How Mickey Clarke from Staines challenged the F.A.

In the late 1980s, Mickey Clarke from Staines challenged the F.A.

In 1962, a brutal, coach-sanctioned tackle ended the career of Mickey Clarke, a very promising young football star.

In the ensuing years, Clarke served as a football manager, a squad coach, and a trainer.

In the late 1980s Clarke established a recreational six-a-side football league in Staines, Middlesex for children aged six to nine, based at Wheatsheaf Park.

Clarke asked the world’s oldest football association, the governing body of amateur and professional football, to review his plan and acknowledge his accomplishments. He claimed his mini-league would improve the national game and draw in young players.

The Football Association provided no assistance or support for his plan. In fact, the F.A. blocked him. They belittled his accomplishments. They issued threats against him. They impeded his progress. Then they completely stole his concept and sold it to a major global corporation.

Mickey Clarke claims that Neil Mach’s comic novel “Bladderfuls” accurately depicts how the organisation, established to ensure fair play on Britain’s playing fields, “dropped the ball and botched the game” with regards to his Mini Soccer initiative.

"Bladderfuls" vividly depicts the frustrating consequences of interacting with an organization that's so secretive and remote that its ambitions and intentions remain incomprehensible.

There are several humorous sequences in “Bladderfuls”, set in the 1980s. To safeguard the identities of key figures while preserving the story’s authenticity, Neil Mach’s humorous novel employs fictional names for individuals, businesses, places, events, and incidents, though it draws heavily on Mickey Clarke’s genuine memories and factual account.

Note: The inception of a Junior side by Staines Town in 1974 led to the development of a senior Youth U18 team, younger Junior sections, and the ground-breaking Mini Soccer initiative created by Micky Clarke in 1987.

The comic novel, Bladderfuls: when the bastions of fair play bungled the ball, is available now: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bladderfuls-when-bastions-fair-bungled-ebook/dp/B0DT4QC1R6/