Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

On the 25th March 2023 I ran the Hackney Marshes parkrun which was the 593rd event held at the venue, my 123rd parkrun and 52nd different course I'd attended. When I was a kid, I had a t-shirt made by Nike, or Adidas - one of the two. It was black with distinct football pitch markings across it and other related football messaging. But it was the distinctive football pitch markings that would always prompt a question from people whenever I wore the t-shirt as to what they represented. I didn't think that they represented anything until someone answered the question for me. They were representing the football pitch markings at Hackney Marshes. Since then, I've been fascinated by the thought of an area of parkland devoted to over 80 football pitches and have read books, watched movies, documentaries and television programmes about football in this part of East London and its impact upon the culture of grassroots involvement in the national game. In the 1960's and 1970...

During my self-imposed blogging sabbatical I started writing several posts, all half-heartedly and never got around to finishing them. I had a look through to see if any were worth saving - then I came across this one. Oliver’s ninth birthday and a trip to the Nou Camp. Now a little out of date contextually, but all finally finished for the record. I’ve long held aspirations to mix two of my favourite things; travel and football. A wannabe tourist if you like of the beautiful game. But life as a Gills fan comes with restrictions, there are no European nights against the continent's finest. The closest we are ever likely to get to any form of foreign opposition is the odd pre-season game in northern France against a local side, which is treated as nothing more than a glorified training session. But last weekend I ticked a big box off of my footballing bucket list, namely a visit to the Nou Camp stadium, home of FC Barcelona. An experience far, far removed from the previous groun...

When I was a kid growing up, football kind of passed me by. It wasn’t until Italia 90, Gazza and the heartbreak of Turin that the beautiful game become a conscious thing to me. I knew that my Dad went out on Saturday’s and came home smelling of beer and that sometimes his van broke down which meant he had to stay in the pub, but the association with that and football wasn’t something I remember with much clarity. After Italia 90 things changed, I fell in love. The Gills, football and everything about the game; except one thing - I couldn’t play. Which is not true really, anyone can play, its the easiest game in the world, jumpers for goalposts, simple. I just couldn’t play very well. Once I started secondary school and saw all of the other kids running around with a ball stuck to their feet doing Cruyff turns and keepy uppies like circus seals I grew jealous and wanted to be just like them but didn’t know how. Apparently they went training and played boys football and I didn’t/coul...

The first England International I watched in the flesh was against Chile, way back on 11th February 1998 - I remember it for all the wrong reasons. Not the fact that a certain Michael Owen made his England debut or that Marcelo Salas and his Chilean compatriots showed England a footballing masterclass. But because of the pre-match warm-up; being served at 17 years old and ‘aving it large with the England ‘massive’, singing ‘no surrender’ stood upon a bar stool because everyone else was and because it seemed the cool thing to do at the time. How times change. Over the past few months Oliver has been getting into his football. He has been learning the rules and feeling the raw emotion of the beautiful game. A season ticket at the Gills has helped (strangely enough), but so has Sky and the often daily diet of Premier League or La Liga. He has also started to play too, joining a team on Saturday mornings for training and will make his league debut once his registration with the FA is ...

At the beginning of every football season, the vast majority of football supporter will harbour hopes that their team will be victorious, that the end of season will be a celebration of sporting endeavour and an outpouring of pride revelling in a promotion or cup win. For most however, the reality is somewhat different and the end of season is met with apathy and frustration, whilst looking back and wondering just where the hell it went oh so wrong. Maybe it isn’t, maybe it is just the way I see things as a long suffering Gillingham supporter and that I’m a unique type of person, blinded by rose tinted glasses with extra thick lenses. After all, on reflection, come August last year I believed that we, as a club had lots to look forward to. The previous campaign had ended with the Gills in 8th place, just missing out on a play-off spot and with it a chance to return straight back to League One, “where we belong” , the gospel, according to our current manager Andy Hessenthaler an...

Being a Gillingham fan isn’t glamorous. We don’t play beautiful, flowing, intricate football. Nor do we play football in an arena fit for gladiators, surrounded by stands that rise up to the God’s in homage to the heroes what ply their trade on that stretch of finally manicured turf. Which is why, when the chance comes along to see a different side to the game, I try and take it when I can. On Monday, I paid my second visit to the Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal as they met Newcastle United in the Premier League, live on Sky. Arsenal have been in great form of late, chasing down third place Tottenham Hotspur, their fierce local rivals in battle for the automatic entry into the prestigious Champions league. My friend Will is a season ticket holder at the Emirates and due to work commitments was unable to attend the game. My email response to his invite was “I’ll go, but if nobody more deserving wants to”. As it was, there were no other, so it was I who made a lonely pilgrimage t...

For a long time I’ve had this belief that Sky are evil and as a corporation have done more harm than good for English football, that they’ve taken the working class soul out of the game and made it a rich persons plaything. The only problem is, last night - I became its latest victim. I sold out. Sacrificed my team for the comfort of my lounge and added my last few pennies into the bottomless Rupert Murdoch honeypot instead of being there for the team I love. Gillingham vs Southend on a Monday night. Nothing glamorous about that, but being a Gillingham supporter has never been about glamour. The closest I’ll ever get to see Gillingham in Europe was a friendly in Calais a couple of years ago and the Premier League seems just as far away. We were close once, not so long ago in fact, finishing 11th in what is now the Championship, but it is the ghost of those glory days that make the current level of mediocrity so difficult to bare. When it was announced that Gillingham vs Southend ...

Standing in the tunnel, looking out at the stadium. It’s packed, a pre-christmas ticket bonanza that has put an extra three thousand bums on seats. The smell of grass, of fried food and the intoxicatingly pleasant sharpness of deep-heat which tickles the nostrils as the ears cope with the roar of the crowd and the stomach deals with the nerves. You’re dressed in the blue of your team, standing there at not yet five years old holding the hand of a total stranger. A man who leads out ten others to do battle against the other group of men dressed in green and black standing side by side in the long, deep space where shouts of encouragement bounce around the walls. The referee signals that it is time and off you go, into the noise which has reached a crescendo, eight thousand people on their feet to welcome their heroes, you leading the way, across the pitch and lining up in front of the main stand, with your Daddy standing by watching, tears in his eyes, feelings of pride swelling up an...

Yesterday marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of Sir Alex Ferguson’s tenure as manager of Manchester United, a record which is staggering considering the trigger-happy culture which runs through modern day football like a shameful cancer - but then nothing about Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign can be called ordinary. I was just six years old when Sir Alex Ferguson walked through the doors of Old Trafford for the first time and took over a struggling Manchester United side that had the likes of Norman Whiteside, Paul McGrath and the England captain Bryan Robson. I hadn’t heard of those names at that age, I don’t even think I took an interest in the game at all. But as my interest grew, the one remaining constant is that man, 'Old Red Nose' from Govan in Glasgow, a ship-builders son who has gone on to be knighted, rewrite the history books and become, in my opinion the greatest football manager of all time. Twenty-five years in the same job, for the same company is a good innings...

I remember my first Gillingham away game. I remember the second one too, in fact, I could probably give you a snippet or a fact from them all. Like that first one, which was way back in 87, on the open away terrace at Southend United. My younger sister Jessica was also there and I remember my fingers being stained from eating a packet of Bovril flavoured crisps. But the thing that I remember more than anything else was swallowing a whistle which I had sucked inwards rather than blowing out in order to make a reverse whistling noise and having my Dads best friend performing the Heimlich maneuver to wrestle it out when it got wedged in my windpipe. It’s why I thought that I’d better record Oliver’s first Gills away game - as it wasn’t quite so interesting. I’d had a call from Bampy on Friday afternoon, would I like to go to Crewe on Saturday? Our weekend was already planned and it involved gardening, running, rowing and taking you down the park to learn how to ride a bike with two w...

Life as a lower league football supporter is never easy. You base three months of your life in the hope and expectation that the new season is going to be better than the last, that the team which left you deflated at the end of the previous campaign undergoes a miraculous transformation and that in those three summer months those players suddenly morph into world beaters and take the league by storm. Last season as a Gillingham fan was not much fun. It started as all seasons do with expectation, the return of Andy Hessenthaler as manager and according to the club “the biggest budget of the division”, nothing less than promotion would be acceptable and we were on a mission to bounce back to League One at the first time of asking. Supporters had just witnessed the pitiful manner in how the club were relegated on the final match of the season before, away to Wycombe Wanderers, which was personally my lowest moment as a Gillingham Football Club supporter - a team bereft of passion, of...

Next weekend the FA Cup final will be contested at Wembley stadium, the home of football, the closing chapter of another dramatic season of English league football. The trophy will be awarded to the winner of either Stoke City or Manchester City, two teams that I have no real association with other than the last time Manchester City played a final at Wembley it was against my Gillingham team, managed at the time by Tony Pulis, ironically now in charge of Stoke City, which brings to life a wonderfully scripted sub-plot to what is already an intriguing game. Since Stoke City reached the final, blog posts and online analysis have focused on Tony Pulis, that day at Wembley and a recent interview on the BBC Sport website revealed some insight into the thoughts of the man and what it would be like to avenge that day nearly 12 years ago. Feeling nostalgic comes naturally to me, particularly when looking back at Gillingham Football Club’s finest ever moment. That game, Gillingham vs Manc...

Deciding to write a blog post a week was a bit of a brave challenge, my previous postings over the years were rather more sporadic, but related to something that genuinely happened or was about to, whereas so far, I've had to think a little bit more about my content. "If I can't think of anything", I thought as I started, "I could always talk about football". Except this week, football was all I could talk about! Last Monday was "Deadline Day", the over-hyped Sky powered non-event which normally passes without so much as a whimper, reporters spend their day camping outside top flight stadiums and/or training grounds feeding back nonsense rumours like “I can state, that David Beckham WILL NOT be re-signing for Manchester United, I repeat he WILL NOT. Although I'm hearing Ian Holloway, the Blackpool manager IS interested”. Whilst we at home, we all know it's a load of rubbish but sit engrossed as the mocu-non-drama unfolds on screen. Exc...

In 2005 the world sat and paid witness to one of the greatest football matches ever played. On the outskirts of the Turkish capital, Istanbul, the Atatürk Olympic Stadium hosted AC Milan vs Liverpool in what was to be a game of epic proportions. Racing into a half-time 3-0 lead, AC Milan had the trophy with the big ears well and truly in their grasp, only for a galvanised Liverpool side inspired by Steven Gerrard to turn the tie upon it's head in a crazy 23 minute second half spell. The game finished all square and Liverpool went on to defy the Rossoneri onslaught in extra time and won the trophy via a penalty shootout thanks to the exploits of Jerzy Dudek, the Polish custodian who recreated the famed "spaghetti legs" made famous by Bruce Grobbelaar twenty one years earlier. That famous night five years ago will always live in my memory and anyone mentions the word "Istanbul" that's where my mind immediately races back to. With a potential week's sta...