Saturday 3 February 2018, East Bergholt United 4 Grundisburgh 1 - Suffolk and Ipswich League, Senior Division, Gandish Road
Cold but dry day, and the need to be back early in Ipswich this evening meant it was going to be a local game for my footie fix.
So I ended up in Constable country, close to the Essex border. A basic set up and a small pavilion but it was in here that you get the real feel for village football. The pavilion like many has old team pictures on the wall, both cricket and football. You notice straight away that the same surnames keep popping up on the team pictures and I guess the same families.
One name I spotted made me look at the pictures more closely, it was the name 'East' - there were a number of players, both cricket and footballers with this surname and though I did not spot the person I was looking for, some of those called East, looked very like Ray East, Bergholts most famous sporting son. Ray had played football cricket for the village before becoming one of the greatest bolwers to ever play for Essex. One player in one of the pictures, I guess a close relative to Ray, could have been a twin if it was not for the case that the picture was from the early 50s.
From this display I am not sure any of the current players will ever be remembered as those from the 'East' family in the village. they did win, but only after Grundisburgh had a player sent off, if it had been 11 v 11 it would have been a much closer game.
What was noticeable was the gap in quality between these two sides and the likes of Achilles at the top of the table, both village teams could certainly do with another 'East' or his like in their team.
Constable Hall - not sure the artist would have found much to paint here today.
