81-year-old County fan Keith Mills has lived in Uganda, Zambia, America and France – now he’s published his memoirs
Plus! Wigan v County in the Car Cup
Wednesday 6 December 2023
NEXT HOME GAME: Sutton – Saturday 16 December, 3pm
NEXT AWAY GAME: Wigan – Today, 7pm
Dear County fans, Stopfordians, and any Wigan supporters joining us today, a very warm welcome to your Wednesday edition of The Scarf My Father Wore. As always, we’ve got some cracking pre-match build-up for you, with Ian Brown and Martin Tarbuck joining us ahead of County’s trip to Wigan in the last 32 of the Bristol Street Motors Trophy. But our top story today, so to speak, is an exclusive extract from a brand new book that you should definitely ask Santa Claus to leave in your stocking on Christmas Day. (Or just buy the book yourself if you’re one of those heathens who don’t believe in Santa.)
The book’s been written by County fan Keith Mills who was born in 1942 during World War Two. Alongside his wife Jeanette, he’s lived a rather interesting life. After completing their teacher training course, the couple spent a summer in the USA working with children from Harlem, before going on to teach in Zambia (facing the problems of Rhodesian UDI) and then in Uganda under the rule of Idi Amin.
Returning to teach in England, with two young sons, Keith also served as a football referee, ran marathons, trod the boards at Stockport's Garrick Theatre and worked with the National Association of Special Educational Needs (NASEN).
Following early retirement, Keith and Jeanette moved to France for a new adventure in rural Normandy restoring and running a guesthouse and gîte. Shortly after their 60th birthdays, they founded Les Amis d'Ouganda (now Forever Friends of Uganda in the UK).
Back in Stockport, and now in their 80s, they continue to run the British end of the charity, helping some of the poorest Ugandan children to get an education and giving them the opportunity for a much better life.
Today’s edition is sponsored by GroutGleam. A big thank you to Dave, who offers services such as grout refreshing and recolouring, shower glass restoration and protective coating. Give him a call on 07903 313005 or email davew@groutgleam.co.uk for further details.
Finally, I’m currently walking every street in Stockport to raise money for mental health charity Mentell. If you’d like to make a donation to help me reach my target, please click here.
Total distance so far: 46.68 miles
Total steps so far: 83,302
Total raised so far: £1,027
Total completed streets so far: 24 (Click here for the full list, which includes reports and photos from every day of the walk.)
Further information on the walk can be found by clicking here.
Des Junior
🇿🇲 The Zambia Years
When our careers took us to Zambia, I had the responsibility for the 1st year team at Roan Antelope Secondary School; the senior teams were run by far more experienced and talented people. The first training session that I took charge of still stands out in my memory. The boys played barefoot (still not uncommon in Africa) and foolishly I decided to make myself one of the boys. All was well while we tip-tapped passes around the pitch, but then I made the ridiculous decision to take a corner. It was obvious to everyone that I didn’t have the cast-iron-like feet of Zambian children. The resulting agony ensured that I never played without boots again.
Roan United was our local First Division team, funded by the copper mine that made the town of Luanshya what it was. Indeed several of our boys went on to play for them. Emmanuel Mwape, who had been goalkeeper at Roan and later went on to represent Zambia in the national team, presented me with an unusual situation. He had a great desire to study sport at Loughborough College in England, but he lacked the requisite number of “O” level passes. So it was that he came into my class for English Language and English Literature. He was 26 at the time and studying alongside boys very much younger than himself. Not only that, but he was older than his teacher! Sadly, he never achieved his desire. He may have been a talented keeper, but the academic life was not for him.
Football was central to our lives. As well as school teams and Roan United, the staff loved a kickabout. I was the goalkeeper; oh to have had a tiny fraction of the talent of my students. In the dry season, the ground was like concrete, so there were plenty of jars and scrapes. Often the senior boys turned out with or against us. At the end of one afternoon’s exercise, the heavens opened. We didn’t need the showers; soap and warm rain in front of the classrooms was a much enjoyed option.
Just as in Manchester, it was the home teacher who took the whistle; but in addition I was often asked to run the line in more senior games. I just loved being part of the game; and if it was at the Roan stadium, so much the better.
While we were there, Ray Wood from Manchester United came to Luanshya to coach Roan’s trio of talented keepers, and the following year Leicester City visited and played the national team. A group of British coaches were allocated to each of the First Division teams and Steve Fleet from Stockport County (another goalkeeper) came to Luanshya. Next the West Ham United youth team (managed by John Lyall at the time) toured and when it was our turn, each of us put a couple of the players up in our homes for the duration.
Was I a good “liner” or was it just convenient to be able to call on Keith Mills to take the flag? That is not for me to say, but whatever the truth I loved it. It all came to a head when a group of us, including colleagues who were senior officials in local school football, went to Ndola United’s stadium for a regional cup final. It was a big day in the sporting life of the Copperbelt and a big crowd was assured. Zambia’s sole FIFA official had been engaged to take the whistle, supported by two Division One linesmen; one of whom failed to show up!
That single event changed my refereeing life. Once again, I was volunteered. A tracksuit was found and, with a crowd of 5,000 yelling, enthusiastic youngsters in the stand behind me, I threw myself headlong into the match. It truly was a baptism by fire. The referee was full of praise for my efforts. You should qualify, he told me.
As soon as we got back to England, I enrolled on a course with Manchester FA. The date of the exam was 8 December 1969, Nick’s second birthday. I was determined to sit the exam despite strong objections from the family, and so after the cake and the presents I set out in thick fog to attain my Class 3 qualification!
🇺🇬 On to Uganda
Five months later, we set off for another teaching job, this time in Uganda. The posting was as far away from the capital, Kampala, as it was possible to be, up on the border with Congo and Sudan. Once again I was training the school teams, but on this occasion the nearest opponents were 30 miles away on unpaved roads all the way. Then there was the school pitch! I had never seen anything so big; way bigger than the dimensions sanctioned by FIFA even for international matches. I decided to bring it within those international norms. When our Catholic priest headmaster got back that afternoon, he was furious. “It was there to make the boys run”, he fumed in his fractured Italian-English.
First year classes comprised anyone from a tiny 12-year-old to a fully grown youth, occasionally with children of his own, and inter-form matches were interesting to say the least! Officially it was not possible to enter secondary school after the age of 16, but with no birth certificates and with primary level headmasters wanting the best for their youngsters, age was a flexible commodity. One year our eccentric headmaster decided to group the children by height which led to our ironically named Giants team, specifically for the tiniest boys.
The bonus for me during our two years up in West Nile was that I was now a qualified official, albeit at Class 3 level with no experience in controlling adult matches. There was only one other qualified official in the whole district. As my Ugandan colleague was the organiser of cup matches, I was assigned to control several of the finals, including one with Idi Amin Dada among the spectators. That I was totally unready for such responsibility made no difference, and anyway I was full of youthful self-confidence. For the most part things went reasonably well, especially as on-field indiscipline was a rarity. There was one notable exception.
It was the inter-county final between Koboko and Maracha; an experience that remains firmly within my memory. The match went well until 20 minutes from full-time. With Maracha leading 3-1, I awarded them a penalty. It seemed fairly routine and was not contested. It turned out to be far from that. Remember, there were no goal nets. Nor was there any way of keeping the crowds away from the goalline, and almost the entire population of both villages had turned up. You just had to get on with it. Unfortunately for what ensued, a Koboko player had hidden himself among the spectators behind the goal and when the kick was taken, he burst through and stopped the ball from crossing the line. Of course, I couldn’t award the goal. The offender was sent off and the kick was to be retaken. The Maracha team were not prepared to accept this; they insisted the goal should be awarded.
They were 3-1 up, the penalty was still to be taken; and they would be playing against 10 men for the rest of the match, but they walked off and refused to play on. It took the village chief and his askaris (the village policemen) a full half-hour to get get things going again. The match ended 4-1 and in semi-darkness; night falls fast near to the equator.
“Please come into the village hall for a few minutes,” the chief invited me afterwards. All right, my much-needed beer in the local bar with friends would have to wait. I soon realised that I had been invited to a post-match “feast”. The village girls came round with bowls of water, soap and towels. This was my introduction to eating rice and sauce with nothing but my fingers, cutlery was not available even for a meal of such importance. As a special guest, however, I was issued with my own plate; the only one in the hall to have one. That was a true honour for the sole “white” person present.
After the meal, it was time for the speeches. “And now,” intoned the chief solemnly, “Mr Referee will explain his decision.” It took quite a while too as each team spoke a different language and I understood neither. There was a translator on each side of me turning my words into both Kakwa and Lugbara.
For the next two years at our new posting between the capital Kampala and the colonial centre of Entebbe, there were so many other things on the agenda that football took a back seat. Apart from helping (err really?) on the staff team, that was it. At the end of our African adventure, I did manage to arrange our flights so that we could be back in England to watch the final stages of the 1974 World Cup on television. The timing did not meet with universal approval in the family.
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Wigan v County
Des Junior loves writing about County. But he can never be arsed doing match previews. They’re a bit dull, aren’t they? Paddy Madden’s out for two games with an ingrown toenail…blah blah blah…tomorrow’s referee has handed out more cards than Moonpig…blah blah blah…County haven’t won at Birmingham since 1672.
Fortunately, he has a number of fellow County content creators to call upon. Here’s their thoughts, general chit-chat and score predictions, ahead of only our second visit to the DW Stadium this evening.
Ian Brown, hedgegrower
Wigan 1 County 3
What are your best and worst memories from previous encounters with Wigan?
Our record against Wigan hasn’t been that great, especially since they came into the Football League. That said, the period of Danny Bergara’s tenure as County manager bucked this trend and we hardly lost with the great Uruguayan in charge.
Another happy happenstance regarding this period was that the games all took place at Springfield Park – a ground today’s largely armchair football fans would baulk at visiting. Yes, it was fairly basic and you had to be very lucky indeed to find any cover at all on the away end when weather was bad, and staying upright was an issue on the grassy terrace, but I don’t know anyone who supported County from that era who does not lament the passing of that stadium!
My best memory from Springfield Park was a 3-1 Division Three victory in 1991-92. I can recall that Paul Wheeler, Paul Williams and Kevin Francis got the goals – Big Kev’s goal being particularly gratifying after the crap the Manc media had put out on him pre-match.
The bad stuff has invariably happened following Wigan’s move to their current stadium: a 25,000-seater white elephant of a ground surrounded by possibly the world’s largest car park. Atmosphere is zero on matchdays and even the noise made by several hundred County fans struggled to be heard from high up in the stands when we went down 2-1 in 2002-03, even though the game opened in a blizzard of County attacking which saw the wonderful Luke Beckett score almost before we had sat down.
The attacking continued from County but was severely undermined by a truly awful performance from the referee who pretty much single handedly kept the score down to 1-0 at half-time.
The second half saw Wigan come back at the Hatters and take the game with a couple of goals, both hotly disputed by this writer as I recall but to no avail.
Wigan should win this, but you never know, and they’ll be complacent, so I’ll go for a 3-1 County win!
“The old ‘your ground’s too big for you’ chant was made for us sadly. Not sure what we can do, it was over-ambitious in the extreme, with all the challenges we face getting Wiganers to come and watch us.”
Click here to read our interview with Martin Tarbuck, editor of the Wigan fanzine Mudhutter.
Martin Tarbuck, Mudhutter
Wigan 1 County 1
What’s your prediction for tonight?
We seem to be drawing a lot of these, so let’s say a 1-1 draw with penalties, which we seem to also be winning too somehow. I take it the knockout games go straight to pens too? If they announce extra time, I’m going home to get warm instead.
Photo of the day
Kenilworth Road, Luton
Goalkeeper Andy Dibble lines up for Luton ahead of the 1985-86 season, a mere 15 years before signing for County.
Today in SK
🍕 Food and drink
For those on a gluten-free diet, finding a nice portion of fish and chips to tuck into can be quite difficult. But on a Wednesday at Fishers of Cheshire (SK2), gluten-free meals are available. Open till 9.30pm.
Lunch deal at The Dog & Partridge (SK2). One course for £7 or two courses for £11. 12pm till 2pm.
Any pizza and two drinks for £14.95 at Platform 5 (SK8).
The Cheshire Line Tavern (SK8) have recently launched their new winter menu, featuring favourites such as beef stew with dumplings and cottage pie. On a Wednesday, you can enjoy two main courses for £20. Call 0161 428 3352 to book a table or visit cheshirelinetavern.co.uk. Open 12pm - 11pm.
❓ Quiz night
Flying Coach (SK7). 9pm. Free entry. Chicken wings for just 25p.
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DJ Des
🎶 Hey, all you Wigan fans…. Where do you hide….. When you come down to Ed-ger-lee…. Have you seen the team that reigns supreme….. Heading for Division Three 🎶
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Tremendously told adventures from a life indeed so fully lived! I must say that while the name of Mr Mills was known to me, the breadth and depth of his exploits, footballing and otherwise, was not. A great excerpt from clearly a quality memoir.