But after 40 minutes getting trounced on the pitch by some or other group of bigger men, our team didn’t have the energy for traipsing anywhere else. And so the Park Tavern became our second home. It helped that it was never very busy. That meant we could always get a table at which to dissect how, exactly, we had just lost 7-1 to a team that only had four players for the first 25 minutes. Over two, three and then inevitably four pints, we would drill down into our performances with chat about formations, marking, playing through the thirds. All of which was utterly pointless because the next week one of us would turn up without their kit and have to play in chinos.