Moat Mount Youth Fc.
A Memory of Mill Hill.
Not long after the completion of Worcester Crescent and Bedford Road, the construction of Ramillies Road I had acquired a large number of new friends, all boys. My parents had moved from Woodford Essex to 52 Worcester Crescent just before my first birthday and the outbreak of WW2 in 1939. The house was a new John Laings build. By the early 1950s my summers were taken up by playing Cricket for Mill Hill Village (as did my father) and my winters either by train spotting all over London and much further afield (paid for by caddying at Mill Hill golf course), and FOOTBALL.
At the end of Bedford road there was access to what was still a huge field (now the playing fields of Mill Hill County High School). Just beyond the field access there was an almost treeless area of nearly flat ground behind the lower end of Ramillies Road. On this we had constructed our own football pitch with the aid of one dad who worked for the council and who had a motor roller and that got rid of any remaining ant and mole hills. As we all moved into our middle teens us boys formed a football club and applied to, and joined, the Hendon Youth league.
We had a couple of very good seasons including a visit to Claremont Road, Hendon's Ground, for the league cup final in our first season. Unfortunately we lost 4-1 against a very strong, bigger and older, Mill Hill Youth Club side. In the league our biggest win was 22-1 against Edgwarebury Youth. For our home games we rented a pitch in Mill Hill Park as ours was not big enough and had a conker tree inside the playing area. We played in black shirts with gold sleeves and black shorts with matching socks.
I would love to hear from any of my team mates who are still in the land of the living or indeed still live locally. These include Terry Penfold, John Kane and his brother, Joe Turner, Eric Palmer, John Weymann, Ted Daish and the Grey brothers, Richie and Alan. I understand that Richie Grey lost a leg as a result of a road accident not many years later. Eric Palmer was later to be the 2nd X1 captain of Mill Hill Village Cricket club and also played for their football club for many years.
Ron Sargeant
Aged 83, now of Southend-on-Sea
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