I stood on the very spot where 45 years earlier I executed the first scissors kick ever performed in England. The ball shot towards the corner by the pile of coats, surely the first goal in England from a scissors kick. It was not to be, the goalie flipped away the ¼ inch of sodden woodbine and I swear, had time to draw in another lungful of the sweet smoke, before gracefully tipping my shot around the pile of coats that served as the post.

This was late June of 1958 at Pype Hayes Park in Birmingham and we had, for the first time in living memory, taken a break from the traditional cricket playing weeks in honour of Brazils victory in the world cup. All of us had been transfixed by the grainy black and white pictures beamed from Sweden during that balmy and never to be forgotten month of June.

As soon as the matches finished we would rush to the park to emulate our heroes from Brazil.

Their football was so different from that served up by our local lads at Villa Park and St. Andrews on a rainy chilly Saturday afternoon.

I had come back to the park out of curiosity during one of the many trips I made up and down the M6 motorway. They say its never the same if you go back and of course I hadnâ ™t expected it to be the same but I had at least expected some kids to be playing football or something. Apart from a couple of youths leaning on their push bikes and glaring at me suspiciously, the park was empty.

As I stood there I had so many memories of those days long gone. The long summer nights and the uncanny way we seemed to know when the others would be there, arriving within a few minutes of each other without the aid of phones or texts. How we knew the football should give way to cricket, nobody said anything, we just knew. Those days would end the following year as we moved into adulthood and went our separate ways. I did go back once around 1961 but already we all were marching to our own drumbeat and the life changing sixties loomed in front of us all.