Stylist’s son cuts a dash at Springfield

‘Did you see the match last week? – Weren’t they dreadful!’ This, and many other similar remarks, before I paid my 50p and departed.

Since then, my visits to the barber have become less frequent; not because I’m growing my hair longer, but because there isn’t much of it left to cut.

And instead of a ‘barber’, which is a masculine kind of word, for the last 25 years I’ve been going to the same hairdresser, ‘blond Ali’ in Colomberie.

I mention this because I was there again early on Saturday morning, and with echoes of my youth we talked about football – not a usual topic of conversation in my ‘salon’ days.

‘I’m finishing early today,’ Ali explained, ‘because my son, James, is playing in the under-16 Muratti and I want to see how he gets on. He’s also captaining the side, so I know today’s match means a great deal to him.’

‘I’ll be there, too,’ I said. ‘I’m writing the report for the JEP.’

Seven hours later I met Ali again. This time, though, we were at Springfield, and her son, James Hudson, had captained his under-16 team to a 3-0 win over Guernsey and, in the first half, he had twice finished off set piece moves, once with his head, once with his right foot, to give his side a 2-0 lead at the break.

With a third goal in the second half, a stunner by Aaron Young, Jersey deserved their 3-0 win and fair play to Guernsey manager, Paul Ockleford afterwards, who admitted that, on the day, the better team had won.

As for Hudson? He was a revelation; exuding reassurance and steel in defence, leading by example, scoring two goals (despite wearing the No 5 jersey), and was afterwards named man of the match.

His mum, rightly, was proud of her lad but on my way home, afterwards, I had to smile to myself, knowing that there must be a gap of 30-plus years, now, since I last talked football at t’barber’s shop – and how proud I would have been if any of my kids had scored not once, but twice, in an under-16 inter-insular.