A GROUP of Woking Grammar School boys became so fed up at not being picked for the school football team that they set up their own club.

The St John's PA (Park Athletic), or Unpickables, graced the local lower leagues from 1974 to 1986, providing their own quirky match reports for the News & Mail.

The club, bases at the Robin Hood pub with home games at Waterers Rise, disbanded but a core of around eight have become lifelong friends, graduating from a youthful Monday-night pub crawl in a Mark II Ford Cortina driven by the sole teetotaller to more sedate rounds of drinks and trips to concerts.

The former Unpickables still living in Woking, led by former star striker Duncan Redpath, nicknamed Youth Policy on account of him being a mere 67, are organising a reunion to mark the club’s 50th anniversary at The Cricketers in Horsell on September 8 from noon.

“We’ve already had close to 20 responses,” said Duncan, who gave up football for international shipping and has lived in Maybury for more than 30 years with his wife Julie.

The reunion will include blow-up copies of the match reports, which included such gems as:

“Back from injury, substitute Alan Simms kept everyone amused as he explained how good looking he thought women found him. Despite his misplaced vanity, it was good to see his return after a badly gashed ankle.”

Another report noted that “the lethargic Crossley, at centre forward, was not making life easy for his team-mates. With his mind set firmly on the beer awaiting him afterwards in the changing room Steve “Dogger” Crossley (incidentally the PAs skipper) roamed around in an apparently comatose state”.  

Former players, family, friends and long-suffering fans who want to go to the reunion should contact Duncan on [email protected] or  call 07545 998745.