The Chronicles of Ostrick ....

[TheOstrich]

11/02 – a reasonable lull in the cold weather last week enabled us to visit Cranborne on Wednesday for a pub lunch in the “Sheaf of Arrows” and a good poke round the WVS’s second-hand bookshop nearby. Huge clumps of snowdrops in the wooded valleys en-route seemed a harbinger of Spring, but the temperature dipped sharply again on Friday and by today it was positively Arctic. I didn’t have a particular game in mind for this Saturday, so it was a question of checking the Twitter feeds of a number of various options to see who was on, who was off, and who were hedging their bets. Only Shepton Mallet FC were declaring “Game on”, and I was very tempted, but eventually I plumped for a reasonably short trip to Warminster where both soccer and rugby clubs had home games, but neither had actually tweeted. A fortuitous decision; Shepton Mallet’s game was a 0-0 draw!

So, north to Mere, and then up and along the top of White Sheet Hill (where snow was visibly lying in the copses along the roadside, and also where the fields had been ploughed) before descending through the five country hamlets known as the Deverills, the beech hedges each side of the road still thick with tarnished copper leaves. Then back to reality, up the A350, swing round Warminster on the A36 bypass, and into the town from the west end.

Warminster RFC’s motto is “nil satis nisi optimum”, which is interestingly the same as Everton FC. The Merseyside club correctly translate this motto as “only the best is good enough”, but Warminster, for some reason, have, (according to the club’s 2016/17 Fixture Card which I picked up), interpreted it as “In hindsight, it was alright”! Quite where they got that from, I have no idea, but if it was alright on the night, who’s arguing?

The Folly Lane clubhouse is modern, attractive, and built in the same light-coloured hamstone brick with chocolate brown window fittings as our current bungalow, so I felt quite at home hurrying inside and out of the raw wind. There’s a small bar, the Mother of all widescreens (showing the Scotland v Italy game), and a well-stocked trophy cabinet. Patio doors lead out onto a raised wooden decked veranda overlooking the length of the first team pitch, a superb viewing platform - or it would have been if it hadn’t been facing north and directly into the stream of prevailing snow flurries which were visibly cascading down the ravines off the Salisbury Plain on the opposite side of the town and winging their way across the valley. The Ostrich’s glasses quickly misted up with warm breath in the cold atmosphere, the bird’s ears were frostbitten despite wearing a hoodie , and the half-time cup of instant coffee was one of the most welcome beverages Ossie has ever imbibed.

Warminster are having a pretty good season, second in the table but some way from catching Corsham. Today’s visitors, Supermarine RFC, are pretty much relegation fodder. Supermarine are based in Swindon; they were, I assume, originally part of the social club affiliated to the Supermarine aircraft company (aka Vickers Armstrong). These days, of course, Swindon is synonymous with Honda.

All in all, it was a pretty even game, not without its humorous moments, as when an home attacking player collided with a defender 15 yards from the try-line; they both then staggered a further 10 yards before simultaneously falling flat on their backsides alongside each other, laughing. And when Supermarine managed to engineer a 4 to 1 overlap on the left wing – the ball was dutifully flung out to them, but the first three players all totally failed to intercept the pass. The loose ball bounced up wickedly in front of the fourth player – he managed to catch it, but it was so unexpected, he was far too startled to do anything constructive with it.

10-7 ahead at the interval, Warminster notched a try in the first minute of the second half, but in a failed attempt to intercept the try scorer, Supermarine’s full-back fell awkwardly and was left grounded, clutching his shoulder. The physios decided he shouldn’t be moved (possible neck injury), an ambulance was summoned, but as the player was half-on, half-off the pitch right in the corner of the goal area, the referee resumed play. They built a barricade of padded goal-post protectors around the prostrate player to act as a wind-break, and the ambulance duly turned up around 20 minutes later; two medic plus a third in a fluorescent jacket who filmed the entire operation using shoulder-mounted camera equipment. Presumably for training purposes, but all rather surreal. Anyway, no major injury to the player; they got him upright and walked him off, the camera-person trailing behind.

I was relieved when the game finally ended – the wind had picked up, the snow flurries were gusting, and I was completely perished. Three hours on, back home and I’m still shivering. I sincerely hope Shell was warmer at Villa Park!

Dorset & Wilts 1 North (Level 8): Warminster RFC 24 Supermarine RFC 12
No admission, no programme, orange J2O £1.80, 2 x soft buns from behind the bar (ham & tomato, cheese & onion) £4 towards the rugby club’s Easter Tour, coffee from the club’s kitchen £1, attendance 35.

[cromwell]

Blimey Os, I have you have thawed out by now! That sounds a nice clubhouse, pity about the Ice Station Zebra conditions outside!
Reading these posts does bring back memories of my son playing schoolboy football - especially the memories involving freezing feet / ears and using a cup of tea as much to warm your hands as to drink!

[Ally]

Brrr!

Same here Cromwell... Conor used to play football on Sundays and during the winter months I'd have a bath ready for him to jump into and thaw out.

[Kaz]

I've heard of frozen turkey and chicken, but frozen Ostrich is very exotic!

[miasmum]

I was Ossie, cold but certainly warmer than you.

[TheOstrich]

18/02 – last weekend’s icy blasts were replaced by altogether more clement weather this week, enabling Mrs O to venture out and indulge in some retail therapy. We have variously acquired amongst other things an ironing board, a step-ladder, and three terracotta pots for the garden . And with the weather still holding reasonably good today – sunny once the early mists had lifted – Ossie thought he’d forsake the car and make his first trip of the season by train.

Research has shown that there aren’t that many viable football venues accessible from Gillingham station, which is situated on the Salisbury to Exeter line, but one, by changing at Salisbury onto a Portsmouth Harbour train, is Romsey, a small Hampshire town about 7 miles north of Southampton. It’s famous for its Abbey, (which was founded in 907 and managed to survive the Reformation intact), and as the fictional town of “Kingsmarkham” – now here’s a question for you …. who can tell me which TV series was filmed here?

A reasonable journey down – only £9.75 with an Oldies Railcard – saw Ossie arrive in the town just after 1:00. The Portsmouth train was crowded, so I severely annoyed a fellow by asking him to remove his bag from the adjacent seat in order that the bird could perch. I must say, asking people to remove bags is one of the delights of attaining Senior Citizenship ; they can hardly refuse a haggard, elderly, down-at-heel Ostrich …

I didn’t see much of Romsey itself; a short walk south from the station (well, I think it was short, but I did at one point pass an allotment shed flying the Australian flag ) brings you to the Bypass Ground, which, as you might reasonably conjecture, it situated on the town centre’s bypass. Bing Maps’ aerial view shows the soccer pitch with the rugby ground literally next door, the latter sporting a huge clubhouse, and with Romsey RFC playing at home today as well as the soccer club, the Ostrich was hopeful he could spectate two games from one central location. On the ground, however, the reality was something very much different. What I thought was a massive and well-appointed rugby clubhouse turned out to be the council-owned Romsey Rapids Swimming Pool and Leisure Centre, and the rugby pitch had been concreted over for a car park! I did eventually track the rugby club down to the other side of the leisure centre, where they are playing on a new pitch – the Bing Map view was (as is often the case, I find) completely out of date.

So, just the soccer today, and a game that pitted a mid-table home side against opposition who have been getting some good results of late. During the previous week, the club had apparently carried out remedial work on the (badly-draining) pitch, drilling and aerating it, and laying some 20 tons of sand. They also said on their website that they had taken the opportunity to level it; well, if that pitch today was level, then I’m a bent banana! I’d hate to have seen it before the procedure …

A grey-cloaked gentleman settled down near to me in the stand. Why do all Referee’s Assessors dress like Darth Vader? We had a pleasant pre-game chat, and he told me they’re no longer called “Assessors”, they are now “Observers”, simply because FIFA wanted one terminology in use across the whole planet for these appointees, and there are a few obscure foreign languages out there, apparently, into which the word “Assessor” doesn’t translate! You live and learn.

My pre-match prediction of a goalless draw looked well on the cards at half-time, with Romsey Town’s main tactic being “hoof and hope”, while Alton Town looked far more of a threat down the wings, but simply had no finishers. A pretty run-of-the-mill game sparked into life in the second half when Alton’s Sanderson scored from close range after the home defence had gone missing, but Romsey equalised five minutes later when Muir forced the ball in at the other end. The game promptly petered out again, the draw being a fair result.

Much confusion at Salisbury station on the return journey – I had a 6 minute connection between trains, my service from Romsey ran 3 minutes late, and only just made the transition to the correct platform as the Exeter-bound train pulled in. What wasn’t clear was that only the first of the three 3-car diesel units in this train was going forward – the rear two were returning to the depot. I only tumbled to this at the last moment and made the correct set of carriages – I do wonder if a number of other passengers may simply not have realised and finished up in the wrong section …..

Wessex League Division 1 (Step 6): Romsey Town 1 Alton Town 1
Admission £2, free programme (although it all got a bit confusing; I think the programme may only have been free if you bought a raffle ticket for a hamper of sausages, which I didn’t), apple & mango J2O in the rugby clubhouse £2, industrial-sized chicken cuppa-soup and slightly undercooked cone of chips (after a lengthy wait) from the hatch in the soccer ground £2.50, attendance 84.

[Ally]

Oh great read Ossie!

Love the transport tales - as a nerdy Norma who loves travelling (except by driving cos that doesn't count!) I'm hooked.

Oh...and I'd have bought a raffle ticket. Living here sausages are no-no!

[cromwell]

Great read Os! An ironing board for the garden, though?

Inspector Wexford?

[TheOstrich]

<applause> Spot on, Crommers - the Ruth Rendell Inspector Wexford Mysteries, starring George Baker.

[TheOstrich]

25/02 – There's one or two midweek night games coming up in the next few weeks, as teams catch up on postponements and County Cup games. First up this last Tuesday was a Western League Premier match in which Gillingham Town defeated Cadbury Heath (from Bristol) 2-0 in fortuitous fashion with a scrambled goal after 76m and a clincher on 88m, after the visitors had certainly looked the better side in the first half. A Cadbury Heath defender was dismissed in stoppage time for a tackle borne out of frustration , and one could be sympathetic to his point of view!

As for today, Mrs O threw a slight spanner in the works by arranging a pedicure treatment in town at 1:00, so Ossie gallantly volunteered to stay local and drive her to and from the appointment; however, Mrs O was insistent she’d walk if it wasn’t raining, and as it turned out, the post-Storm Doris weather was miserable but fundamentally dry in the morning, so the bird was duly let off the leash.

The original plan had been a visit to Ringwood, but a last minute perusal of the fixtures in the Non-League Football sports paper threw up a game involving a “must-see” team this season which had been quietly slipped in beneath my radar. Hayes & Yeading United, already looking like relegation candidates from the Southern Premier League, had been due to host Weymouth today, but the clubs had made a late decision to reverse the fixture and play it at Weymouth. There was a rationale behind this decision, involving ground-sharing, fog, and mid-week cup games, but it would take about three paragraphs to explain so I won’t bore you with it . Hayes & Yeading were the team on my hit-list, and I only realised around 10:45 that they were visiting Dorset for an early 2:00 kick-off – furthermore, their Reserves were also playing on the same pitch with a 5:30 start, after the first team game had concluded, enabling the Ostrich to attend two games for the price of one, a sort of football BOGOF. Ossie was off and running by 11:00!

The Bob Lucas Stadium, at the back of the Granby Industrial Estate, was not quite what I anticipated. I knew that it had been built about 1987, and I had believed it to be a rather spartan ground with few facilities, but when I arrived, I was pleasantly surprised. The main stand down one side was imposing, and views from the seats impressive (both of the pitch and the nearby electricity sub-station! ). Each of the other three sides provided covered standing, and there was a club shop and a sit-down café, although both were closed up today. Weymouth were founded in 1890 and are nicknamed “The Terras”. I had thought this might relate to the terrapins in the Weymouth Sea Life Aquarium, or a reference to the terra-ble standard of their football , but apparently it’s after their terracotta strip (well, sort of, actually they play in claret and blue like Aston Villa). In recent years, Weymouth have been in company administration, and very nearly went into liquidation with heavy debts, but appear to be on a firmer financial footing these days. Certainly the ground has lacked a bit of TLC of late, as there were noticeably holes in the corrugated roof of the stand, and rust on the metal stairs leading up to it.

The first team are firmly mid-table with neither promotion nor relegation in their sights. The visitors however needed to pick up league points, and they certainly played more positively. Weymouth’s twin strikers looked jaded (I shall have to be careful what I say to Julie in the Co-op when I pick up this weeks’ footie papers tomorrow, as she’s the mother of one of them … ). Hayes & Yeading were humming along quite nicely, when they weren’t whinging. By the half hour mark, the Weymouth players were cross with each other, the crowd were cross with the Weymouth players, and everyone was cross with the referee . Nevertheless, Hayes were 0-1 up at the interval and scored a deserved second shortly after the restart. But Weymouth clawed their way back into it with a goal from one of their full-backs on 56m, and a tapped-in equaliser on 73m with the visitors defence in horrible disarray.

Not perhaps the most entertaining of games. Soccer at Step 3 rarely is, in my experience. Too much play-acting from Hayes & Yeading, and a rather pedantic referee didn’t help.

After the game, Ossie repaired to the bar to watch the conclusion of the Ireland v France rugby international and the full-time soccer results programme before wandering down to the club office where I was sold a programme (and charged admission!) for the reserves game.

This started at a fair old lick and Weymouth Reserves had the ball in the back of the net inside 2 minutes, added a second on 9m, then missed numerous chances as did Folland Sports at the other end. 2-0 at half-time, Weymouth came out and notched their third within 17 seconds by my timing! A minute later, their 18 stone midfielder Ayley gallumped into the Folland penalty area and gracefully keeled over under a not very hard challenge – penalty! But Jevons’s spot-kick was well-saved.

Weymouth added four further goals through clinical finishing, but Folland played their part in the entertainment by hitting the crossbar twice from long-range.

Thoroughly enjoyable match; no histrionics, no cheating, no arguing with the referee, just getting on and playing the game. A drive home through incessant rain, and back in the house by 8:45!

Southern League Premier (Step 3): Weymouth 2 Hayes & Yeading United 2
Admission £8, parking £2, raffle £1, reasonable 40pp programme £2, chips and cuppasoup overpriced at £4.50, coffee £1.20, attendance 451
Wessex League Division 1 (Step 6): Weymouth Reserves 6 Folland Sports 1
Admission £3, informative 16pp programme 50p, Mars Bar from the bar 70p, attendance 52.