03/02 – The Blinds and Curtains Project continued apace with a visit from Tom the Pole Man, a gentle soul, who painstakingly put up the two new poles in the bedrooms and measured the drop for the curtains which are to be made. We now wait on events ….
On Tuesday evening, a rare mid-week football game in these ‘ere parts, so “up the Rock” to Shaftesbury to see the home team take on Bournemouth – not the Premiership club, but the original Bournemouth Poppies, founded in 1875. That other lot started in 1890.
Ossie left home in clear conditions, and on arriving up in the town, filled up at the Tescos petrol station (wot is consistently 2p a litre cheaper than most anywhere else in the immediate area), before parking up at the ground and walking back to the store itself for a 6-pack of their delicious lemon mousse pots, and a similar pack of creme caramel, plus a 2 for £7 paperback book offer (Andy McNab, Jack Higgins). Still time to purchase the traditional pair of £1 fishcakes from the chippie opposite, before entering the ground at 7:25. And at 7:35, the fog descended.
Well, we kicked off on schedule at 7:45, but unlike other foggy nights up there at Cockrams, there was no breeze, and instead of roiling back and forth along the ground, tonight’s fog wasn’t going anywhere – and got thicker. Unfortunately, a bulb had blown in one of the bottom corner floodlights, and after 15 minutes, the linesman flagged the referee and told him it was impossible to judge off-sides. I fully agreed with him, I was in the stand on the half-way line and couldn’t see the dug-outs opposite, and the two goalmouths were barely visible. The referee called a 10 minute halt to proceedings, then, with his assistants, walked out onto the pitch.
The Bournemouth captain came back out of the dressing-rooms. “Where’s the ref?” he asked.
“Out there,” we said, pointing.
“Where?” he said.
The officials had totally vanished!
When they resurfaced, wraith-like, five minutes later, the game was formally abandoned.
Sydenhams Wessex League Premier Division: Shaftesbury 0 Bournemouth 0 (abandoned 15m)
Usual expenses, and attendance 32, well, on my side of the pitch, anyway.
Drove back down into the Vale – and it was as clear as a bell!
Now despite the abandonment, I am counting the game in my standing records. You may protest, but at my age, I have very few scruples left!
So Bournemouth are a “new team tick” on the spreadsheet – but this also becomes my fifth 0-0 draw of the season – an all-time record!
To Saturday, and despite the weather forecast, I was up bright and early, and on the 09:51 out of Gillingham station, bound for the south coast. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed it but the BBC Weather app has recently changed its format, so as well as getting that little black cloud with a blue raindrop underneath, you now also get a “percentage chance of precipitation”. So what does that mean?
Hour by hour, it displays 43% or 56% or even 86%. I mean, really? At least with a black cloud and a blue dot, you’d think - it might rain but I’ll risk it. Now, with a 62% chance of precipitation at 13:00, the whole place sounds like it’s going to be deluged! Anyway, the south coast seemed to score less percentage points than Bridgwater, so I put off a trip to the rugby club there until a later date. And I can say with some certainty, as I walked down to the station, it was 100% drizzle.
Ossie, however, was fretting and plucking at his feathers, for our target was United Services Portsmouth FC, who play inside the HMS Temeraire naval base, and the club’s website cheerfully indicates that you may be stopped, questioned, and asked to show identity, especially in times of heightened security.
Ossie, who only has to pass a PCSO before guiltily confessing to every outstanding crime in the county, was fully imagining himself manacled and shackled to the poop-deck! Anyway, security turned out to be a couple of dozy sods, as we shall see later.
On arrival at Portsmouth and Southsea station, I wandered up the Commercial Road precinct, which is the heart of the town. Drawn by rattling drums and plinkety glockenspiels, I found my old mates, the Dolphin Marching Band from Poole performing – they’re regulars at the Gillingham Carnival. A bus ride followed to The Hard (Portsmouth Harbour station) where HMS Warrior (a 3-masted, steam-powered, 40 gun warship dating from 1860) is prominently moored alongside the Historic Dockyard, and the Emirates Spinnaker Tower rises up alongside Gunwharf Quays (a massive retail shopping outlet).
HMS Warrior photo in Wiki:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cate ... rior_(1860)2009.jpg
and Spinnaker Tower:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cate ... 258666.jpgThe Victory Stadium has been a ground on my bucket-shop list for a while, mainly because of its easy accessibility by train. From Portsmouth Harbour station, head south-east past the bus interchange and down St Georges Road, go under the railway, keep straight on, and you’ll see the Victory Stadium in front of you. As mentioned, it’s part of HMS Temeraire, not as in the famous:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fight ... allery.jpgbut as in the Directorate of Naval Physical Training and Sport (DNPTS) which was established in 1910 and commissioned as HMS Temeraire in 1971.
Anyway, you keep straight on along the side of the stadium, take a left at the Cambridge Junction roundabout, go up Cambridge Road past the University campus, and then left again into Burnaby Road. A hundred yards up there is a barriered entrance with a security guard hut. I asked them for directions back to the soccer pitch and they promptly sent me straight on up the road. Well, there is no other (unlocked) entrance to the sports complex; I can confirm this as I finished up doing a complete circumnavigation of the bleddy place – just under a mile’s round trip!
On arrival back at the security hut, I blagged my way inside and duly wandered through the campus to locate the soccer pitch.
The sports complex contains a rugby pitch and at least three hockey pitches, all of which are synthetic surfaces, and which were in use for both hockey and (casual) soccer today. The Victory Stadium, where US Portsmouth play, has a 7-lane athletics track with the grass soccer pitch inside, and a 500-seat elevated grandstand with tip-up seats; a brutalist concrete construction, but strangely the roof has a wooden plank lining. No other furniture apart from the dugouts in front of the stand, and a couple of mini-dugouts on the far side. White Ensign opposite hanging limply from the yardarm in the drizzle. The top of the Spinnaker had long since disappeared in the descending murk. Ossie sagely predicted there was a 132% probability of precipitation.
USP started 7th, with Hythe & Dibden firmly in the relegation mix with games in hand. My impression of USP was that they could play some nice touches, but looked a bit lightweight. Hythe really brought nothing to the party at all; no real cohesion up front and very few goal attempts. The referee took a long hard look at a handball claim after 10m and awarded USP a penalty. Snelling’s unemphatic spot-kick was well saved by the away keeper, diving to his left. USP’s Callaghan opened the scoring on 33m when a ball cleared from defence was quickly played back in with an over-the-shoulder flick by a fellow attacker; Hythe weren’t expecting that and Callaghan headed the ball in. The second on 44m was a good solo effort from Callaghan, cutting in from the left and burying the ball in the far corner of the net. The third came on 74m when Franklyn latched onto a rebound and volleyed in from close-range.
Overall, not the greatest of entertainment on a mizzley day. 3-0 was a fair result. The game didn’t finish until close on 5:00, so a fast yomp back to Harbour Station for the 17:23, luckily assisted on part of the journey back down St Georges Road by a conveniently passing bus. The train was invaded at Fratton station by hordes of Pompey fans – sounded like their 2-2 draw against Doncaster was by far the better match …..
Sydenhams Wessex League Division 1 (Step 6): US Portsmouth 3 Hythe & Dibden 0
Admission: £2 (concession)
Programme: £1 – a 16pp colour, superbly-packed edition, printed on what looks suspiciously like recycled paper, possibly fish and chip judging by the colour
, typescript so small you need a magnifying glass to read it, but it does contain a crossword and a full match report of the away game against Baffins Milton Rovers on 27/12/2016 - quite why, I have no idea! And it’s obvious the current MoD budget doesn’t stretch to staples, let alone frigates.
Refreshments: a conundrum. I was offered a cup of tea (for a donation) on arrival, but they may have taken pity on my bedraggled state and tail of woe about trying to find the entrance.
There’s a small kitchen behind the stand but I got the impression they don’t publically offer drinks? I’m unsure. The alternative on the campus is to walk back to “The Sportsmans Arms”, round the corner and opposite the hockey pitches. It’s on the first floor of the building, and good luck finding the way in. I did eventually access it through a delivery door, but then found that they didn’t open until 2:30.
Anyhow, coffee, various crisps and Alpen bars were bought just before the match and at half-time totalling £6.
Attendance: only 13, and that included 3 ball-boys and what looked suspiciously like a referee’s assessor.
by Kaz » 29 Jan 2018, 21:07 
Agreeing with Ally, hard floors are far more practical in a bathroom xxx
