For this week’s midweek piece I thought I’d dip into John Holton’s Writer’s Workshop, as it has been more than a month since I last did so, with my post 6-1 about the last live sporting event I attended. As usual, John has given us a selection of six topics from which to choose and I’m going with his #1 – “write a post based on the word reunion.”

It is probably not a coincidence that the reunion I have chosen to write about also involved a football match – anyone would think I follow the game closely! They would be right, of course. You need some background for it, though. I haven’t said much about it here, but my wife and I separated in 2007 and our decree absolute came into effect in January 2008. I moved out of the family home into a flat and things settled down into a new routine. The following Christmas I realised that I would be sending cards to many people who wouldn’t know about the split or my new address, so for once in my life I got sufficiently organised to do one of the most boring tasks imaginable more promptly than before, and sent out my cards in early December. With them, for the first and only time ever, I included one of those awful round robin newsletters – you know the thing, don’t you: “we’re doing fabulously well, our kids are beautiful, talented and incredibly successful, and you should all feel very jealous of our idyllic life.” Only this one was a little different. I realised that I had a lot of catching up to do: many of the recipients wouldn’t have known about our divorce, or the fact that I had changed employer since leaving university some 33 years prior, and the response from many was surprise!

One of the things I mentioned was that despite having lived away from my home town – Dover – since 1970 I still followed the football team I had grown up with, and was planning to go to see them when they played away at Harlow Town, near where I lived, the following February. I asked if anyone was planning on going to the game, and an old school friend, Richard, replied that he’d like to come. He had moved away from Dover into north Kent, so it was a fairly short journey for him. I’ve never been good at keeping friends from a particular setting – I just move on and make new ones – so his response was very welcome. The day, 21 Feb 2009, duly came, and Richard arrived at my flat in plenty of time for a chat before we drove over for the game. It was great to catch up and share our memories. In school days we had played in sports teams together, spent many happy hours in the Prefects’ Room putting the world and the school to rights, and had been regular bridge partners, often playing against another pair of friends at each other’s homes – with suitable refreshments provided by our Mums. Richard also remarked that he recalled my being a huge fan of The Moody Blues, so he had been playing their CDs in the car on the way up. Music and football: two things which shape and bind us!

Not the game we attended – the reverse fixture that season. Closest I could find!

It was a very enjoyable game: Dover Athletic won 4-1, on the way to winning the league that season by a 22 point margin, while poor Harlow Town were relegated, a mere 62 points behind us. Not only did we enjoy each others’ company but we also managed a brief chat – well, a shout, really – with another schoolfriend who at that time was the team’s kitman. I think he was surprised to see old schoolmates so far from home, but was dragged away by the manager to get on with his job: a voluntary role, as were many at that level, with teams struggling to survive on shoestring budgets. Dover were promoted again a few years later but then fell on hard times, culminating in the most recent relegation last year back to the level at which this game was played – what is known as Tier 3 in England’s non-league set up. After only one season we won the promotion playoffs final last Monday, so will be playing at Tier 2 again next season. Harlow Town have fared much worse, sadly – the club folded completely some years ago but has been reborn at a much lower level. They have just won their league – at Tier 10 – so hopefully things are at long last looking up for them. A town of 80,000 people deserves to have a decent football team to unite around.

The best part of this is that Richard and I have kept in much closer touch. He has been to see me on several occasions since then – I don’t have transport so can’t really get out – and we use WhatsApp regularly. As well as Dover Athletic we both support Tottenham Hotspur and Kent County Cricket Club, so we have a lot to talk about, as well as sharing family updates and comments on other things – those putting the world to rights habits die hard. No doubt we’ll be messaging this evening while Spurs are doing their best to hang on to a slim advantage in the Europa League semi-final second leg, though I don’t think either of us is too confident! Is one success this week all we are going to get? Fingers crossed for a second!

All joking aside, my reunion with Richard has given me a lot, and I’m glad that it has. We all need friends, don’t we?