Football: A century of service but couple claim they're 'just cogs in the wheel'
If your husband spends 30 hours a week preparing a football pitch and countless more time doing paperwork for his beloved club, then you would be entitled to have a few complaints.
But Jill Youngman denies any simmering grievances about her husband Ray and his dedication to Anglian Combination Premier Division club Hempnall.
In fact, she rolls up her sleeves and gets involved too.
Even since they got married in 1964, Mrs Y, as she is known at Bungay Road, has been washing the kits, making teas on match days and helping with the club's administration.
"If you take them on, you take on their sport," said Jill.
"I knew he was involved with it when I married him. Any time he says he will give it up, I say 'don't!'.
"I was always at cricket when I was single, scoring for Woodton, so I was used to sport on a Saturday."
Hempnall FC's history dates back to pre-1900 and it was in 1945 that the Youngman family first got involved, with brothers Ted and Stanley joining the club, followed by their four younger siblings.
The fourth in line to join was Ray in 1952, who started out as a 15-year-old goalkeeper for the club's newly-formed reserve team, before being promoted to the first team three years later.
But his playing days were halted when he broke his foot in 1963 and suffered the same injury again in the first game of the next season and did not play again.
For Ray though, Hempnall was always about more than 90 minutes of football on a Saturday.
From the day he joined he recalls assisting the club's secretary collecting match fees and marking out the pitch, before taking on the role himself at 21 and becoming treasurer – two roles he has held to this day.
In recent years he has also become child protection and welfare officer, as well as being secretary/treasurer of the village's playing fields association.
One of his most time-consuming roles is as club groundsman, which takes up to 30 hours a week.
"I'm on there every day," said Ray, 71.
"The weather doesn't bother me, I don't like sitting indoors.
"The secret is when you do it, not what you do to it. Every Monday I harrow the pitch wet or dry because it doesn't make any difference.
"The rolling side I work out Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, whatever fits in. You always get one dry day a week.
"I have two afternoons where I do my divots, push them all out. And I mark the pitch out.
"On Saturday I'm down there at 11am, putting ropes round the outside and the goalkeeper (Ben Cudden) comes down to put the nets up because I can't reach up there. I even go up there on Sunday mornings to clear up the rubbish.”
Last year Ray’s hard work received recognition, when he came third in Norfolk FA’s Groundsman of the Year award and was appointed as Football Grounds Inspection Standards Officer for the Anglian Combination League, for whom he has been on the management committee for two decades.
While he can quickly estimate how many hours he spends on the pitch, he is unable to do the same for his administration, joking that if people knew how long it took, no one would ever take over.
On Saturday alone, he will not finish until 10pm as he records the club’s four teams’ games and sends out the results. Not that he is complaining, he would much rather be on his computer fulfilling his secretarial roles, than idly watching television.
But Ray admits that modern technology has diluted some of the pleasures of his job.
He said: “I like the contact with the other secretaries but that is the biggest failing of computers, there’s no one to speak to anymore.
“Everything is email and you don’t always get an instant answer.”
And Ray is not a man who likes to be left waiting around. He insists the secret of being a good secretary is to be ahead of the game.
“They all know at Hempnall that I do everything yesterday, not tomorrow,“ said Ray.
“If (Hempnall joint-manager) Tim Clarke emails me wanting to do something, I just email back ‘done yesterday’.
Clarke can confirm that his club secretary runs a tight ship, and is a perfectionist, not least in collecting fines from players.
Along with the hard work Jill puts in, Clarke says their efforts are greatly appreciated.
“They are the rock that this club was built on for a lot of years,” said Clarke, who joined the club 34 years ago.
“Now the club is much more solid but a few years ago, without them, the club would have collapsed.”
Ray recalls those dark days in the early 1980s when the club were bottom of Division Four and had to seek re-election from the Anglian Combination.
But under the guidance of returning favourite Nicky Page as manager, the club rose again through three divisions and in 1988 gave the Youngman’s their golden moment at the club.
Hempnall reached the semi-finals of the Norfolk Senior Cup, where they were rewarded with a home draw against Norwich City Reserves, which drew a crowd of a 1,000.
Jill said:“It was a lot of work but we pulled in friends to help out.
“It was good fun.”
Although they have more than a century’s service between them at Hempnall, the pair modestly deflect praise to others.
Ray said: “There are a lot of people, who do a lot of hard work at Hempnall.
“We’re just cogs in the wheel.”
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Weather for Diss
Thursday 02 September 2010
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 9 C to 19 C
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Sunny spells
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