The chairman's speech

An address by the Honorary Chairman of Alltraders Football Team, Colin Brunker, speaking from Sydney, Australia:

While we all share a life long love for football at the highest level, and I am old enough to remember watching the Real Madrid game at Hampden shown last week, (live on the Beeb) there is another end to the scale.

The wonderful Alltraders FC, of which I am honourary expatriate Chairman, truly are the grass roots of football (on astroturf). Alltraders represent the nurturing bosom where footballing dreams are made. Although I must admit that at Alltraders it could equally be termed a primeval soup.

Some of these wonder kinder of football are only 45 years old. And the older they get, the better they used to be. What other club would celebrate (on the Internet) a 30 yard own goal, or the fact that their key defender's main claim to fame is that he was once stung on the tongue by a wasp?

Their website, like the the fact that they still turn up every week, is a minor miracle. The lads really appreciate the international recognition, but I wish more people in Australia could appreciate the match reports with the stills and video. Mind you, I have had to lay the law down with Timmo (the webmaster, midfield general, and Ryan Giggs lookalike) about the introduction of the "players wives" section. While I have never seen any of these women before in my life (that's my story and I'm sticking to it), I concede that since its introduction this section has had more hits than the Spice Girls.

I think that viewers to the World Game might appreciate an insight into Alltraders and the Crawley 5 a side competition. (The only town I know of that once organised black arm bands and a minute's silence for the death of one of the players mum's budgies).

One last point, football says so much about a man. To an Alltraders person, it defines him as a human being, it defines his place in the space time continuum and his role in the cosmos, and our playground footballing heros point to our hidden demons. I'd like to know who you wanted to be on the playground. My friends all wanted to be Pele, Alfredo De Stefano, Bobby Charlton or George Best.