Saturday 7 th August 2021...good to be back home!!

Great two hours of tennis this morning and then this afternoon I went to one of my special places to see how the water flow was....

Even a very feint rainbow...




Now let me tell you a story.......I think you all know by know I come from a very sporty family and as kids my brother, Malc and I played football or soccer......Malc was always the more skilled player but I was more tenacious and fiery.....Malc excelled at cricket ...google it if you do not know what it is and I was the same in tennis.

At 16 years of age I left home and joined the police Cadets in the big steel city of Sheffield......I served my three years apprenticeship and after Police four month boot camp at the tender age of 19 I graduated from the police academy and was posted to the city centre patrol.

Sheffield is one of the few cities in England that boasts two professional football teams...Sheffield United, nicknamed the Blades and Sheffield Wednesday nicknamed the Blues.

As brothers 5end to do Malc was a Blues man and I was through and through a Blade and had dreams of playing for them and stepping out on the hollowed turf, alas that did not happen!!

What did happen was that my first week I was posted to work at the Saturday soccer match on crowd control....can you imagine the thrill for me going to the game and not being on the pitch playing but being very close behind the goal, to heck with crowd control I was cheering for the Blades.

Tonight I watched the Blades play their first game of the season and I always get shivers seeing the stand and the place where I was seated on a little stool doing supposedly crowd control...this photo was taken tonight of the game...

If you look closely at the above photo behind the goal you will see two men in red jackets these are called stewards and the real police are in amongst the crowds.....I digress but I cannot believe they allow all those spectators all without masks.....

Anyway this photo circled in red is where I was sitting over 53 years ago..

So there I was on my stool watching the game with my team attacking this goal and after about twenty minutes they scored a goal and I was so excited I forgot what I was there for and stood up and threw my Bobby Helmet in the air in celebration!!!

I settled down for the rest of the game and no incidents happened but I was summoned to the Inspectors office after the game and this is what he yelled at me...”Pearson you are not here to watch the bloody game do that again and you will on the carpet”.

Fond memories!!

Stay safe and healthy!,

Yashi Kochi!!