Barnstaple 24/10/70

I am sure we would have played against each other and probably a few times in the 1970's Phipsy.

At the time of this Barnstaple game I was playing in the South Western League with Newton Abbot Spurs, and although I didn't realise it at the time I had already played my last Western League game for Torquay (a 2-1 home defeat that same season to Bridgwater Town on a baking hot August day when I played right back first half and left back the second half - I didn't want to go over the Popside!), and I also didn't know at that time I would be joining Brixham United in about 5 weeks time.

I'm not sure if you were still registered with Brixham at that time, it's a long time ago and I can't remember all of the players. I do remember John Cunningham was the captain at centre half. Brixham signed 4 or 5 players in the same week in December 1970 as they were rooted to the bottom of the Plymouth and District Premier and wanted to avoid relegation. I really enjoyed playing for Brixham. We ground out a lot of good points several in hard fought draws and in the end we did pull clear of the relegation zone. I do regret not staying with them the next season but after constant nagging at work I signed for our works team Centrax who had just been promoted to the South Devon League Premier.

So to the Wednesday League. In 1973 I joined the police and was stationed at Torquay. As the new boy and with several footballers on my section the only chance I had of getting time off to play football was to play for the police teams. I played for Torbay Police A (we had two teams at that time) in the Torbay Wednesday League and on Saturdays played for Devon Police in the Exeter & District League. The Wednesday League was quite strong when I first started playing but it went into decline with a limited number of clubs so we pulled out in 1977 and went into the South Devon League, although when we did that I still carried on playing in the Wednesday League with Matts United. I certainly played against Torbay Taxis so our paths must have crossed.

I enjoyed the police football as there was a lot of it. In addition to playing in the local leagues we had inter-divisional league and cup competitions and inter-force games throughout the UK & Northern Ireland. Then many many years later from 1991 to 1995 I was secretary of the Devon and Cornwall Police when we had 4 seasons in the South Western League and won the Devon Premier Cup twice during that period.

Don Mills of course became a traffic warden and I always enjoyed playing against him in the annual Christmas time Torbay Police v Torbay Police Veterans games.

Strange how thoughts come to you as you are typing! It was meant to be a couple of lines about Police v Taxis games and has ended up as a dissertation!