I have no idea what month it was, or even what year, but I have good reason for remembering the day.

I was in my twenties and enjoying playing in a Sunday morning pub football team – a weekly excuse for socialising masquerading as exercise and generally involving those who can’t cut it on a Saturday.

One week, my dad had passed on his father’s recently-transcribed memories of his time fighting in France. I had set aside the afternoon to read the account when I got home from pretending I could play football.

My granddad had died, aged 91, in 1985 when I was a teenager. I was aware of him having served in the Great War but he rarely spoke of it.

My only memory of him doing so was a year before his death when Paul McCartney released Pipes of Peace depicting the famous 1914 Christmas truce game of football in No Man’s Land between British and German troops.

I asked if the story was true. Granddad believed it was and that it had been widely reported in the trenches, but the top brass did not approve of any fraternisation and discouraged discussion of such behaviour.

On this particular Sunday morning, the mighty Norfolk Arms Reserves (I wasn’t even good enough for the first team) were playing their Sussex Sunday League match away at Preston Park in Brighton – one of those multi-pitch suburban venues where dozens of town teams played their home matches.

We played, we had fun. I can say with some certainty that we lost and complete certainty that I contributed little to the cause. Both eventualities were par for the course.

After the obligatory post-match beer and less obligatory shower, I returned home with a customary feeling of sporting inadequacy, made myself a cup of tea and began reading.

Reality hit home within the first paragraph.

In February 1916 – aged younger than I was at the time of reading the account – Granddad joined the Royal Sussex Regiment and was billeted in Brighton.

“We marched to Preston Park for drill.”

I had to read it several times for the significance to sink in.

The same patch of grass where I had just been aimlessly pursuing a football with a group of mates, my grandfather had prepared to fight and, in all likelihood, die on the Western Front.

Reality checks don’t come much bigger.

I think of this coincidence often, but on Sunday’s 100^th anniversary of the end of that conflict it was particularly poignant.

I heard the bells of Holy Trinity mark the moment as I strolled towards City Park to cover the Launceston Cycling Classic, still half expecting someone to tap me on the shoulder and point out that writing about a sporting event in a newspaper is not a real job.

In contrast, when Granddad left Preston Park he was heading for Ypres and the Somme – one of the bloodiest killing fields known to mankind.

He was wounded three times – one of which left him deaf in one ear – but survived. Had he not, you would not be reading this now.

His memoirs have become a priceless possession. Re-reading them never fails to make me appreciate what I have now.

After one particularly brutal onslaught near Amiens, he writes of a wounded comrade: “He was a quiet, likeable lad of a good type. His wounds were awful, his whole lower jaw being swept away by a piece of shell. I ran to him and tried to apply a bandage, although it was clear he could not live. He seemed conscious for a while, but unaware of the extent of his injuries. The sun was setting; the light coming through the trees fell on his fair hair, as he died holding on to my hand.”

He later describes the moment he was injured.

“There was some shrapnel firing from both sides, one burst overhead not far away. I was struck down, wondering what had happened. My mouth filled with blood, which I spat out with some teeth. While thoughts raced through my mind, I thought I could not survive and I was going as so many others had. Home … how grieved they would be.”

He survived, met his future wife while recovering and my father was born eight years later.

After reporting on the cycling, I spent Sunday evening playing indoor football with my son.

It seemed an appropriate personal way to commemorate the centenary of the armistice given the role Preston Park had played in my family history.

How lucky are we, eh?

Whatever problems we face are nothing compared to those of our forefathers.

Aside from the odd dictator like Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, we get to live in relative peace and raise our children in a healthy, safe and sporty world. 

Lest we forget.