16/12 – An inauspicious week which started with Ossie finding his car aerial in the middle of the road outside the house, having been snapped off the car roof.
Vandalism, however, is extremely unlikely – what I am pretty sure happened is that I didn’t swing the manual up ‘n over garage door high enough before reversing out, and that errant door must have caught the aerial and done the damage. The local repair shop said they’d order and fit a replacement unit for me. Ah well, another nice little bill before Christmas …….
Then my credit card chip seemed to irretrievably give up the ghost (although it does still appear to work Contactless) so I’ll probably have to get a replacement sometime after the holiday break. And to cap it all, we had a strange Christmas card through the door from a neighbour, addressed to “Angela and Donald” - who we definitely are not!
After discussion with Mrs O, I decided to return it to our neighbour, an elderly widow, and explain we'd had the wrong card, in case she knew another couple by that name and had muddled up her cards, but it was an awkward conversation, because she definitely thought we were indeed Angela and Donald.
Where she’s got that from, I’ve no idea! It left me feeling I wish I hadn’t gone round to put things right – what would you have done?
To Saturday, then, and a strange noise emanating from the Nest! The Ostrich was carolling:
“Wooodelly, wooodelly, woo, woo,
Woo, woo, WOOOOO, woo woo ……”
Yes, the Bird was off to Midsomer, although there turned out to be no sign of Chief Inspector Barnaby or Sergeant Jones at the game, and certainly no Murders. The Somerset town of Midsomer Norton was indeed the inspiration for Midsomer Murders, as the original script-writer Anthony Horowitz wanted a quintessentially-English name for the series. The fictional villages of Midsomer Wellow and Midsomer Magna followed from nearby Wellow and Chew Magna, and Corston, near Bath, provided the inspiration for Midsomer Murder’s county town of Causton. None of the actual filming took place in the Midsomer Norton area, however; that’s mainly been done in Berkshire and Oxfordshire, and Wallingford is the town used for the filming of “Causton”.
This is the last Saturday before south-west rugby shuts down for a Christmas break until mid-January in some local leagues, and I’d originally planned a revisit to Sherborne RUFC with the intention of a “double” as both firsts and seconds teams were scheduled to be at home on adjacent pitches today, but by Friday night, the seconds game was in doubt, according to Twitter, owing to a shortage of available Wilts & Dorset Society referees, and in any event, it turned out Hampshire club New Milton couldn’t raise a team on the day, so a “HWO” (Home Walk Over) was duly declared on the morning – Sherborne seconds will gain 4 league points for a presumed win, and New Milton will be docked 5 points for failing to fulfil the fixture. I therefore looked elsewhere and decided on a trip to Norton Down, a ground I’ve intended to visit for some time.
Midsomer Norton RFC’s ground is about a mile south of the town on Silver Street, the B3355, and conveniently in the middle of nowhere, although the hourly 174 Bath – Wells bus service does pass the entrance. It’s a large, open, windswept campus with three pitches and a floodlit training area, fronted by a rutted car-park which apparently was once a lake but has now (thankfully
) been infilled. Ossie recommends you park behind the goal rather than in front on the clubhouse, because the bird parked near the latter, and found itself completely boxed in at the end of the game. There’s a fairly run-of-the-mill clubhouse with a small bar, hatch servery, and Leicester v Crystal Palace to stare at on the widescreen. The main pitch can get a bit waterlogged, according to locals I chatted to, and indeed there was some discussion about whether we would be on that or the No.2 pitch today; however, the game was played on the first team pitch, in front of the clubhouse, but even in the lee of that, there was no respite from the chill north-westerly breeze.
The club was founded in 1936, and played in Rackvernal Road, just off the High Street until the mid-1970’s when that ground, leased from the local council, was redeveloped as a multi-use sports centre, forcing the rugby club to move out of town. Old Richians RUFC, in contrast, was founded in 1950 and is the old boys club of Sir Thomas Rich's Grammar School, Gloucester. They have no other claim to fame, as far as I am aware, although I believe I am correct in saying one of their former players subsequently founded a well-known internet chat forum ……
The game pitted 6th v 5th in the table; Midsomer Norton had been relegated from Level 6 at the end of last season, and I gathered that they weren’t too sorry to return to a more local league, Level 6 clubs being largely semi-pro, which Midsomer are not, and they couldn’t compete.
Midsomer got off to a terrific start, scrum just inside the opposition half, huge push had the away side backpedalling, quick break and a chip into the left hand corner for their winger to run onto, field completely unchallenged, and touch down by the posts, after 1m 07 secs by my stopwatch. To make such a defensive error once was bad, but to repeat it was inexcusable as Richians conceded a second, similarly worked, try to go 12-0 down inside 3 minutes! One feared a rout, but Richians got a grip, and an intense midfield tussle developed over the next quarter, with much more tactical kicking than you might usually see at this level. Richians eventually made the breakthrough, and by the half-hour mark had edged 12-17 ahead, before both sides exchanged further tries, the game nicely poised at 19-22 at the interval.
After 56m, Midsomer powered ahead with an unconverted try in the car-park corner, not without incident in the run-up, as a penalty kick into touch had hit the away side’s Ford Transit minibus and deftly popped out one of the side plastic windows! A further unconverted try on 60m made it 29-22, and then on 70m, after much back and forth, Richians secured a penalty about 15 yards out in the middle of the park – what to do, a big decision, play for the converted try to tie the score, or go for the easy three points and hope for a later match-winning try. Richians went for the penalty kick, 29-25 - but as time ran out, the strong home pack gained the ascendancy, and Richians never again threatened the Midsomer line. An entertaining game that could have gone either way.
Tribute Western Counties North (Level 7): Midsomer Norton RUFC 29 Old Richians RUFC 25
Admission free and no programme.
Refreshments: from the clubhouse, pasty £1.50 or £2.50 depending on who served you – I had one at each price - and an execrable cuppa-soup that I eventually threw away £1. However, it must be said that when I arrived an hour before the game, I was pounced on by one of the friendly local club officials, who, learning I’d travelled up from Dorset, bought me a free drink!
Attendance: 74
by TheOstrich » 05 Dec 2017, 19:04 
On Friday, Mrs O and I decided we’d take advantage of a bright, sunny but chilly day to venture out for our annual Christmas Lunch - the venue, chosen more or less at random, being The George at Longbridge Deverill, near Warminster. I had passed the pub several times recently and thought it might be worth checking out, especially as it is not a million miles from Center Parcs, Longleat, where Master O and spouse might take a short winter holiday break next month. It was a pleasant, scenic drive over the infamous White Sheet Hill and then through the Deverills (Kingston, Brixton, Hill, and Monkton (“that’s all the right Deverills,” to paraphrase Eric Morecambe, “but not necessarily in the right order …” 
We lost all dignity, hightailed it hastily back to the car, and drove off before they could blockade the entrance ….. 
