Xaverians’ first fixture of 2023 opened in typically farcical style, with Andy Brannon (1934’s runner-up in the annual London’s Top Toff Award) unavailable for selection but in possession of the team kit (rumours still abound of flagrant racketeering of sweat-stained strips on the pervert’s black market by one of his domestic ‘help’). Fortunately, the home team were generous enough to delay kick-off, enabling Clapham to retrieve their clobber while allowing Brannon time to recommence his shooting-the-proles-with-live-rounds weekender.

Appropriately attired, yet rigid with cold, Clapham began creakily but in typically self-destructive mood. As the game wore on, however, their grip upon it tightened. This dominance became still more pronounced during the second half. The pivotal moment came when centre-back Spencer Grady dribbled past a Hampton player, and sent James Allen through on goal with a decent long pass. A marauding Allen was then brought down by the opposition full-back, who was being given a torrid time by the returning Clapham star. Gordon McCarthy nominal left-back (whose on-pitch coordinates seemed as shambolic as those adorning his ridiculously expensive cleats) immediately took up the ball and placed it on the spot. Unfortunately, the baby-faced assassin failed to predict that Hampton’s reserve goalkeeper would stand perfectly still throughout the piece and his shot brokered a dismal and painful deal with the custodian’s torso. An opportunity at the rebound was quickly despatched skybound toward's Jeff Beck’s new home. It felt like the game was slipping through Clapham’s mucky fingers.

The visitors reacted in their customary way – by tearing lumps out of each other. Striker Adam Spooner, who had put in a combative 55-minute shift was clearly aggrieved at being subbed. On pitch, both Allen and Grady were struggling (mentally and ideologically) with the morose mutterings of the maverick McCarthy, while midfielder Ronald Ohene was attempting to pacify the occasionally apoplectic centre-back pairing. For their part, Hampton defended well (though David Davies and Issac Harold were both profligate before goal, the former particularly culpable, missing when it seemed easier to score), though rarely troubling the sturdy Clapham defence (when was the last time this side could boast two clean sheets on the bounce?). The game fizzled out like a bag of sherbet sodden by a sudden downpour. A goalless draw, then, and what certainly felt like two points dropped against a struggling, but plucky, Hampton side.

Malingerers and urchins from both teams subsequently retired to a local watering hole for various chicken-based snacks and platters of garlic bread. The gathered symposium was necessarily philosophical about their day. Indeed, after the kit debacle and a potential forfeiture, maybe this was a point gained! Clapham’s strategic future was, naturally high on the agenda, but it was welcome to see other topics raised, such as the esoteric usage of Psilocybin and listings of ideal holiday roommates. Though, for this author’s tastes, things took a turn for the queasily surreal (like a grim page plucked from The Songs of Maldoror) as Allen, clearly necking one too many Beavertowns, rashly referred to central-midfield water-carrier Martin McGourty as the “Clapham Iniesta”.

AFC Hampton (0) vs Clapham Old Xaverians Veterans (0)

MOM: A toss-up between Spencer Grady and James Allen – two players with very different styles of play, showing why they are essential cogs in the Clapham machine.

Spencer Grady