I suppose that's UEFA's answer to the European Super League initiative. Not for me, thanks.
Anyway, back in the real world, after a blank Saturday last weekend due to persistent rain in this neck of the woods, there were no problems today in resuming the fray; in fact the sun actually made an appearance during the second half.
An easy drive west along the A303, with mercifully little holiday traffic - I can only guess all the Cornish staycationers must have cancelled and jetted off to Faro
– so just the usual 20mph crawl over Camel Hill, and a quick pootle along the straight to Ilchester. There was, however, a long queue of traffic waiting to ascend Camel Hill in the opposite direction where the road narrows from two lanes to one. One unexpected hazard I did encounter, though, was a couple of cyclists pedalling determinedly down the inside lane (70mph dual carriageway), ignoring a perfectly usable cycle lane along the verge.
Veer off the A303 and down the sliproad onto the A37, and there’s a handy central refuge which allows you to turn right into an un-named minor road harbouring today's football ground’s entrance gate, almost immediately on your left.
The Ilchester Sports Field is a very large expanse of more or less windswept nothing
. Two sides are bordered by a deep drainage dyke; you could easily imagine yourself to be somewhere in the middle of the Fens. A prominent sign on the gate declares: “The Fields are part of a Scheduled Monument. The Use of Metal Detectors is a Crime!”
so if you’re that way inclined, be warned. As you enter the premises, another sign states that it is a “PRIVATE Sports Field” (which left Ossie wondering if he might be summarily ejected under the current FA guidelines
) and additionally “Parking for Team Coaches” is to the left. As if! There is a squat single-storey pavilion; it has changing rooms and I’m not sure what else – after all, there is a limit on the number of times you can walk round a building peering in at all the windows without raising suspicions amongst the locals ......
Anyway, they must have some other facilities on the premises as a note on the door advertises “Miss Natasha’s Dance”, which conjures up all sorts of nefarious images
.
Apart from that, there's a swish skate park which was apparently opened in 2006; a small decrepit shed of sorts, almost lost in the undergrowth, containing a lonely mower and sundry other small equipment, and a couple of strange parallel tarmacadam strips, which could be a sign that there was once cricket nets here. They might also be the aforementioned Scheduled Monument, but who knows?
On arrival, I was delighted to find an ice-cream van in the car-park
but first things first, I wandered round the back of the pavilion to track someone down who could confirm the game was on. Having gained the necessary assurances, I returned to the car park for a 99 Flake, only to find the ice-cream van rapidly motoring out of the gate with a final, triumphant – and frankly rather insulting – burst of “Greensleeves”.
The game, on Pitch 1, which is closest to the A37 road (there are at least 3 full-size pitches and plenty more mini-pitches dotted around the area) saw 3rd placed Ilchester take on one-off-the-bottom Bruton United. We got off to an entertaining start with two goals in the first 10 minutes; after the away keeper had needlessly clattered an attacker, Ilchester’s Billy Cox kept his nerve and drove home the penalty, despite two Merlin helicopters from the nearby Yeovilton air base clattering noisily overhead. Bruton quickly equalised, their number 10 deftly juggling the ball past a couple of defenders in the box. That set the game up nicely, but the remainder of the first half was basically end-to-end stuff with neither side knowing quite what to do with the ball when they got to the relevant end.
I was sincerely hoping for an improvement in the second half, but I certainly didn’t expect 6 goals. Cox made it 2-1 on 50m, curving the ball over the keeper, but Bruton were very lucky not to equalise almost immediately, a shot hitting the post and being scrambled off the goal-line – Bruton claimed it had gone in, and had a player booked for whinging. Bradley Phillips then scored the first goal of his hat-trick on 58m, a delicately-skimmed header. He followed that up with a tap-in on 65m after the keeper had fumbled the ball, and an excellent goal from an acute angle on 77m. That still left time for a Bruton player to squeeze a shot between the home keeper and the near post on 79m, only for Ilchester to go straight down the other end where Jack Webster easily converted a Cox cross.
So a highly entertaining second half which made up for a rather nondescript first 45 minutes. Probably one more game to go now before Ossie’s season ends …..
Yeovil & District League Division 1(Step 12)
Ilchester Junior 6 Bruton United 2No admission or programme.
Refreshments: I popped in at the recently-opened Teals (a glorified farm shop/café) on the way back which is just off the A303 near Sparkford. Bit of a trendy foodie place (penne pasta dispensers, strawberry and cream biscuits, beef stock in sachets, so on). And pretty much a rip-off, to be honest. Ossie bought a bag of Joe and Seph’s Vegan Coconut and Cacao Gourmet Popcorn for £3.50 as a treat for Mrs O; we’d happily munched it all by 7:00 this evening …..
https://teals.co.uk/visit/teals-somerset/Attendance 11. There were more in the skate park, including a rather wobbly, bespectacled 40-something male on rollerblades …...
@ Kaz 
Rugby League prices?