Four Weddings and a Penalty Shootout

[JanB]

You write so well Ossie, we were there with it, albeit a day or so late.

Could you not send Mrs O with your sister? Or some-one else? You can then stay at home and scoff pasties

And tank you for sharing - bejinhos

[Ally]

Ossie, a brilliant acoount of the wedding, it sounded so different and really good fun. I'm another London lover and have been on the London Eye, thought it was great!

[Ally]

You write so well Ossie, we were there with it, albeit a day or so late.

Could you not send Mrs O with your sister? Or some-one else? You can then stay at home and scoff pasties

And tank you for sharing - bejinhos

I'm not sure if you meant this Jan....but reading 'tank' you and then (what reads like bejaysus) reminds me so much of how Don's lovely mum talks.

[TheOstrich]

30/09 – after last weekend’s excitement, back to soccer for Ossie, and today a trip to a ground which I last visited in 1982! I didn’t recognise it; there wasn’t a 2,500 seater cantilever stand behind one of the goals back in those days ….

The Laithwaite Community Stadium is about a 20 minute stroll from Woking railway station, up Station Approach and Constitution Hill, passing the Surrey Coroners Court and Police Station, and then left through the attractive but decidedly autumnal Woking Park, alongside the swimming pool complex and car parks (where I would have bought a Mr Whippy but the ice cream van was unattended ), and the ground is directly in front of you as you exit the main drive. The turnstiles nominally give you admission to all areas of the ground (although today’s game was “segregated” with a separate area of the ground and turnstile block in use for away fans), and there’s a programme shop, a club merchandise shop and a burger stall to pass before you reach the pitch. Access to the older stands down the near-side touchline can be either a long sweep round the back of the clubhouse and bar area, or via an Egyptian Souk style maze of small alleyways threading past various portacabins and toilets; all this because the gated disabled viewing facility stops you from simply walking down the side of the pitch. The old stand Ossie perched in just had bucket seats on wooden plinths with no backrests. Adequate, but a shade cramped.

Woking started out as one of a bevy of clubs vying for top spot (just 2 points separated the top 8 teams) whilst Hartlepool are finding their feet in the league after relegation out of the Football League last year and a somewhat disastrous start to this season. What ensued was an excellent game, and a real advert for Non-League football. Plenty of goalmouth action and some genuinely skilful players out there on the pitch. The Pool looked marginally the stronger side in the first half, and took the lead on 26m when Donaldson got on the end of a flick across goal from a left-wing throw-in and headed in from close range. Woking, however, equalised on the stroke of half-time when Philpot did well to twist and turn in the 6 yard box and under some pressure find the net.

Chances continued for both sides in the second half, but Woking were now in the ascendancy and pushing Hartlepool back. The game built up to a crescendo, and deep in added time, around 2,000 home supporters – and 1 Ostrich - rose to their feet to hail the winner as substitute Effiong unleased a magnificent 20 yard volley that away keeper Loach could only watch sail past him – but then clutched their respective heads and shouted “Arrrgghhhhh!!” as the ball cannoned back off the crossbar!! A fitting end to a very entertaining game which neither side deserved to lose.

Nearly bought a coconut for 99p whilst returning to the station , but none of the ones on display had any milk in them when I shook them, so gave it as miss and settled for a Kitkat and litre of semi-skimmed milk from an M&S Food Store instead. Seamless journey to and from Woking on South Western Railways, although return to Gillingham, supposedly for 19:15, was slightly delayed as we had to wait in the loop at Tisbury for 5 minutes to allow a late-running up train through – one of the hazards of having a single track only, once you get past Salisbury ….

Vanarama National League (Step 1): Woking 1 Hartlepool United 1
Admission £13 (oldie concession), programme £3 (48pp uber-glossy, not a bad read, big article on Sir Bobby Robson), refreshments - bacon roll £3.50 (offered a choice of crispy or ordinary, so chose the former ), coffee £2, tray of chips £2.50, attendance 2,490 with 288 away fans (if I heard the announcement right).

[JoM]

£13 is quite steep isn't it - Manchester City were only charging £20 for adults for their Champions League game last week!

I once met Sir Bobby Robson. I was in Newcastle for a concert with a friend and just as we were getting out of the car on the car park he came along to get into the car parked next to us. Really lovely man, my friend didn't have a clue who he was though.

[Kaz]

Ossie, how on earth would you have eaten a coconut on the train? Kitkats are much easier to manage, with a cuppa Another great read

Jo, I wouldn't have either

[cromwell]

By gum, Haute Cusine is coming to non-league football all right!

A choice of crispy or ordinary bacon, indeed!

I'm glad Hartlepool didn't lose. My mate Pete is from there and I have a soft spot for the team. Plus it's a long drive back to H pool if you've lost!
Great read Os.

[TheOstrich]

£13 is about par for the course in the National League these days, Jo - I used to pay £11 for a seat at Kidderminster in the same league a couple of seasons ago. I think Yeovil Town in League 2 currently charge £20-£22 for a seat at oldie concession rates, so Manchester City's £20 admission charge for Champions League was quite a bargain.

Haute cuisine indeed, Cromwell - and haute cuisine prices, to be honest. I very nearly didn't indulge; £2 for a cup of coffee is ridiculous . It wasn't even a fancy brew.

I was going to take the coconut home, Kaz. In my experience, you can often use a stick of dynamite on one and still fail to crack it!

As for a long drive back to Hartlepool, I walked into the ground with a couple of blue and white scarved Pool fans. "Long journey, guys?" I said, chattily. "Not really" was the gruff reply from one, leaving me a bit nonplussed. But the other guy then explained. "We're from Southampton" he said

[TheOstrich]

07/10 – a rugby union double for the Ostrich this weekend! Firstly, When I used to work in Dorset, we always had a saying: “Tell ‘em Tuesday, but don’t tell ‘em which” The same seems to apply to Friday night rugby kick off times in the county; it wasn’t until midday that I managed to ascertain via the North Dorset RUFC twitter feed that it was 19:45. So, an evening excursion to Yeovil! The A303 can still be a bit of a pig even outside the holiday season, and west-bound traffic was slow around Sparkford but thankfully not stationery. Yeovil RUFC’s ground is situated south of the conurbation just off the A37 Dorchester Road; you need to look for a roundabout with a pub or restaurant called the Red House, and the ground’s entrance is signposted from there. There’s a large carpark as befits a club out in the sticks, and a long, low, white-painted clubhouse that turns out to be rather spartan and functional. There are 4 pitches, the main pitch and one training pitch floodlit, and overlooking the complex is one of the four Barwick Park follies, the Cone, which is 75 feet high and resembles a wizard’s hat with a knob on the end. These are 19th century in origin, and thus predate Terry Pratchett famous Discworld creation!
https://en.wikipedia.org/...ile:Barwick_Cone.jpg

Yeovil RFC are a club with a bit of an identity crisis. They may or may not be the Ivel Barbarians. As far as I could glean from the Honours Boards, Yeovil RFC merged with Westlands RFC to form Ivel Barbarians RFC in 1995, and nothing seems to have changed since. Nowadays, though, they ply their trade as Yeovil again, but there’s still plenty of Ivel Barbarians references – the entrance to the ground, the scoreboard (not in use tonight), and the team carry “Barbarians” on the back of their shirts.

This Friday night game pitted Yeovil against my local team, North Dorset, whom I saw a few times last season, and frankly looked a little lightweight. They seem to have improved somewhat this season; still a nippy side but the scrummaging was impressive, with Yeovil often very much on the back foot. After a fairly dour first 15 minutes, the home side opened the scoring after pressure on the right, and were 12-3 in front on 27m when there was possibly the moment that changed the game – a Yeovil player was clean through with the line in front of him, but tweaked a hamstring and collapsed allowing North Dorset to regroup and clear. After that, the momentum changed and North Dorset led 12-13 at the break thanks to a push-over try (33m) and a surging run through three defenders (37m). On 34m, one of the bank of four LED floodlights on the clubhouse side failed, and couldn’t be resuscitated despite attention; luckily, it was one of the two inside pylons rather than a corner one, so there was still sufficient light to continue; well, just about ....

After the interval (only 4 minutes), North Dorset let rip with some spectacular running, including a 60 yard punt return down the right touchline. Yeovil gamely tried to get back into the match, but couldn’t really compete defensively. Final result 20-49 and entertaining fayre on the night.

To Saturday, then, and an early morning flu jab and pulse check and indifferent weather forecast suggested a trip not too far from home by car rather than train, so I opted to visit the newly-christened “Commsplus Stadium at Hyde Park” for Ossie’s first sighting of the Taunton Titans. There’s quite a big carpark – pay at the entrance gate – but it was full by around 2:00, however there is overflow parking in a field on the opposite side of the road. Entering the clubhouse through the “Welcome” doors will only get you into an empty reception area for the conference suite, although upstairs are toilets and a private room where a club lunch was being held. If you walk past the club shop (which is advertised as selling programmes, but doesn’t) and the kiosk with the rather stilted “blazer” (who was selling programmes and raffle tickets), and continue past the 200 seater stand to the far end of the clubhouse, you’ll find a smallish bar and coffee corner (where only one harassed girl was serving on the Costa machine, and I gave up queueing for a drink as a bad job during halftime ) and a red tent with a barbecue providing the only food – again, just one guy serving and with everything being prepared to order apart from a plain burger, I opted for the plain burger ……

On the far side of the floodlit main pitch are the dugouts and the Les Phippin Memorial Stand, basically a small non-descript Atcost style steel construction, containing just a single ancient office chair, worn down to the foam stuffing . There’s an excellent tannoy system, but an over-exuberant and over-loud announcer, who unfortunately failed to announce half the Worthing squad names. Still, I shall forgive him, he played my favourite Olly Murs track before the start.

Taunton went into this game with a perfect record of 25 league points in 5 starts, and this was never in danger. They scored two tries in the first 7 minutes before Worthing woke up, and clinched the fourth try bonus point on 20m to make the score 24-7. After that, it was just a question of how many, and it would have been more if kicker Gary Kingdom, whose praises for reliability with the boot were heartily sung in the programme, hadn’t had a distinctly average day at the office, missing 5 moderate conversion attempts. Taunton were tenacious in attack and held possession for long periods. Pick of the forwards was flanker Ratu Vakalutukali (or “Toots” as he was listed in the player line-up in the programme ) who notched a hat-trick of tries. Referee Adam Wookey sensibly allowed play to flow, although another referee might have had an issue with the constant 10 yard encroachment during set plays, noticeably by Taunton. He gave a 76m penalty try and sin-binned Worthing’s Whittall following an incident in a Taunton drive about 10 yards from the away try line, which might have been for hacking the ball out of player’s hands, but it was a somewhat unclear exactly what had happened.

Enjoyable high-scoring romp and if Taunton can keep up the sort of tempo they displayed today, they’d be a good bet for promotion this season.

National 2 South (Level 4): Taunton Titans RUFC 81 Worthing Raiders RUFC 17
Admission £8 (oldie concession), programme £2 (surprisingly poor quality for a big club), burger £2.50, attendance around 400 at a guess.

[Ally]

Olly Murs fan??!!

Accept all accolades our Ossie!

Second match...no drink?

As you know my dear Mr Ossie. I have been a fan of your postings since the beginning. You describe so well the grounds, food, drinks (or lack of ) programmes, etc.

Have you ever considered writing a blog to let other fans know what to expect (or not!) at the grounds that you've been to?

You're a succinct and witty writer and I always look forward to reading your reports.

As a mod on VV I'd like to just say your musings are a wonderfully warm and delightful welcome on here.

Ally xx