/20 was my last vets season, so i was 40 when i last played in 2020 (i think only one game that calendar year before a hand injury then resentment & disinterest set-in), turning 41 the day i announced in the whatsapp group chat during lockdown that that was me done.
14/15, 15/16, 16/17, 17/18, 18/19 & 19/20 - so six seasons of vets, aged 35-40

i'm mostly writing all this down for my own use, as from time to time i do ponder about these dates & ages etc especially as it drifts further and further into my past, so if i work it all out & write it all down then i can always check back through my posts here to find key info i was after and not need to do the working out again.

un aide-mémoire

...and for that reason alone i'm gonna post a couple of other old Pitchero links as i no longer have the bookmarks and all the info on notepads is on old, full memory cards that aren't in daily use any more. it looks like the boys stopped using the site pretty much as soon as i left too, and that site is a bugger for finding these old links on the odd occasions i want them:-

a charity tournament penalty shoot-out to settle the final; filmer didnt catch the first pens from both teams, where we had ours saved, so they won 5-4. mine is at 1:34 - and the pick of the bunch even if i do say so myself! my comment underneath it saying as much dates it to pre-season 17/18 so at the time i didnt know i was heading into my final season with these boys:
User Posted Link

all-time stats, last updated EoS 17/18, so thankfully for me frozen at the point i retired!
User Posted Link

and the filtered version that only included those still on the books at that same point (so i'm obviously much higher in this list):
User Posted Link

the only other piece i wrote for that awful website, a season review for our title winning 2015/16 season (which itself contains a lot of links to The FA Full-Time etc):
User Posted Link

one that i'd forgotten had been written about me by the webmaster, towards the end of the 14/15 season, so the first where i was doing both saturday league & veterans sunday afternoons:
User Posted Link

a bit of clicking through and i've found the table for my last vets season, which at least still exists as incomplete rather than being fully expunged from the FA's records:
User Posted Link

the award i requested they rename in my honour upon retirement(!):
User Posted Link

and i shouldve won this one the season before i did:
User Posted Link

team stats page:
User Posted Link

a player stats page, and i've used the URL for my best season in terms of goals & assists (3g & 2a - not bad for a keeper-come-super sub), 12/13:
User Posted Link
(i started for them towards the end of the 09/10 season but they didnt use Pitchero until 11/12 (or at least thats as far back as the stats on there go)

...hmmm, case of RIRO here, as ive spotted a missed pen in my stats (in the 11/12 season), which i never did but i did save a good few.
User Posted Link
Key Moments
60'
Alex Chard
Match Commentary
60'
Missed Penalty
Alex Chard misses a penalty for Wensum Albion
...but if you click the match report tab for the same game:
User Posted Link
"A penalty was awarded against us about 15 minutes into the re-start, but Alex made the save and it looked like being our day."
- told you that site was rubbish!

pics from when we won the league in 15/16:
User Posted Link

and when we played at carrow road against our legends side in 10/11:
User Posted Link

...sorry, this turned into quite the ramble; just triggering that side of my brain, where i have nothing to say for myself most days then you get me on a particular hot topic and i can't shut up about it!

Posted By: DJ Ginga on May 19th 2025 at 18:40:22

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