Honesty and respect not dead '” Searle

EAMONN SEARLE left Wick last week and joined Worthing United. These are some of his concluding reactions:

"I enjoyed my football with the lads at Wick. They are a great bunch and, in my short time there, I noticed a change in their attitudes towards having fun as a team. Could that be the role that I should now concentrate on?

It was a privilege to resume playing at a standard, for a club, under a manager for whom I have the utmost respect, at 40 years of age. And it still would have 20 years ago.

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Lots of younger players still do have a point to prove and if they can take that into their game, forget about

impersonating the Premier League players and appreciate the effort that people put in to make their Saturday game possible for them, then overnight they will become better players '” and people.

I want to highlight two examples of that I think sum up what is good and bad in County League football now.

In the recent Worthing United v Wick match, an incident happened where the referee awarded a free kick to us (Wick). The player marking me, Ben McKenzie (a former team mate of mine at AC Azzurri FC) protested a little too loudly and with a few too many expletives thrown in.

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The referee, thinking I had made the comments, called me over and told me he was booking me for foul and abusive language. Despite my protests he started writing down my name, but then Ben walked over and told the ref that it was he who had made the comments. The referee duly apologised to me and proceeded to caution Ben.

Later on in the game, another former team mate of mine was fouled and then gesticulated towards the referee, "Italian style", asking for the player to be booked.

Those two incidents made me realise, and most of all appreciate, that maybe football hasn't changed after all. Maybe people have changed.

I was very flattered to read that an outstanding player such as Graham Waller would take the time and effort to comment on me still playing today. And he epitomised, as indeed players such as Ben McKenzie and Dave Hall of Wick still do, that there is still honesty, respect and a commitment alive in football today, which will always survive, despite a changing social environment.

I now rest my case for the 'Older Players'."

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