The Chronicles of Ostrick ....

[cruiser2]

You should get a job on one of the daily papers as a sports reporter. Would be as good as some of the match reports I sometime read.
I can imagine you commenting on the food and wine in the Directors box or Hospitality suites!!

[TheOstrich]

I can imagine you commenting on the food and wine in the Directors box or Hospitality suites!!

LOL, Cruiser, that reminds me .... the only time I can recall being in a soccer Hospitality Suite was many, many years ago (mid 1970's) when a colleague and myself set sail from Birmingham by car for an evening game at Matlock, I think. When we got there, we found it wasn't happening, so Plan B was Derby County Reserves and we arrived at half-time to find the usual entrances closed. This was the old ground, the Baseball Ground, not the current Pride Park. Undaunted, we wandered through an unmanned main clubhouse door and started off down corridors, trying to find an outlet to the pitch. Several corridors and turnings later, we approached a door with a "heavy" stationed outside it, who stared at us but let us pass unchallenged. We found ourselves in the Directors Suite! And even better, confronted by a groaning table of finger food. My mate Dave, who was an even greater gannet than I am, immediately headed towards it.

Glancing around, he said "that's Johnny Kaye over there, the Hull City manager" (Kaye was a former West Brom player; Dave was primarily a West Brom fan.)

"Well," I said "ummm, don't want to alarm you, but Brian Clough's standing right behind you ....."

Discretion being the better part of valour, we beat a very hasty retreat. But not before Dave had stuffed his pockets full of chicken nuggets .....

[Kaz]

Cruiser is right though

[TheOstrich]

01/04 – A lovely, sunny day, birdies a-tweeting, no traffic jams, very welcoming club, referee spot on with all his decisions, players the model of civility, hatch food gourmet standard …. this post hopefully is now fully compliant with Clause 5 of the published Corsham Town FC Social Media Policy which states: “If a blogger or any other online participant posts an inaccurate, accessory [sic] or negative comment about the club or anyone associated with the club, do not respond to the post and contact the club or the FA for guidance/advice.” Actually, there’s a notice with similar sentiments in the Gillingham Town programme, apparently backed by the League, with a hint that there have been a number of “serious charges” in the last six months, so a warning shot to all and sundry is perhaps understandable. So I will, as always, try to be nice, no matter how dire the game, or even if one of the linesmen is a tiddlepum . Nevertheless, we have here another example of the all-pervading political correctness rampant in this day and age, and one of the reasons why I no longer bother to post match summaries on mainstream Non-League ground hopper forums.

That said, it was indeed a lovely, sunny day and I managed to avoid the showers that caught out Mrs O after I dropped her off to go claim her free glass or Prosecco at the opening of a new soft furnishing store in town. And a stress-free journey to north Wiltshire with no traffic jams (apart from Melksham, which is par for the course) and, for once, a circumnavigation of the mythical Trowbridge avoiding road, south to north without getting lost. The key to the latter is to remember to turn right at The Rising Sun pub. The Ostrich always prides himself that he can look at an online route map just once and then drive direct to any new chosen ground without hesitation (not counting, of course, going twice round certain roundabouts because he’s temporarily forgotten which exit road he wants ) and indeed, he did so today, finally sighting the floodlights in Lacock Road and swinging into the car park – only for our bemused bird to find he’d arrived at the rugby club by mistake! The soccer club was a bit further on down the road.

I found out that Corsham RFC were also at home today in a table-topping clash, but although the two pitches were only separated by a hawthorn hedge which was still rather bare of leaves, it proved impracticable to watch both the rugby and the soccer games simultaneously. If the rugby had kicked off early, I might have attended a half-hour or so of that game before the football, but now the clocks have gone forward, they started at 3:00, the same time as the soccer. So that ruled that out.

Corsham FC have a railed pitch, a 112-seater stand, and floodlight pylons painted green by command of the Methuan Estate, from whom they lease their ground. A minor scare before the game, as the match officials were somewhat late in arriving – it transpired the referee had had a flat tyre – but we got underway on time. Corsham Town are in the relegation zone, having sustained a certain amount of turmoil in recent weeks; a manager was sacked and then reinstated from what I could gather, but in the meantime some players had taken the opportunity to depart. Although I had been told earlier in the season that it was unlikely there would be any demotion from this league, apparently there’s a Bristol-based club at a lower level who could meet the ground grading and obtain promotion, so the battle to avoid the drop is back on! ** Their opponents, Bishops Lydeard, from the Taunton area, are in their first season at this level, and have done quite nicely, thank you, currently 7th in the table.

Corsham got off to a cracking start, and quickly cashed in on ghastly confusion in the Lydeard defence, Brown finding the net on 5m. But a free header from a corner, followed by a 25 yard rocket that caught the home keeper flat-footed put Lydeard 1-2 up and they added a close-range third on the hour mark. Corsham pulled a goal back immediately after half-time, but looked to be on the losing side until Tripp equalised, taking advantage of slack defending again, in the 89th minute. Absolutely fair result on the day, and an entertaining game to watch.

Western League Division 1 (Step 6): Corsham Town 3 Bishops Lydeard 3
Admission £3, excellent value 40pp programme £1, instant coffee at the rugby club £1, 2 x cheese and onion baps at the soccer ground’s food hatch 60p each, and tray of chips £1.30. Spent 5 minutes shaking and squeezing the mayo bottle before finally deducing it hadn’t previously been opened and the foil seal was still intact . Official attendance given as 71.

** Or not. Apparently, it has been announced this evening that Gillingham Town, my local club, are resigning from the Western League. Although it's April 1st today, this announcement doesn't actually read like it's a spoof. The club are in the process of relocating to a new ground about 1/4 mile away from the existing one, building it from scratch, and progress has been slow. They are now saying they want to revert to the more local Dorset Premier League so they can concentrate on the ground development. To me, if this is for real, it's a most peculiar decision, and I hope to find out more next Tuesday evening .....

[Ally]

Cheese 'n' onions baps. (Presuming that's a roll/bun?)

Honestly Ossie...I so look forward to your posts.

[Kaz]

Yes, a bap is a soft bread roll Ally I love cheese and onion

Blimey Ossie, their social media policy is a bit Big Brother

[TheOstrich]

Thanks, Ally

Yes, Kaz, and I quote Clause 4:

"Any club website, blog, chat-room, video-sharing site, bulletin board or other social media that promotes this club must remember that they are responsible for reviewing responses to online posts and resolving any concerns about the propriety of the responses before they are posted" [my italics].

Who'd want to be responsible for a football club website, eh?

[Kaz]

[cromwell]

Sounds like a good match Ossie. Good cheap food too; what more can you ask for?

[TheOstrich]

08/04 – we’re now into what is known in ground-hopping circles as “the silly season” – that time, after the clocks go forward, when every minor club without floodlights is frantically playing as many matches mid-week as they can schedule, catching up on all those previously-postponed games from the winter months. Most Leagues want things wrapped up by the end of April, but I can already see some fixtures are being scheduled into May …

Two midweek games for the Ostrich, therefore, firstly a rather nondescript 1-1 draw between Gillingham Town and Shepton Mallet in the Western League on Tuesday night, then an altogether more pulsating affair on Wednesday when Wincanton Town Reserves drew 4-4 with Shaftesbury Town Reserves in the Dorset Football League Senior Division, the game featuring four second-half goals in an eight minute spell. This latter game was advertised as a 6:30 kick-off; I assumed that the Winkies had chosen to make good use of the lengthening evening light and not fire up the Incredibly Noisy Scary Generator which powers their floodlights (I hate walking past it as it always seems to be on the verge of a cataclysmic explosion), but when I arrived, I found they’d decided to move the start to 7:30 and use said floodlights nevertheless. This meant I had over an hour to kill before the start; the Wincanton Sports Centre bar was firmly closed, and all I could do for entertainment was wrestle with a vending machine in the foyer for a tub of raisins and peanuts (50p). Cheap evening, however!

So to today, a glorious day as others have remarked on the Saturday thread; a heat haze visible from the top of Cranborne Chase and the fields of what I originally thought were spring greens maturing either side of the road have now flowered yellow and will presumably be a rapeseed crop. No road-runners or cyclists to contend with, but I did have to swerve madly once to avoid a wayward pheasant! Parked up in the Mick Loader Recreation Ground and wandered back down into Cranborne village; there’s a post office and general stores where I bought Easter cards and resisted the temptation of a large bag of peanut butter coated Kit-Kat chunks . Opposite is a rather posh-looking restaurant and next door the rather more homely “Sheaf of Arrows”, where Mrs O and I had a nice, if basic, lunch a couple of months back. The church was quiet (well, except for the cleaning team hovering ) and the tombs went back to at least 1652.

The Ostrich was rather startled to see the Cranborne club crest apparently featuring a football being booted by an ostrich ! On closer examination, this turned out to be a crane (the team are nicknamed “The Cranes”) and to complete a trio of long-legged birds, the road into a small close of housing just behind the ground was called Friday’s Heron. That left me musing. What possibly could Friday’s Heron have done to be awarded such an accolade as having a street named after it? How did Tuesday’s Heron feel about being snubbed – was it cheesed off, narked, writing letters of complaint to the local council and the RSPB??

Sitting outside the clubhouse on a patio bench, I was warmly greeted by a bright, power-suited, pony-tailed 20-something who then promptly marched into the changing rooms. Ah yes, Linda Lindskog, today’s referee; I’ve seen her in action before and she’s very competent. In the bar, I learnt that Cranborne FC, who only amassed 3 league points last season but have reached the dizzy heights of 7 league points this season, will definitely be taking relegation this year (they were reprieved last year). It seems they have a reasonable bunch of players, but there’s something a bit lacking in overall commitment and they have anything but a settled team. Their opponents, Dorchester Sports, were comfortably positioned 7th in the table.

After a torrid first 9 minutes, culminating in a Dorchester striker shooting straight at the home keeper and the resulting rebound then cannoning off a defender, I wrote in my notes “it’s only a matter of time ….” before Dorchester score. Cranborne immediately went down the other end and netted! The linesman and I concurred the cross had been flicked on past the Dorchester keeper, but we weren’t sure if it was a Cranborne player or a Dorchester defender who got the final touch. Five minutes later, and Cranborne went 2-0 up! A long ball down the middle, the Dorchester defenders and goalie left it to each other to deal with, a Cranborne player nipped round the side and gathered the ball completely unchallenged, and after a moment’s dithering, stuck it in the net.

Could this be only Cranborne’s third win of the season? Well, no. Dorchester Sports then scored 11 goals without reply ….. it was 2-4 at half-time and by midway through the second half, the home team had simply given up. Dorchester Sports kept it simple, and at the end of the day, it was a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, as the saying goes.

A tricky return journey, the road to Shaftesbury having been closed by the police just before Tollard Royal, necessitating a seven-mile un-signposted “diversion”, exploring parts of Dorset I didn’t know existed – indeed, parts of Dorset that I don’t think even Dorset knows existed! Straggly unsheared sheep, single-track roads with passing places, deep woodland valleys, and flocks of pheasants that apparently had never even heard an internal combustion engine before (and helpfully stood in the road to observe the strange phenomenon). I eventually emerged from the countryside closer to Blandford than Shaftesbury, but once I’d got myself re-orientated, a straightforward drive home.

Dorset Premier League (Step 7): Cranborne 2 Dorchester Sports 11
No admission or programme, J2O and packet of Pombears * £2.50 from the clubhouse, attendance 30.

* Cheese and onion flavoured potato snacks, Ally, bit like Quavers!