Good to be back, but it is an insignificant start

PUT away your bucket and spade, pack up your beach towel and bin the sunscreen - football is back. The serious stuff doesn't get under way until next month, but local football's equivalent of the Community Shield is just three days away.

Much talked about - 'When's the Martinez?' must rank as one of August's most popular sporting questions - and always the first act of a long drama, the traditional curtain-raiser seems important at the time but is soon forgotten.

This season's match, between champions Vale Rec and Sylvans, whom they deposed so spectacularly a little over four months ago, could break new ground in the insignificance stakes.

Sylvans' new manager, Tristram Morgan, formerly of Vale Rec and a major player in THE football story of the summer, is on holiday. His stand-in, Tony Vance, reports that at least seven other first-teamers will be missing on Tuesday.

Paul Ozanne, playing again following the retirement of Ian Drillot, and Matt Warren are suspended; Paul Nobes, Ryan Tippett and the veteran trio of Martin Gauvain, Joel Avery and Adie Exall are unfit. Vance himself is as likely to be at the birth of his second child as at the Corbet Field.

Vale's line-up could be even more Jackson League-like. Manager Ray Blondel speculated that as few as four first-choice players would start the game and described the curtain-raiser merely as 'a friendly with a bit of silverware at the end of it'.

A glance at the record books reveals that the outcome of the Martinez has little impact on where the bigger prizes end up in the spring.

This will be the 73rd edition of the cup. On only 33 occasions has a club won the Martinez outright and the Priaulx League in the same season.

The recent history of the competition is littered with false promises, often creating unrealistic aspirations that look laughable eight months later.

Northerners supporters were convinced that their club was on the verge of ending its 24-year title wait when they beat Vale Rec 3-1 at the start of the 1986-7 season. The chocolate-and-blues were 3-0 up at one stage and looked in another class. A torrid winter of too many draws later - sound familiar? - and North were out of the top three and about to lose their manager and several big-name players; Vale were crowned champions for the 11th time in 15 seasons.

The Martinez boosted expectations at Blanche Pierre Lane at the start of the 1989-90 season. St Martin's beat Vale on penalties in the opener, but subsequently never really featured in the championship race and wound up eight points behind champions North.

At the start of the 90s, Rangers' spectacular but brief renaissance peaked early in one campaign when a promising start in the league followed a brilliant 5-2 thrashing of North in the Martinez. Alas, the day of Carl Le Tissier's exquisite hat-trick and Craig Allen's classy brace was long forgotten by April, by which time Vale had recaptured the title and finished 17 points ahead of the red-and-blacks' fading veterans.

'I would think our poor Martinez record has got something to do with the way we've traditionally treated the match,' said Blondel this week. 'If you look back on a season and you've won only the Martinez, it doesn't exactly mean the same as one of the big trophies.'

Colin Renouf was of the same mind after watching his Saints side lose 9-1 to Sylvans two years ago. 'I was actually quite encouraged by some of our football,' he said. Can you imagine him responding in that manner to an eight-goal reverse in the league or Jeremie or Stranger Cups?

Sylvans have latterly tried to add a modicum of gravitas to the Martinez. Ironically, their slightly different, more competitive approach to the match started under Renouf.

The westerners have appeared in the last nine editions, rarely resting players and using it as far more than just another friendly. Thus on eight of those nine occasions, Sylvans have lifted the trophy.

'It's a prize. It's a competitive match. Winning it gives you an immediate lift at the start of the season,' said Vance.

In view of the clubs' contrasting approaches, it would be a minor miracle if Sylvans didn't retain the Martinez on Tuesday.

But those of us hoping to see a prelude of the mouth-watering action to come will probably be left disappointed. A friendly, albeit one with teeth, is no place to measure expectations for the challenges ahead, especially given the classy contingent of players who won't take part.

Having got his excuses in first, Blondel has already laid the foundations of another Vale Martinez debacle.

His attitude to the fixture means that not even the starting XI he sends out, let alone the result, should be taken seriously.

Indeed, Tuesday should be little more than a tepid kickaround in the sun. But try telling Andy Chamberlain that.

Rewind 12 months and the same two teams were contesting the Martinez. Deep in the first half, Vale's young winger, playing his first game on his return to the green-and-yellows from Sylvans, was clattered by a brutal lunge from the westerners' experienced full back, Vinny de Carteret.

Cue another lengthy lay-off for Chamberlain and the end, for a year at least, of the spirit of decency to which the Martinez has become accustomed.

The sparks are always there, lurking just beneath the surface, when these two rivals meet.

So there's an outside chance, I guess, that Tuesday's clash could yet turn into something a little more meaty than 'a friendly with a piece of silverware at the end of it'.