In all my years of watching Wivenhoe I have seen games held up for a variety of reasons including injuries (the most common) and, on a few occasions, no match balls due to every “approved” football having been booted out of the ground in all directions (the most infamous of which occurred during a 2-0 F A Cup victory over Chelmsford City at Broad Lane back in the early 90’s). However, this cutting taken from the “Colchester Express” dated Thursday September 10th 1970 depicts one of the more bizarre circumstances a game involving this club has been halted.
The incident happened during a Colchester & East Essex League Premier Division match between Wivenhoe Rangers and St Mary Magdalen on 5/9/70 at the University Of Essex’s Wivenhoe Park grounds where we held our home games at the time. A University official marched uninvited onto the pitch and stopped the match, demanding to have some cars removed from a “no parking area”. The picture above shows referee Mr P Grant escorting Mr “Jobs Worth” off. It turned out only one car belonged to anyone involved in the game leaving the University gentleman to resume his quest elsewhere. It seems this was the most exciting incident during a drab 0-0 draw!
