. It’s just a question of trying to work out which lane you need at the multitude of roundabouts between the link road from the A303, past the Crematorium and Poundland up to the ground. This, of course, is still a “Billy Big Boots” club (well, in their opinion, anyway) so it was a question of Buying a Ticket and Finding Your Right Entrance Turnstile and Locating Your Seat (never easy) 
. Ossie even offered himself to a Steward for frisking and was mortally offended when he was refused! 
Lest you think this is all very commercial, I’ve never found the folk at Yeovil, from the Car Park Attendant (which is their first opportunity to relieve you of money 
) through to the Match Day Stewards anything less than friendly.Yeovil’s squad has been boosted in the last week by the arrival of two young Birmingham City Academy players on loan, and one of them, Remeao Hutton, played the whole 90 minutes tonight. Eastleigh were a surprise package last season and actually made the play-offs, but it was nevertheless a very peculiar performance. They won the majority of their games 1-0, most of their defeats were 0-1, and if they had a rush of blood, the final score was 1-1.
Not perhaps the most enterprising of teams …. still, last Saturday, they started well by defeating the newly-relegated Notts County, umm – 1-0!The game got off to an explosive start. In the second minute, Eastleigh’s Green outpaced the home defence down the left wing, fizzed a cross into the six yard box, where it was scrambled against a goalpost and hooked clear. Yeovil went straight down the other end, a beautiful flighted ball put Cortney Duffus through a channel between two defenders, and he slotted the ball home from an angle!
What then developed was quite an exhilarating affair. Eastleigh looked a bit uncoordinated at first, but gradually got their act together. Yeovil were pressing forward, constantly running at the away defenders, but the pitch was playing very fast and the ball occasionally difficult to control. It was mainly Yeovil in the first half then, trying to increase their lead, but after the interval, it was a different story, and by the time we reached the last quarter of an hour, the Glovers, bayed on by a raucous crowd, were grimly holding on in the face of wave after wave of Eastleigh attacks. That they did so was a huge compliment to their commitment, grit and determination, and the final whistle was greeted as if they’d won the FA Cup! Excellent game.
National League (Step 1): Yeovil Town 1 Eastleigh 0
Parking £3. Apparently, they even charged the two Eastleigh supporters coaches £20 each!
Admission £17, glossy 48pp programme sensibly priced at £2.50 as it turned out to be mainly froth with little readable content
, Half-Time Draw £1Meal Deal Food Offer £6 – pasty, cuppa tea, crisps and choc bar. The standard of catering better than last year, but Ossie was a bit nonplussed by the PG Tips Teabag that seemed to be permanently attached to the side of the PG Tips Cup and defied removal.
Attendance: an excellent 2,813 (announced)
As I mentioned on Saturday morning’s thread in the Café, we had a difficult night trying to sort out a sensory front door security light which was being driven crazy by (I assume) foliage oscillating about in the south-westerly gale. We haven’t had this problem before. Having restored power during the morning, I then proceeded to give three or four bushes “in the line of sight” a fairly drastic short back and sides with the trusty shears
, so we will see what happens the next time it’s windy. Given that the forecast today was for continuing 50mph gusts of wind, and warnings that trees currently in full leaf were particularly susceptible to being blown over, it seemed I might be severely pushing my luck trying to travel to my originally chosen game – Brockenhurst in the middle of the New Forest! 
So after a hasty trawl through today’s other games, I opted to visit Chippenham where, being more inland, the wind speeds were not forecast to be quite so bad.The good news is that the redesign of the A350 Chippenham bypass has (after 2 and a bit years) finally been completed, and the traffic cones, which had established a successful breeding colony there, have duly migrated.
The bad news is they’ve migrated to Melksham where goodness knows what they are trying to do with the large, central Farmers Roundabout, but whatever it is, the road markings and coned lanes are all over the place. I had a nasty experience on the way back, being undercut by a white car whilst I was trying to get off the roundabout onto the right road, and I had to accelerate hard to avoid a side-swipe. Who was technically in the wrong, given all the conflicting road markings, would be anyone’s guess. Funnily enough I visited Chippenham Town’s ground, Hardenhuish Park, on 4th August last year to see their ground-share tenants, Chippenham Park FC play – I remember it was a blisteringly hot, sunny day and I watched an hour’s cricket on the next door pitch before the soccer match. Today, the covers were still on and the cricketers were forlornly viewing the sodden, windswept out-field from the pavilion; quite a contrast!
Chippenham have apparently made no progress with their much-heralded new car park, which ought now to qualify for semi-mythical status. There are two, very small existing car parks, and I was lucky to find a slot in the lower one despite arriving two hours before kick-off. The upper one was already full! Hardenhuish Park is a ramshackle old ground – Chippenham first played on it on September 20th, 1919 – but today the flags were flying and snapping in the breeze – a Union Jack, a Cross of St. George, and what can best be described as a Green and White Tea Towel
; leastways, it was very reminiscent of the one we’ve got in the kitchen draw and use for drying vegetables. Before the start, Ossie had to be persuaded not to square up to the home mascot, Chippy the Bluebird …. 
Opponents today were Billericay Town, from Essex, a club which in 2016 acquired a new owner, a lot of money and a bucket-load of controversy. The owner is one Glenn Tamplin, and you can read about him here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Tamplin
Billericay are expected to be one of the big beasts in their Step 2 League, and had won both their opening games; Chippenham have commenced with two draws.
Just like Tuesday night, we started with an early goal. Chippenham’s Callum Gunnar was clattered from behind in the penalty area and Luke Hopper made no mistake from the spot. Following that, we had a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde performance from the home side – they looked very neat and quite inventive on those occasions when they weren’t time-wasting. We had numerous stoppages for injuries. Billericay were happy to put themselves about a bit, but the home side weren’t going to take any nonsense, and the whole affair got a bit tetchy in the second half – thankfully we had decent and unflappable referee.
The second half saw Billericay going down the slight slope and Chippenham were on the back foot for long periods. All the main talking points, however, came in the last 10 minutes. Chippenham stalled a Billericay attack and broke forward, dangerously. Meantime, Billericay’s Robson remained grounded in the home penalty area, and the referee, as is mandated these days, stopped play – a possible head injury. At which point Robson made a miraculous recovery, something that didn’t go down too well amongst the home crowd!
Then Billericay’s Ramsey smashed a shot off the top of the Chippenham crossbar, before another Chippenham breakaway lead to Nat Jarvis sliding the ball home and doubling their lead. Billericay were then awarded a late penalty which would have got them back into the game, but Rhead’s spot kick was weak, and Chippenham keeper Puddy easily saved it.A hard fought game that was more absorbing than entertaining, perhaps.
National League South (Step 2): Chippenham Town 2 Billericay Town 0
Admission £9, glossy 64pp programme £2.50 and a far, far better read than Yeovil’s miserable effort, Half-Time Draw £1
Refreshments: a decent steak and ale pie from the food cabin, £2.50
Attendance: 583 (announced). As it happens, at their previous home game last Tuesday it was 582, so today’s crowd could therefore be described as Tuesday’s plus an Ostrich!
Despite two opening tries in the first 3 minutes (the first in 36 secs, the second a neat grub kick chased through and grounded by the scrum half), North Dorset failed to stamp any authority on the game and were pegged back in their own 22 for most of the first half. Guys Marsh looked disciplined and well up to the standards of their hosts.
Frome Collegians have their own pitch, just railed around and with two small dugouts, on the Old Showground up the hill from the cricket pitch and more or less directly opposite Frome Town FC's Badgers Hill ground. I played my part in tonight’s game pre-match by rounding up a disorientated Holt player in the car-park of the latter and redirecting him to the carpark of the former! 
