Ostrich on the Hoof

[miasmum]

Ossie, you really should write a book.

Well done on the chopping, but still intrigued why they only managed 6 jars? Were you eating more apples than you were chopping?

I once met the Eastleigh football team in a motorway service station. I wished them luck, they lost

[TheOstrich]

I once met the Eastleigh football team in a motorway service station. I wished them luck, they lost

LOL, yes, I wished the Marjon guys "good luck" as they headed for the changing rooms, thinking at the time it was probably the kiss of death …. I wasn't wrong!
They were a likeable, chatty bunch of lads, amazed that I'd travelled from deepest Dorset to watch them play.

[TheOstrich]

I'll never know how you master the trains Os, it would properly scramble my head trying.

In my experience:

1. If you adopt the mantra "Expect the Unexpected", you're more than halfway there, Crommers
2. Never believe anything on the National Rail Enquiries website.
3. You want to book in advance? You really like tempting fate, then?
3. Do not use on-board catering facilities unless you have pre-arranged an overdraft.
4. Always have a back-up plan (in yesterday's case either Exmouth or Topsham), and be prepared to make rapid decisions on the hoof.
5. And if the worst comes to the worst, remember the beggars have a contractual liability to get you home - by taxi if necessary

[TheOstrich]

You may recall that last Saturday, I attended the local surgery for my annual influenza vaccination. Well, as sure as eggs is eggs, on Wednesday Ossie went down with the bird flu. Story of my life! And this is also where a casual post on VV by Jan nearly got me into BIG trouble.

Discussing evening fayre on one of the “What’s for Dinner” threads at the start of last week, after I’d made my usual repetitive post about Ossie’s soup diet, Jan had posted:

No chocolate digestives then Ossie?

I laughed it off – but the following morning, up at the Co-op, and feeling very much under the weather, I came face to face with the Special Offer stand:
“Twin-pack McVitie’s Chocolate Digestive Biscuits £1.50” Arrghhh …. Comfort food; the seed had been sown.

Choccy bikkits have been banned from the house by Mrs O for some time now - all to do with the bird’s weight and blood/sugar levels. So smuggling the illicit goods in through the front door, and thankfully finding Mrs O otherwise engaged elsewhere, Ossie was able to sneak them into a drawer of his bedside cabinet, which he proceeded to “visit” at odd times during the day. But it was a risky place to hide them; an alternative had to be found. And what better place than the old, redundant biscuit barrel in the kitchen, something that has not been used for many a long year. It’s what’s called “hiding in plain sight”. And all went well until the hapless bird, on one of his nocturnal visits, accidentally dropped the metal lid on the newly panelled kitchen floor. We must draw a veil over what happened next …… Let us just say: “More in sorrow than in anger”.

By Friday, the Ostrich was coming out of his 48-hour bug, and set out down the town to complete the usual shopping chores. He also had a letter to post, and stopping at the local post-box, he found something wasn’t quite right. Now down here in rural Dorset, we do have one or two peculiar pastimes, and one of these is half-inching post-boxes. Yes, now you see them, and now you don’t. In big cities, they do ATM terminals. Here, it’s post-boxes. Usually the ones that get nicked (mainly from remote rural laybys) are the VR or G VI R ones that do have a bit of a collector's market value. However, the one near us was decidedly a modern, nondescript E II R one, and of no intrinsic value - and now there was just a hole in the ground ….

So, as I was going past there anyway, I popped into the Royal Mail depot just off the High Street.
“Um, you know that post box just by the country park ….”
“Yerrrssss …”
“Well, it’s not there any more!”
<sigh> “You’re about the 50th person that’s come in this morning and told me that!”
“So it’s definitely been nicked then?”
“No, it’s Health and Safety”
“Pardon”
“The pole had corroded, we’ve had to take it down before it fell on somebody”

So nothing for Crimewatch UK, then, and the errant box should be back in around 6 weeks’ time after refurbishment!

Saturday, like the previous couple of days, dawned wet and murky, with that incessant drizzle that the BBC Weather App likes to call “Light Rain”. I had intended to travel to Downton, just outside Salisbury, for an FA Vase cup tie, but still slightly under the weather myself, and not entirely back in Mrs O’s good books after Biccygate, I very nearly cancelled all sporting activities this weekend as I could see games locally being called off due to waterlogged pitches - but just after 2:00, I decided to drive over to Sturminster Newton on the off-chance to see if their reserves game was going ahead. It’s not that far, so no great loss if I arrived and found the fixture postponed. The roads were pretty awful; wet, muddy, and at least two stretches where water draining off the fields lay entirely across the road. But on arrival at Barnets Field, I found the game on and the teams warming up. The opposition were Handley Sports FC, from Sixpenny Handley, just over the other side of the Cranborne Chase.

In the first two minutes, we had two glorious chances; Handley’s keeper pulled off a great finger-tip save at one end before a home forward missed a complete sitter in front of goal at the other. After that, bit of excitement, things settled down. You’ve probably heard that unfit blokes of a certain age are being encouraged to take up Walking Football (i.e. no running!) for health’s sake – well, this game developed into a sort of Ambling Football. Everything was done at little more than a jog. Even the sliding tackles on the extremely wet surface were more like a slow-motion car crash than a desperate lunge. Additionally, to paraphrase a well known quote: “Never had so many passes been misplaced by so few.”

Still, plenty of chances were being created, and the home team eventually notched a couple of goals before the interval, the first a right wing cross stabbed in at the far post, and the second a rather neat move through the middle.

In the second half, Handley didn’t help themselves with a bout of ‘effin which led to their no.11 being sin-binned , but on 79m, they were awarded a direct free kick on the edge of the penalty area which their no.16 launched over the wall and into the net with the home keeper completely rooted to the spot. Sturminster nearly shot themselves in the foot when their no.8 was also sin-binned for dissent, but the 10 men managed to hang on for a 2-1 victory. Overall, an entertaining match, given the soggy conditions.

12/10/19 – Dorset League Division 3 (Step 11): Sturminster Newton United Reserves 2 Handley Sports 1
Admission: free, but a donation box was brought round in the first half – I gave £4; someone’s got to fund the referee's expenses after all …..
Refreshments: half-time cuppa tea £1 and free bikkits! The Ostrich was (reasonably) restrained.
Attendance: 26

[Ally]

Biccygate!

Your reports are so descriptive Ossie I can almost 'feel' the drizzle (or BBC speak light rain )

Great read again.

[cromwell]

Os, the biscuits!
We've all been there. I was once banned from drinking beer by MrsC so cunningly (I thought) hid the bottle in a bush in our back garden.
That didn't go well either. I retrieved it sneakily after she'd gone to bed, only to find a slug on the bottle 's neck.
That was one bottle that didn't get drunk!

"The opposition were Handley Sports FC, from Sixpenny Handley, just over the other side of the Cranborne Chase".

We went on holiday to Sixpenny Handley in 1988. How could you not love a place with a name like that? We rented a cottage. It was idyllic; I hope it still is.

Great read Os.

[miasmum]

I can imagine your panic as the biscuit barrel lid clanged on the floor and the squawk from Mrs Ostrich, 'what was that?"

I've been footballess this weekend too, no Ipswich due to international call ups. Apparently doesn't affect the lower league teams usually but when you have a good set of players it does. Saturday didn't seem the same with the football ping on my phone.

Does sound more like mud wrestling Ossie. Glad you had a chance to see something, we'd miss it if you didn't. You could have taken your biscuits and donated them. Were the free ones worth it? Bet they weren't chocolate though were they?

[TheOstrich]

Were the free ones worth it? Bet they weren't chocolate though were they?

2 Rich Tea and a custard cream. I did donate 20p to club funds for them; it's an unusual and welcome bit of hospitality that Stur have always offered. You're more likely to find that at rugby clubs.

A postscript to the Plymouth Marjon team arriving at Newton Abbot by train. You may have seen that this Saturday, three National League (Step 1) fixtures had to be called off because the teams were travelling by train - due to a fatality at Milton Keynes, Dover, Sutton United and Dagenham & Redbridge couldn't get to Barrow, AFC Fylde and Stockport respectively. Bromley did make it to Solihull Moors, but the game was delayed. Whilst the home clubs mainly accepted the unfortunate situation, Barrow ware scathing about Dover's non-appearance. Their supporters club coach did make it up there, and was allegedly met with abuse from Barrow club officials about their team's travel arrangements. That, frankly, is not on, and Barrow have lost a fair number of brownie points over their attitude. There is some perhaps more valid criticism of Dover in that the players met at Euston with a view to getting the 09:30 train which left little margin for error; perhaps they should have opted for the 08:30. The FA rules are unclear - the three defaulting teams could in theory be fined and have points deducted. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Sixpenny Handley is still a nice little village, Crommers, with church, primary school, pub, PO and general stores, and a lengthy 20mph speed limit down the narrow main street. The soccer club's ground is still on my bucket-shop list; it's somewhere around the back of the church but it's not over clear how you access it.

Ally, we have had so much "light rain" down here over the last few days that the Environment Agency have issued a flood alert. Where we live, we could potentially have a problem - we did research before we moved in and it was given as a 1 in 75 year possibility. However with climate change, who knows? Still raining as I type this - the river in the country park next to us is very full but had not breached its banks last night when I looked. The area is set on Kimmeridge Clay - not conducive to holding water!

[TheOstrich]

No particular anecdotes this week, except to say that Mrs O learnt that it was at the Weston Bampfylde Village Flower and Produce Show that her award-winning chutney had triumphed, and according to SiL, at least one other contestant had greeted that decision with a sharp intake of breath and narrowed eyes! The village is so small that it doesn’t even merit its own Wiki page, being lumped in with neighbouring Sparkford, so how many offerings there were in the competition, I've no idea.

The Ostrich has remained “under the weather” this week , with drooping, manky feathers and a noticeable throaty bark instead of the usual high-pitched squawk. And with Autumn definitely drawing in, time to stay more local on a Saturday rather than venturing to far-flung places. When looking through the soccer fixtures, Hamble Club vs AFC Porchester in the Wessex League caught the bird’s eye, but this was the self-same fixture that the bird rolled up to last season, only to have it postponed due to a waterlogged pitch, so it was quickly discounted this year.

So what to do and where to go? It suddenly occurred to me that I have never seen a football club beginning with the letter “Z” and there is in fact one just up the road – Zeals FC, aka “The Spitfires” . Admittedly they play in the second division of the Yeovil and District League, which is not only down amongst the pondweed, it’s probably deeply buried in the sediment, but what the heck ….

I’ve puzzled for some time over why they were nicknamed the Spitfires, and thanks to Wiki, I’ve found a reason. There was in fact a Zeals airfield, which operated between May 1942 and June 1946; during this short time, it was used by the Royal Air Force, the United States Army Air Forces and the Royal Navy. Until August 1943, RAF Fighter Command used it as a fighter airfield for Hurricanes and Spitfires. The station was transferred in August 1943 to the USAAF whose initial plan was to use the airfield to maintain C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft, but the damp conditions prevented heavy loads so P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft were flown instead. From March 1944 the airfield reverted to the RAF who posted Mosquito aircraft there to intercept incoming German bombers. After closure, the airfield was returned to farmland, but according to Wiki, the control tower still exists as a private house, and I think it is this:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.08922 ... 312!8i6656

So, a 5 mile drive north from the Nest to the village, where I eventually located the narrow turning down to the hamlet of Wolverton, and then nearly overshot the well-disguised driveway into the ground’s carpark, adjacent to which is the Boris Hapgood Zeals Community Pavilion (opened 2010) which is a fancy name for what appeared to be a wooden-clad, blue-painted portacabin. It turned out there were two portacabins and three half-size shipping containers dotted around the ground, but they certainly didn’t detract from a very pleasant rural venue, with a couple of ‘osses in the paddock behind one goal, and deep thickets on the other three sides, shielding the ground from the busy A303 nearby. Somebody had rigged up a sound system so we got pre-match music (although the speaker had to quickly wrestled inside the portacabin as a sudden shower swept across the ground ), and the only other facility I found was the Club Kettle, which had been left abandoned on the ground outside the changing rooms and which I all but tripped over.

Everyone was extremely friendly. I was warmly greeted by the home club’s manager, and then had a long conversation with the away team’s linesman, before chatting with today’s referee, Mr Wilkin, who told me all about his recent holiday in Portugal, fabulous weather, he only got back 24 hours ago, and now he was refereeing this! He also told me he’d played soccer until he was 41, started refereeing at 48, and he was now 71!! The Portuguese holiday had been to celebrate his birthday. I must say, I take my hat off to him. I also asked him about his reaction to the new sin-bin rules – he said he didn’t hold with bad language but had never, ever sin-binned a player. I told him I’d seen two sin-binnings the previous week and he was quite shocked.

I finished with my usual joke to the referee: “I need to get my goals per game average up, so if in doubt, it’s a penalty”. Usually, they laugh back at me; this time, to my horror, I think I was taken seriously, because in the 16th minute, after an innocuous challenge in the Wyndham Athletic area, the referee pointed to the spot. “Cast-iron,” muttered the Zeals manager, not believing his luck . The penalty was duly put away by Bradley Carter. Extremely unusually at this level, all the Zeals players had squad numbers and names on their shirts, but unfortunately, numbers 8, 15 and 23 were all Carter!

That sparked what had been a fairly cautious game to life, but both teams were quite well matched and neither side really got the upper hand. Wyndham eventually equalised through a long range header over a crowd of players which deceived the home keeper. The game could have gone either way in the second half, but Zeals clinched it when Wyndham’s keeper lost the ball in his 6-yard box and Matthew Carter reacted quickest to jab it over the line. That just left time for one final incident before the end – Mr. Wilkin took the unprecedented step of sin binning Zeals’ Dan Wright, who promptly threw a complete hissy fit and went into total meltdown. He stalked off the pitch before even receiving the referee’s card, flung his shirt on the ground, picked it up, flung it at the bench, and loudly proclaimed he had no intention of playing for the club ever again!! Boy was he not a Happy Bunny. Eventually the home manager persuaded him to go speak to the referee and regularise the dismissal, but he obviously wasn’t mollified and spent the remainder of the game glowering at all and sundry from the sidelines. I left the ground quickly at the final whistle before any more trouble erupted!

19/10/19 – Yeovil & District League Division 2: Zeals 2 Wyndham Athletic 1
Admission: free, no programme
Refreshments: Now’t. Not even a half-time brew.
Attendance: 29

[Ally]

Mr Wilkin sounds a right character!

Let's hope Dan Wright picked up his dummy and took it back to his pram.

Hope you've fully recovered Ossie.

Great read as usual....thank you.