As a youngster I spent most of my leisure time kicking a ball about with mates on Hellesdon Recreation Ground. We would dearly have loved to form a team but in the late 1950s and early 1960s the youth football set-up wasn't what it is today and we had nobody to organise and run our team.
Then blow me down I went to a rugby playing school which was a bit of a bummer and I was restricted to playing football on Saturday afternoons (there was school on Saturday morning) and Sundays. In the summer of course we played cricket.
A change of headmaster and a relaxation of the rugby only rule meant that in the sixth form we were able to play football. We were even allowed to have a school team to play a few other schools. I insisted on playing on the right wing as I was entranced by the way Ken Foggo played for Norwich City. He was about the same size as me at the time and I had a reasonable turn of speed and just loved both setting up goals for teammates and scoring them myself.
Our coach was a Welshman named Howard Thomas and he was responsible for getting the new Head to allow us to play football on the grounds of "isn't it better Headmaster that they play something they are enthusiastic about than forcing them to play a sport most of them don't enjoy."
Don't get me wrong I had nothing against rugby but everyone else seemed to get bigger and bigger whilst I stayed at the same size. That meant I played mostly in the middle of the scrum as hooker and if the scrum collapsed - well lets just say it could be painful. Football was my passion.
I remember being taken aside by the coach before a school game against St Andrew's and being asked to play in midfield. I was aghast. I was a right winger not a midfielder. "You are our Alan Ball," he said. So I played in midfield and scored four goals in a 7-1 win. "Told you you could play there," he said afterwards. "Yes but can I go back on the wing" was something like my reply.
I have watched Alan Ball's performance in the 1966 World Cup Final many times and now take what the coach had to say as a massive compliment. Alan Ball covered every blade of grass on that Wembley turf and was outstanding.
When I became a journalist I had to give up playing as my Saturdays were spent reporting on a number of teams, starting with Lowestoft Town and then Cromer Town and Beccles United. I then moved to the Midlands and reported on Chesterfield, Nottingham Forest and Derby County.
Then it was back to Norfolk and for a number of years I reported on Norwich City for the local media and also the News of the World and also covered local soccer when I was sports editor of the Norwich Mercury Series of newspapers.
Then I became involved in youth football, starting with coaching youngsters at Woodside School in the village and then Hethersett Cubs which had a very successful team which included my youngest son.
Around 1992, I took on Hethersett Under-10s as coach and manager (those were the days before coaching qualifications etc) and continued with them through all the age groups through to three seasons as an adult team - winning a number of trophies on the way and having a lot of satisfaction and fun.
Hethersett Athletic Football Club was founded in 1991 and I joined the following year to run the youth teams as outlined above. I became the club's first chairman - a post I held until a few years ago. I did the job of assistant secretary for a couple of years and was honoured not only by being made an honorary life member of the club but also one of only two people to have won the Lee Thompson Memorial Shield for outstanding contribution to the club on two occasions.
Both of my sons have played football at a reasonably high standard and today Matt is a qualified referee. Chris has played county football for Sussex as well as playing in both the FA Cup and the FA Trophy. So some of my enthusiasm for the game rubbed off on them.
Whenever possible, I have supported Norwich City and have been a season ticket holder for many years. Today things have gone full circle as I watch grandson Elliot play for Wymondham Town United youth teams.
Over the years I have watched and reported and coached for hundreds upon hundreds of football matches. My most outstanding memory is not of the League/Milk Cup triumphs of Norwich City or their promotions to Division One and the Premier League but of a match many years ago featuring my Under-12s team in a game at Bircham Newton.
It was on my birthday (October 9th) and I just told the players that if they wanted to give me a birthday present the best thing they could do would be to win the game. At half-time we were 6-0 ahead. It was a simple half-time talk: "lads that was brilliant just keep playing like that," I said. We scored a seventh almost from the start of the second half.
Then and I believe the term is "everything turned to rat s--t. The other team started playing and the score went 7-1 then 7-2, then 7-3, then 7-4, then 7-5, then 7-6 with a couple of minutes to go. Somehow we held on to win. What a game that was. It has stayed in my memory ever since and I still can't work out how such a talented team can be so dominant and then get so overrun for no apparent reason. Of course that's one of the joys of football - you can never predict what is going to happen.
As promised we returned to Steward Stroll action today and took some photos of another wander round Wymondham. The Saturday Market was in operation so we were able to get some fish. Then our favourite café was doing takeaways and so we were able to get a bacon sandwich and coffee which we ate in the ground of Wymondham Abbey on some new picnic tables placed there. Wymondham really does renew spirits. There seemed to be few people around despite the fact that they have pedestrianised the main street ( a temporary measure I understand). Morrisons Supermarket was also very accessible with no queues. It really does feel as if things are slowly getting back to some kind of normality.