Holland-On-Sea, Wikipedia tells us, is a suburb of Clacton-On-Sea and was known as Little Holland until the early twentieth century; it also has a football club called Holland FC. What Wikipedia doesn’t tell us however is that Holland is just a 30 minute, thirty-eight-and-a-half-kilometre drive from my house, although Google maps does. Stanway Rovers, Halstead Town, Coggeshall Town, Cornard United, Wivenhoe Town and Hadleigh United football clubs are all playing at home today and are probably all closer to home, but none of them are “On-Sea” and I’ve been to all of their home grounds in the last twelve years, which isn’t true of Holland FC’s Dulwich Road, where I am given to understand that the pitch, as if by some freakish movement of tectonic plates, has moved through ninety degrees in that time, throwing up a metal fence all around itself and a smart new clubhouse. Therefore, with the promise of sea air and the prospect of a geologically formed football ground, it is on a warm but cloudy Saturday afternoon in early September that I set off in my planet saving Citroen eC4 for Holland-On-Sea. I had contemplated catching the train to Clacton and making the half hour walk to Dulwich Road, but with only one train an hour I wouldn’t have got home until seven o’clock, and I have a wife whose heart I risk breaking if I stay out too long.
It’s an uneventful journey down the A133 and I arrive in relaxed mood in the Holland FC car park, where I have a wide choice of parking spaces; I draw up next to a modest silver-coloured family saloon, which had turned into the pebbly, beach-like car park shortly before my I and my Citroen did. It’s not half past two yet , so I decide to take a look at the sea before entering the ground; the cliff top and sandy beach below are only 200 metres away across the grassy expanse of the Eastcliff Recreation Ground and Marine Parade. From the cliff top, Clacton Pier is visible through the haze at the end of the beach, and out to sea sit the ranks of wind turbines that I like to think made the electricity that powered my car and brought me here. A West Indian man of pensionable age and riding a low-slung tricycle asks me if I’m local and if I know where the Kings Cliff Hotel is. I tell him I’m not and I don’t know where the hotel is, but I do know he is heading towards Kings Parade. I think to myself that the ‘King’ in King’s Parade fame was probably either King Edward the Seventh or some egotistical Tendring District councillor with the surname King.
I walk back inland to the football ground up Lyndhurst Road, a typically suburban, tree-lined street of inter-war bungalows, all of which are almost frighteningly neat and well maintained. Just past a public toilet is a hedge which is teeming with bees and butterflies, mostly Red Admirals. I am not sure I’ve ever seen so many butterflies in one place, but start to worry that wealthy local MP Nigel Farage might be having them specially bred so that he can pull their wings off or place them in his reptile-like mouth before washing them down with a pint of beer. But then again, I don’t suppose he ever comes here; he probably gets his butterflies in Florida.
Back at the football ground, the friendly, cheery but visibly overweight man at the gate tells me that the concessionary entry fee of £5.00 applies to over sixties; I tender a twenty-pound note and receive fifteen pounds change. After I ask if there is a programme today, I am told that the club does produce a match programme, but hasn’t done so today, which to me seems a bit lazy of them. With the two pounds I saved at the gate by being old, I buy £1.50’s worth of tea from Jaffa’s Tea Bar. I don’t know who Jaffa is, but his or her (it was a woman who served me) tea is pretty good, even if it is just a tea bag in a paper cup with some added water and milk. I suspect however that the name of the tea bar is derived from the club nickname, “The Jaffas” and so the apostrophe is in the wrong place, this is Essex after all. I wander inside the clubhouse which, although bright and new and with a display of trophies on one wall, seems a little soulless due to its grey floor, plain walls and vaulted ceiling; the only pumps on the bar are for Stella Artois, San Miguel and Carlsberg. I am pleased I bought tea and enjoy the irony that in Farage’s constituency all the ‘beers’ are, nominally at least, foreign brands. Most of the drinkers are sat outside at an array of tables and look like they are settled in for the afternoon.
“Are you sat here for the music?” I ask two old boys sat on stackable chairs in a covered area outside the home dressing room, through the window of which can be heard the typical, pumped-up, high volume musical selection of the millennial footballer. “Is that what it is?” Says one of the old boys. I wonder to myself if Stanley Matthews, Len Shackleton and Tommy Lawton would get themselves ready for kick-off by cranking up the volume on the latest 78’s from Glenn Miller, Al Bowlly and Bing Crosby. With the music turned off we can hear the team talk. “It’s a long journey from Norwich or wherever they come from” says the coach encouragingly to the Holland players.
It’s not long before the teams are lining up to parade onto the pitch with the players of today’s opponents Dussindale and Hellesdon Rovers, looking suitably jet lagged. Dussindale and Hellesdon are two suburban areas on opposite sides of Norwich, but their clubs amalgamated a few years ago and have made it into the snappily titled Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League First Division North and now play in Horsford, which is at least next to Hellesdon and close to Norwich airport, which is handy for away games. After all the usual handshaking and hand-gripping malarkey, it is Dussindale and Hellesdon who kick-off towards the sea in burgundy shirts and navy-blue shorts. It’s a tasteful, if slightly dull kit and doesn’t compare with Holland’s vivid all orange ensemble. Wikipedia tells us that the nickname of Holland FC is The Tangerines, no doubt due to the colour of their kit, but Holland’s own website refers to them as The Jaffas, although it doesn’t appear to have been updated since last May. I wonder if there has perhaps been a referendum during the close season on what type of orange best represents the club, with members choosing to reject Satsumas, Mandarins, Clementines, Navels, Cara Caras and Easy peelers.
The early exchanges on the pitch are typically noisy with the ball frequently flying high into the afternoon sky as an optimistic through pass for someone to chase is booted away. “Go wide, hit the channel, good chap” bawls the Rovers’ goalkeeper revealing a hint of a Norwich accent as the ball sails in to touch. Holland have the classic two big blokes at the back, numbers 5 and 12. Number 12 has the sort of build which, if this were a professional game, would no doubt leave him open to chants from opposing supporters of “You fat bastard”, but he is a ‘rock’ at the back for Holland.
I walk round the pitch to stand between the team dugouts. Holland win two early corners. More Norfolk accents are detected on the away team bench. Holland seem to lack club volunteers, with there being no programme today and no team sheet posted on a wall anywhere either. The on-pitch commentary from the players however reveals that the Rovers number three is called Eggy and the number four Martin; other players have names too.
A poor back pass lets in the Holland number eleven, who crosses in a low ball which a Rovers centre-back clears over the cross bar for corner. It’s the first real opportunity, even if it was entirely manufactured by one team for the other. The game is full of endeavour, but no one is capable of providing a pass that will lead to a goal. It’s a game of just shouts at the moment. “Get out”, “First and second ball”, “What we talked about”, “Jump early”, “Ref that was blatant”, the usual anxious nonsense that the players hear every week and must get sick of. On the Rovers’ bench the coaches are simply willing their team to do better; “Get the ball” urges one, going back to basics. Then Rovers break down the right; number eleven scampering into the penalty area and crossing the ball low to where somebody should be to tap it in but isn’t.
“That’s the first chance of the game, and it’s to us” says a Rovers coach moments before the Holland number nine heads the ball against the Rovers cross bar from what looked like inside the six-yard box. Fortunately, he can’t hear the cursing on the Holland bench. It was the sort of incident that explains why the Rovers number five displays a constantly slightly worried look on his face, in contrast however to the number four playing in front of him, who is calmness personified and always has unhurried time on the ball. “Go on Matt, Dylan” shouts another coach, and I think of a parallel world where a film director working with Jack Nicholson and Charlton Heston might say “Go On, Jack, Charlton.”
“It’s a great run again” says a Holland coach sounding like a radio commentator as Holland move forward again down the right. The pattern of the first half has now been established and Holland are the dominant team, but with Rovers are a constant threat on the break. In midfield for Holland, number eight has a beard, and hair swept back with an alice band; it makes him look a bit like a bargain basement Alessandro Pirlo, which would explain why he is captain. “Keep on side” shouts someone as Rovers’ number eleven breaks forward again, but he’s too late, the linesman’s flag is raised, if only that advice had been shouted sooner.
Unusually, in the final twenty minutes of the first half there are three substitutions, with Holland’s number three, who has been looking physically uncomfortable, being usurped by number seventeen, who is soon having a shot on goal well saved. For Rovers, numbers seven and eight leave the pitch to be replaced with numbers fourteen and fifteen, like the start of a mathematical puzzle. Just as unusual is the smell of deep-frying fish and chips that is wafting around when at half past three in the afternoon people should surely be having no more than an afternoon cup of tea and a biscuit.
The thought of tea sends me further round the pitch, back towards Jaffa’s tea bar and when I pass behind the linesmen he warns “Nothing silly” as opposing players chase another hopeful punt forward for Rovers. The ball is soon returned to the other end of the pitch however, where Holland’s number nine shoots weakly at the goalkeeper as he redirects a square pass. But the disappointment is short-lived as number ten finds himself in much the same position, but crucially manages to shoot past the goalkeeper and high into the net to give Holland a more or less deserved lead.
Half-time arrives soon afterwards and teas and beers taste better than they would have if Holland had not scored, although I don’t think everyone sat drinking outside the bar noticed the goal or any of the first-half come to that. For the second-half I decide to take up a seat in the main and only stand, selecting a spot in the middle of the second row where I can easily see most of the pitch above the metal mesh fence. From here I can also see the sea of hipped bungalow roofs with ugly concrete tiles and the white UPVC conservatories that squat beyond the surrounding boundary fence and off into the distance. A seagull stands and squawks from on top of a ridge tile.
The football resumes at two minutes past three and Rovers are soon seeing more of the ball than previously; they’re not playing so deep into their own half, but like Holland before the half-time break, they’re not creating many chances to score. Suddenly, out of the blue, it all gets a bit too much for Rovers’ number nine who bawls in frustration “Fuckin’ell, fuckin’ play!”. Moments later, as if to say “Alright, alright, keep your hair on”, his team-mates fashion a corner kick and then number fourteen becomes the first player to be booked as he fouls Holland’s number eleven. In contrast to the increased excitement on the pitch the afternoon now feels quite still; the sky has clouded over and it’s cooler than it was.
Despite both number nine and ten having decent shots on goal for Rovers, Holland are holding on fairly comfortably, but it must nevertheless come as a relief to them when around half past four Rovers’ number five swings a foot to clear the ball and misses it, letting Holland’s number eight take it to the edge of the box, check inside and send a gently curling shot beyond the goalkeeper and inside the far post. Holland lead 2-0.
It’s the sort of a goal that commentators tell us will ‘wrap the game up’ and ‘put it to bed’; it’s just what Holland have been waiting for. Two minutes later and it hasn’t, as Rover’s number ten has a shot parried by the Holland goalkeeper and number nine sweeps the rebound into the goal. The score is 2-1 and anxiety takes hold. It’s been a game of very few fouls, but someone cries “Late every time” when there is an accidental collision of boot and ankle, and I begin to wonder if all referees shouldn’t also be primary school teachers.
It is seven minutes to five when the game ends, and before returning to my trusty planet saving Citroen for the drive home, I pause to applaud and reflect on what has been a very good game. As I say to one of the old boys as he gathers up his sticks to toddle off home, we’ve had a decent five pounds worth of entertainment. But shuddering slightly, I nevertheless can’t help wondering how all these people voted at the last general election.
trippingovertheball 