Dancing ball points, perfect pitches and spectacular spectators

The lounge at Hildesley Court rang with the theme tune to Match of the Day, as residents played football with the point of a pen.

As they danced the pen around, several residents shut their eyes and just let the music take them where it wanted – and the results were truly beautiful.

It was a busy session, deciding on nicknames for each of the Hildesley High Flyers, whilst also preparing the football pitches for next week and chatting about what they thought the children would get out of taking part.

And so it was that ‘In-it-to-Win-it’ Peggy, ‘No-Whistle’ Trish, Saint Ninety (a bit of a nod to her age, there) and Spot Dot, along with the rest of the team, busied themselves making several football pitches out of cardboard boxes and off-cuts from summer banners.

They are really looking forward to meeting the children next week, not least as they hope it will challenge some stereotypes about what it is to be ‘old’. Roll on, next week.

Over at Pakefield, the children introduced the Archive All-Stars to our volunteer, before also taking to the ‘pitch’ with a pen. This led into a general chat about moving around on the pitch and what sort of players they would be – and from there we got Black Eye Bella (apparently, she once hit a sibling in the eye with a football), Everywhere Keane and Back of the Net Elliot, to name but a few.

The children finished off the pitches, after which they created rows and rows of spectators, including babies balanced on posts to see over the adults’ heads, opposing fans shouting at each other and even one moved to tears by the emotion of it all.

Like I said before, roll on next week.