There was a Vauxhall dealership in Colindale, Bristol St Motors, and around 1979 they put together a Sunday league side. I was 18/19 and although we never worked for them, a mate and me played for them.
On Monday nights between 6-8pm we trained on one of the small playground type pitches on Grahame Park Way, near Colindale. They ‘persuaded’ Paul Miller to come and coach us on these Monday evenings and for the pleasure of doing that, he was given the princely reward of unlimited use of a brand new Vauxhall Chevette for the season. I laugh looking back on it now, as he was already a first team player at the time, but he was chuffed to do it for that. He would have only been about 20 himself and with wages then compared with now I suppose it’s more understandable. He had a great sense of humour, was always ready to take the piss out of us, and have a laugh, but could take a bit back as well.
We won our cup competition that season (and were even given a mention in the Spurs programme). As our end of season reward he took us to WHL for a bit of a tour and to play a few five a side games against the Spurs back room staff in the indoor gym. They were good players too. Terry Yorath was there, lovely guy, and he agreed to be our ‘manager’ for the evening. This was followed by a few beers in The Corner Pin (if memory serves) and Neil McNab also walked in. Not sure what he was there for as he’d already left for Bolton I think before then. Again, a nice guy, polite and friendly but pretty quiet.
Another thing I remember was Maxi being really disappointed that one of our players had not considered going for trials. He was an absolute gem of a player with a wand of a left foot but he had absolutely fuck all interest in playing football other than for fun. He really couldn’t care less. Paul Miller was convinced he could have turned pro easily. Anyway, he was happy and they were happy days.
