Manland School, Harpenden 1959-1966: Part 4

There were four houses at Manland School. These were Balmoral (blue), Buckingham (green), Sandringham (red) and Windsor (yellow). I was in Buckingham but I’m ashamed to say that I had left the school before I realised that the houses were named after royal palaces rather than towns. Clearly my knowledge of geography was better than my knowledge of the monarchy.

The only time I can remember house allegiance being of any significance was on sports day. I was always in the relay race and at least once I reached the dizzy heights of being in the individual sprint as well. I don’t remember any of the results from the different events but knowing me I don’t expect I had any first places.

We played a lot of football at Manland. I was almost always told to play right back with just the occasional excitement of playing centre half. I can remember scoring a goal from nearly the half-way line. I’m right footed but the ball came from my left so I just swung my leg more in hope than expectation. By some miracle the ball screamed into the corner of the net and nobody was more surprised than me. I never made it into the school team although I did once play for an “Invitation 11” against the school team the year after I went up to St Albans School. The Bell twins, one, if not two, years older than me were in our team and the game was a massacre. In the end Kingham told the two of them that they were not allowed to go over the half way line in a vain attempt to keep the score down to single figures.