We Are Sunday League by Ewan Flynn

Author:Ewan Flynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2017-07-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Roy of the Red Imps

ONE member of the Southgate Saints team we never managed to bring into the Wizards’ fold was Roy Chipolina. Danny remembers Roy, the schoolboy footballer, as a Gary Lineker-type goal poacher who for the Saints and school team would regularly clock up 50 goals in a season.

Roy was born in Enfield, north London, but aged four moved to the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, where his family is originally from. Roy remembers playing youth football there, which given that the population of Gibraltar is around 30,000, consisted of just six teams in the league and wasn’t particularly competitive. As a 12-year-old, Roy moved back to north London, initially going to school in Wood Green before moving to Southgate School. Here he joined the same year group as Danny and became a mainstay of the school team and the Saints. ‘I loved every minute of Sunday League… every game in the Cheshunt League was competitive and enjoyable.’

Being part of two successful sides as a schoolboy, Roy was selected to play for Hertfordshire County and was another of the Saints who attracted attention from professional clubs. He had a trial period with Luton Town and trained with them for three months. He then spent a week at Leyton Orient and played in one trial game, but regrettably for Roy, that was as far as it went. Aged 18, he decided to move back to Gibraltar to live with his nan; he recalls finding the relaxed lifestyle and sunny climate very attractive. Reflecting on that decision, Roy has a slight tinge of regret at giving up on his dream of playing professionally in England. ‘It’s disappointing really; I would have liked to have had at least a few more opportunities. Maybe I should have stayed a bit longer in England and tried at the lower leagues… to be honest, I was a bit too young, and I suppose naive, in giving up and moving to Gibraltar.’ Comparing his own talent to that of those Saints who did get to turn professional, and seeing the challenges his friends subsequently faced to establish themselves, Roy is under no illusion about how difficult it would have been to make a career in the game.

Even while still at Southgate School, Roy would spend holidays in Gibraltar, and so he started training with the youth side of Lincoln Red Imps, one of Gibraltar’s leading teams. When Roy moved back to Gibraltar permanently it was natural for him to reconnect with the Red Imps. All football in Gibraltar at this time was amateur and like all the other top-flight sides, they played in the Victoria Stadium. Space in Gibraltar is very much at a premium as the entire peninsula is contained within 2.6 square miles. A football stadium has a very significant footprint. Roy explains that the Victoria Stadium has one of the most spectacular vistas of any football stadium in the world, with the iconic Rock of Gibraltar behind one goal and Gibraltar Airport and the planes taking off and landing on its runways behind the other.

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