The Chronicles of Ostrick ....

[Kaz]

Ossie the thing about the IOW cup and the insurance is hilarious, I can imagine them playing as badly as possible just in case they win!

[cromwell]

I just feel a bit sorry for East Cowes! Poor goalie. That food sounds a bargain though Os; back in the day most foods sold at or near footie grounds used to be pretty nearly inedible!

[TheOstrich]

Only 29 at the game? Do they print a load of programmes that then don't get sold? I wonder what happens to them.
.

2:25 p.m. Downton FC. ..... Club secretary exits bar to find the Ostrich nonchalantly propping up the unoccupied pay hut.
"You waiting to pay?"
"Yep"
"That's very noble of you, most people just walk in!"
"Ah, but I'm a groundhopper - and I want a programme! "

Clubs down to Step 5 (and possibly Step 6, I'm not sure) in non-league football have to produce a programme, it's a league requirement. This gets policed more rigorously by some leagues than others; clubs playing at Steps 3 and 4 in leagues sponsored by Evo-Stik have to submit a copy of every programme they issue to their League so that they can check it contains the requisite 4 pages of Evo-Stik and other prime sponsors' product-related adverts, which is only fair if you think about it, because Evo-Stik have put their money into the leagues. (There was one season when it all got a bit barmy and Evo-Stik, who own Calor Gas, insisted that an advert was read out over the tannoy at each game giving details as to where the nearest Calor Gas stockist was * ; and Chasetown FC had a gigantic tube of glue mounted on top of one of their portakabins! )

When you get down to Steps 5 and 6, programme production can be a bit irksome for the club. They'll only make money on it if they've managed to attract a sufficient amount of advertising, and many find this difficult. Downton's attendance was pretty low, yesterday, they usually get around the 40 mark. I reckon from what I saw, they produced around 15-20 programmes, and might have sold half if they're lucky. But having seen the Christchurch FC programme the previous week, it was pretty obvious someone's compiling both clubs' programmes to the same format, and this form of "syndication" is getting more prevalent. Economies of scale and all that .... Some clubs are now publishing their programmes on the web only, so you download and print your own.

You never know what you're going to find when you visit a new club. Some programmes are slick, glossy, (and in some cases well overpriced) publications; others are home-produced on someone's computer and stapled together (or not ) at the last minute. These home efforts can be very rudimentary or real labours of love. Some are quite quirky, not least when the programme editor is a relation of Victor Meldrew who's had three too many in the clubhouse bar before putting pen to paper, or when absolutely no attention has been paid to page numbering and the article you started reading on page 22 concludes on page 19.

My favourite programme is the one I have for Continental Star vs Gornal Athletic, played in August 2013. Continental Star, an ethnic community club groundsharing with Rushall Olympic, were playing at Step 5 and had to produce programmes on pain of a fine. But they were notorious for not doing so. Usual palaver at the gate: "the secretary's off sick / they're on their way / the printer's been on holiday / they'll be here by half-time ..." etc. etc. At half time, the groundhoppers present took them to task, and we all left our names and addresses (and a large amount of silver and gold coinage) with the admonition we'd look forward to receiving these mythical programmes in the post. And much to my amazement, about a week later, one arrived! It had obviously been produced on a computer at some haste, and sometime after the match, with much downloading from the internet - because it is the only programme I have that actually has the result of the match it was supposed to be for (2-4) printed in the results table!!

Unsold programmes either go to programme fairs (there's a lot of collectors out there) or lie around in dusty corners of the club office for ever. I recall going to a pre-season friendly game at Long Buckby (no programme produced) and asking if I could buy an example from the previous season as a souvenir. I was given a pack of around dozen programmes that averaged around 10 years old! And at Blandford this season, glancing casually around the tea room, I espied a single forlorn programme on a shelf and thought that's interesting, I didn't know they issued them. On investigation, I found it dated from the 1996/97 season!

A final comment - most rugby clubs have got it sussed. Your average programme is 48 pages, 4 of which give the club details / officials / history, 4 of which are a match specific insert - welcome / teams / league fixtures and table - and the remaining 40 pages are all glossy advertising. And it's invariably handed out for free!


* At Daventry FC, they announced it was in Northampton. See, I've remembered that; the power of advertising!

[Ally]

[JoM]

Ossie that's really interesting about the programmes - didn't know about Chasetown's tube of glue Hope they stuck it down well because something like that wouldn't be there for long around here

I stopped regularly buying programmes a long time ago. I used to get them up until the mid 90s. Joe's got them all, along with the old fanzines which I prefer. We usually buy one for his collection if we're at a testimonial or whatever but normally we stick to a fanzine bought outside.

Someone my sister knows, an antique dealer, sent me a programme a few years ago. A Utd one from the 60s. Not sure if it's worth anything but he also included an autograph (personalised to me) from Tommy Docherty from when he'd recently met him at a sportsman's dinner. Never met the man (sister's friend Jim or the Doc for that matter) but I thought it was a really lovely gesture.

[TheOstrich]

Jo, I don't think there's much money in old football programmes unless you go back pre-war. Or unless your United one is in mint condition (unmarked) and a real rarity.

A cautionary tale ..... Two seasons' back, I went to Southam United (it's near Rugby) to see AFC Hinckley, the supporters-run phoenix club which emerged from the demise of the old Hinckley United. It was AFC Hinckley's first ever competitive match, loads of fans of the new club had travelled down, and the place was positively humming. The £1 programmes (they'd printed around 70 from memory) had all been snapped up by the travelling hordes as souvenirs long before I arrived, an hour before kick-off. However, fortuitously, wandering around the clubhouse, I found a forlorn complimentary copy laid out on a table, which, after clearance from the bar staff, was quickly appropriated!

Now clubs at lower levels without tannoy systems, (or with tannoy systems that happy mimic Donald Duck ), often hang up a white-board with the teams displayed on them. Cue scrimmage around the white-board whilst the groundhoppers climb over each others shoulders trying to note the teams down. I'd got the programme open at the squads and was happily recording shirt-numbers against names.

A hiss from behind:
"Don't do that!"
"Why ever not?"
"That programme was worth £8 until you defaced it - now it's only worth £2 ...."

So there you go - mint means mint!

Ah, the Doc! Definitely hang onto that autograph .....

[TheOstrich]

18/03 – midweek on Tuesday evening, Gillingham Town at last managed to stage one of their current backlog of fixtures (all resulting from a badly draining pitch) and recorded a routine win in their Dorset Senior Cup Semi-Final over a lively Swanage Town side from two steps below them. Gillingham put out a full-strength squad; possibly a wise decision as their 3rd placed Dorset Premier League opponents created more than a few viable chances on the night. The final result was 5-0 which was possibly a bit flattering, but The Tangos (as Gillingham are apparently nicknamed ) took their chances.

As for today, the Master Spreadsheet called for a visit to National 2 South club Poole Town FC, not a place that the Ostrich was particularly looking forward to visiting . Poole Town are in rather a state of limbo at present – they currently play at Step 2, are well-placed for a play-off spot that could lead to promotion to Step 1 next season – but their ground is, shall we say, rather rudimentary, doesn’t meet the ground grading criteria at present, and they are under an active threat of an enforced relegation to Step 3 if they don’t carry out remedial works. They play in the grounds of a school, and for a club at such a high level, their car-parking facilities seem particularly sparse. Ossie does prefer to park on the premises rather than the street wherever he can (fond memories of the Aston Villa Junior Hooligans offering to “watch over your car, mister” while you are at a match, for a suitable pecuniary reward, of course. Or else dented bodywork, or possibly no tyres, when you return after the game) . So, whilst conducting the usual research into suitable back-up fixtures in the area, I did come up with a rather decent alternative, and didn’t need much persuading to change my venue for the afternoon.

The RFU (rugby union) has its equivalent of the FA Cup. Well, sort of . There are in fact three national trophies, the Intermediate Cup, the Senior Vase and the Junior Vase (entry based on the league levels at which the competing clubs are playing). Each of the four main divisions – South West, Midlands, North, and London & South East – run regional knock-out cup competitions, and the winning teams from each region go forward into the National semi-finals, the two winners then playing the grand final at Twickers . Level 7 teams play for the Intermediate Cup and today Swanage and Wareham RFC took on Truro RFC in the South West Divisional Final.

For the journey down to the coast, (Swanage & Wareham actually play on the outskirts of Wareham, not a million miles from the top end of Poole Harbour, and quite close to the extensive RSPB reserve at Arne), rather than travel the twisty and tortuous A350 from Shaftesbury to Blandford Forum, I experimented by taking the signposted back-road, recommended for lorries, over the top of the Fontmell and Stourpaine Downs. Once you’ve got through a long 20 mph stretch at Melbury Abbas and climbed up onto the top of the downs, you can bat along a reasonably straight road at a good 50 mph, with excellent views on your right down into the Blackmore Vale, and before you know it, you’re coming out on the Blandford by-pass. After that, it was back on the A-roads to Lychett Minster and Wareham, and most noticeable as I approached the sandy heathlands around Upton were the bright yellow flowers covering the gorse bushes which are so typical of that coastal area.

The Swans (their club badge, a stylised wildfowl of the same name, was actually designed by Sir Peter Scott) have quite a tidy if windswept ground, comprising three pitches tucked in between allotments and farmland. A pair of buzzards were soaring above the ground, circling and climbing, and black-headed gulls, (in their breeding plumage) were quartering the pitches looking for available take-away (or should that be fly-away ) food. The clubhouse sported a clocktower but was otherwise unobtrusive; inside mounted on the walls were a couple of fascinating displays of old international rugby programmes and match tickets, some dating from the 1950’s.

Prior to the main event, Swanage and Wareham Thirds took on Bournemouth Fourths in a friendly, which wasn’t a classic, and ended 17-5. Pick of the action was one of the Swans’ forwards, a bearded gentleman who, let us say, might give dieticians and GPs recurring nightmares , who gathered the ball in his own half and set off on a lumbering run. Unusually for him, I suspect, he found himself through the opposition lines , and with only one defender between him and the touchline 40 yards away. He bulldozed onwards, getting noticeably slower and slower, and with a total inability to side-step or change course ran headlong into the lone defender, whereupon our hero collapsed in a heap and had to be substituted for a 10 minute breather before being in a position to continue!

The Cup Match itself turned out to be pretty one-sided affair; the Swans unfortunately didn’t turn up on the day, as the saying goes. Their handling let them down badly and their play was a bit one dimensional. By the 25 minute mark, Truro were 3-14 in the lead, and the writing was on the wall. The killer blow came when their full-back ran in his fourth try just a minute into the second half to make the score 3-24; after that Truro happily coasted, adding four further tries, one of which involved an interception and unhindered gallop the length of the field. So Truro now go forward to play Charlton Park from South-East London in the National Semi-Finals, whilst the Swans will be able to concentrate on the League where they are still in with a chance of promotion to Level 6.

RFU Intermediate Cup South West Divisional Final (Step 7 clubs): Swanage & Wareham RFC 10 Truro RFC 46
Admission with programme £3, two bacon and egg baps (Ossie in greedy mode ) and a cup of coffee a bargain £4.80 from the food hatch in the bar, attendance a bumper 287.

[Ally]

Great read Ossie and yes, a bumper crowd this week!

[cromwell]

Great read Os. Gosh, that's a veritable horde of people!

[miasmum]

Ossie, you really ought to publish these, they are so entertaining