Another Load of Cobblers ....

[miasmum]

Yes I think Ginsters made them, whether they were a special for a while Im not sure

[JoM]

I’ve never heard of those. They sound….different

Best pasties I’ve ever had are from the pasty shop in Bude. When we used to go when they boys were little I’d run up into the town at lunchtime to the pasty shop and we’d eat them on the beach.
https://www.tastypasties.co.uk/
I’ve just seen that they sell them mail order. Probably not the same as eating them on the beach though

[TheOstrich]

Just a short report concentrating on the footie today. Ossie has spent most of the week suffering from one or more of (a) hayfever, (b) Covid and (c) a summer cold , so little positive to report, except that we suddenly seem to have an excellent crop of tender runner beans!

Bank Holiday weekend means not travelling too far away from the Nest, and certainly not on holiday traffic routes, so it was a revisit to Sherborne to watch South Gloucestershire side Tytherington Rocks FC, newly moved into the Western League. I can get there quite easily via the A30 which remains a relatively quiet road, even in the summer months. Tytherington’s just a big village, really, alongside a huge limestone quarry which is still operational as part of the Hansons’ empire. The football club was founded in 1932, and seems to have plodded along happily ever since, although the average attendance season by season has rarely exceeded 60. To add a bit of exotica, their current manager is in fact Portuguese, surprisingly not José Mário dos Santos Mourinho, but one Tiago Carreiras.

Now there are some teams you instinctively like, and others which frankly you don’t. Sherborne Town fall into my latter category. As someone who likes to collect football programmes, (yes, every male should have a hobby ), Sherborne have been notorious over the years for providing inventive excuses why they haven’t issued one for the match I’ve attended. “The chairman’s on holiday”, “the printer’s works has burnt down”, “the programmes were eaten by paper wasps overnight”, you know the sort of thing. And I’ve found the officialdom there a bit mardy at times as well. So it’s not my most favourite venue, despite ease of access and excellent parking, and I did feel a sense of foreboding when I set off there yesterday.

And that sense I was doomed was inevitably compounded by the completely-out-of-the-blue, unprecedented sight of the players “taking the knee” before the kick-off. They didn’t do it when I was here three weeks or so ago, I’ve never seen it live at any non-league game, and it was so quick, controlled by the referee’s whistle, down and up, that if you’d blinked you’d have missed it. In fact, judging by the half-hearted applause around the ground, a lot of people probably did. OK, so if you’re a fan of Leeds or Manchester United, you’re used to this ritual, which the footballers say signifies the “Respect” campaign but the conspiracy theorists would say epitomises “Black Lives Matter”. Now hand-on-heart, I’m an inbred conspiracy theorist by nature , and I don’t like it, but I accept they have the right to do it if they want. I wouldn’t go so far as to heckle or boo them (it happened too quickly anyway ) but it didn’t exactly put me in the right mood for the game!

So having propped myself up on the railings at one end of the ground, socially distancing myself well away from anyone else, I was less than happy to be accosted in quick succession by a raffle ticket seller - “No, thank you” - and then a man handing out some sort of leaflet – “No, I am not interested in whatever it is! ”. Ossie can be quite the old curmudgeon in his dotage, I’m afraid.

Anyway, a scrambled goal following a goalmouth melee on 6m, and a clinically placed shot just inside the post on 12m looked as if it had put Sherborne Town well on their way to another resounding victory, but …….

A routine challenge in midfield on 21m resulted in an away player going down in agony – a dislocated knee or ankle, I suspected, but no one seemed to know for certain. Attention was immediate; the referee was quickly on the scene and summoned the trainers. I could hear the injured player in pain and I was 40 yards away. The Sherborne officials quickly signalled for an ambulance to be called; the player couldn’t be moved, so was made comfortable and a thermal wrap brought out for him.

The Tytherington goalkeeper was wandering around looking disconsolate; I did manage to have a quiet word with him over the barriers. He said he thought it was a dislocation, but he hadn’t been up to see the player, the poor guy was obviously too upset. What can you do in those circumstances other than to commiserate?

We were still waiting for a paramedic or an ambulance to arrive turn up 30 minutes later when the game was finally abandoned. Social media is now saying the player had to wait 4 hours for an ambulance to arrive. That's beyond bad. Again per social media, it was a dislocated knee, he has had it re-set in Yeovil Hospital and has now been released back home.

Thoughts for the player involved and his teammates.

28/08/21 - Western League Division 1
Sherborne Town 2 Tytherington Rocks 0 (abandoned after 21m)
Admission: £4 concession (£6 otherwise)
Programme: On-line only; line-ups displayed on a whiteboard, pitchside by the entrance.
Refreshments: food hatch was open, but I didn’t bother in the circumstances.
Attendance: perhaps 70-80

And I have no plans to be going back to Sherborne Town anytime soon.

[cromwell]

If that social media report is true, that's awful. Four hours! It's a wonder he didn't get hypothermia.
I know what you mean about disliking some teams. Usually there are good reasons for it.

[TheOstrich]

Just had MasterO on the phone. His reaction was "4 hours, what's your problem?" Par for the course these days, they're rushed off their feet, according to him.
He had a rugby player in A&E yesterday, for suspected concussion. The domestic season hasn't even started yet!

[Kaz]

That is shocking Ossie, but unfortunately not surprising. Em and I were in Gloucester town centre one day a few years ago, we nipped into Poundland to get something, and we spotted a little group around someone on the floor. "Oh no!" said Em! Turned out to be her mum's best friend Rose, who'd tripped and banged her head. Em and I decided to wait with her until the ambulance came, bearing in mind this lady was over 90 and had a head injury. It took over 2 hours and several phonecalls to get an ambulance. She had concussion and was kept in for several days

[TheOstrich]

Two matches to report on this week, so let’s get cracking! First up, a Bank Holiday Monday fixture in Somerset - to the self–styled Royal Capital of Ancient Wessex to see a top v bottom game which the hosts predictably won, although they had a frustrating afternoon of it all round .

Somerton’s ground is part of a large recreation area on the eastern side of town, alongside the B3153 Langport Road. Before you reach the playing fields, if you turn into the residential Gassons Lane, the entrance to the spacious car park and clubhouse is almost immediately on your right. This clubhouse hosts the changing rooms, toilets and apparently a snooker hall, but no other facilities were open today; it also has a wooden veranda from which one could watch the soccer (at a bit of a distance) if it were raining.

The campus incorporates a couple of hard tennis courts, a skate park, crown green bowling club (where I watched a couple of ladies practising for a while, and pretty good they were, too ), a large (and well-used today) children’s play area, along with a half-size 3G pitch marked for soccer and hockey, various other grass soccer pitches, and Somerton Rugby Club (which I visited backalong pre-pandemic) at the other end of the site. It’s all nicely laid out, with plenty of well-trimmed hedgerows separating the various sports.

Somerton were in front on 6m with a well-worked goal; a run down the right wing, cut inside and cross for an easy conversion at the far post, all very precise. A calmly taken penalty, with the keeper diving the wrong way, made it 2-0 on 14m but Welton Rovers immediately pulled one back, a free kick into the area being expertly steered home. Somerton restored their two goal lead on 22m when a blocked shot ran free and was hammered back in from the edge of the area. The hosts had the opportunity to score more in the first half, but their goal attempts unfortunately started to get increasingly wild .

Welton started the second half quite well, pegging Somerton back in their own half. As the game progressed, it began to get a bit tetchy, however, the general mood decidedly not being helped by a club linesmen whose default position seemed to be “offside”. Ah, club linesmen, the bane on lower-level non-league soccer . If he flagged once in the second half for offside, he flagged a dozen times, and Somerton were the team being penalised. Not saying his decisions were all wrong, but let's just say some were extremely marginal .

The referee confined himself to “having a word” with players as and when necessary to calm things down and didn’t get his yellow card out until added time, when a crunching tackle deserved more than a reprimand. Somerton’s 4th goal arrived in the 61m when a ball into the box was deflected high in the air and dropped down just below the crossbar; an attacker managed to bundle it in without bundling in the keeper as well . Two further goals followed on 73m and 81m, the latter an absolutely venomous drive from 25 yards, which I think summed up Somerton’s overall frustration . Nevertheless, an entertaining game on a sunny afternoon.

30/08/21 – Somerset County League Division 1
Somerton Town 6 Welton Rovers Reserves 1
No admission charge, no programme, and no refreshments available on-site.
Attendance: 22

We had, that Monday, studied the long-term weather forecast, with most pundits forecasting a drear September with storms and below seasonal temperatures. (As I sit here now, with the sun out, the temperature well into the 20’s, and even the Infernal Hot Water Device on the roof burbling merrily to itself, go figure! ) So we decided to cut our losses and harvest all the green tomatoes from the various vines dotted around the back garden, as some of them were starting to rot, and others drop off – no hope of them ripening. Weighing the proceeds, we found we had just over 2lbs worth in old money, so green tomato chutney-making it be!

Now by coincidence, the local fly-sheet had printed a recipe in its last edition – “Auntie Fanny’s green tomato chutney” . Auntie Fanny was born at the turn of the century near Dorchester; she handed her chutney recipe down in her family. The ingredients listed cited 1 ½ lbs of tomatoes, so (not without some misgiving from Mrs O) we scaled things up and tweaked the recipe as we thought fit.

Ingredients:
1 ½ lbs of green toms (we had 2 lbs)
1 lb apples (we used 2 lbs, or 3 Bramleys, but of course once you’ve cored them ….. we left the peel on)
1 ½ lbs of onions (again, we used 2 lbs; we usually carry a goodly supply)
1 ½ lbs of brown sugar (we used white sugar, which again we had in the house, and cut the quantity a bit)
1 ½ pints of vinegar (we had two tag end bottles on the go, one white and one cider, so utilized those and cracked open a new bottle of white to make up just 1 pint, no more)
1 oz of ground ginger and ½ tsp turmeric (luckily we had both in the house)
1 tblsp salt ‘n pepper to taste.
3 tblsp cornflower.

Ossie was promptly despatched to procure the Bramleys, the cornflower and the fresh bottle of vinegar, and found he needed to raid Waitrose to source the first two items. There were, in fact, very few Bramleys left on the shelf – I guess I might have had to buy Granny Smiths as a substitute). All our green tomatoes were very small, so a mammoth chopping session followed, and once everything was prepared, we fired up the cooking pan on the gas hob. It didn’t take too long to boil it up and reduce it, although we needed to add extra cornflower to get it thickened. We had a quantity of “Bon Mamman” 375g jam jars in store, and plenty of left-over jampot covers and discs from the previous year (“Which way did you say the waxed side goes?”, grumbled Ossie ), so the former were sterilized in the oven and once the hot fruit mix was ladled out, we found we’d got around 8 ¾ lbs of chutney! Not bad; it will keep us going through the winter months.

Plan A for Saturday’s match was Westbury United Development vs Bradford Town Development, but this had disappeared off the face of the FA’s fixtures site by Friday, (or might even have been a figment of my imagination in the first place ), and Plan B, Dilton Marsh Wanderers, were still frantically appealing for a referee on Saturday morning , so I didn’t risk it. That left me scouring the local games, and a top of the table clash between Potterne and Seend United, both unbeaten so far, seemed an interesting third choice.

Potterne (which I guess you will never have heard of) play in Market Lavington (which I also guess you will never have heard of), and that large village turned out to be right out in the wilds of Wiltshire, necessitating a lengthy cross-country drive from Westbury, passing HMP Earlestoke en route; it’s often featured on the local TV News and I’ve always wondered where it was – now I know! A few years back, an inmate of the jail, working outside on the prison farm, decided to "leg it" by commandeering the prison farm's tractor . He'd got about 10 miles from the jail before a retired prison officer, driving the other way, recognised the vehicle and wondered what the prison's tractor was doing haring down the main road ....... cue a "Keystone Cops" car chase
https://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news ... of-escape/

Getting to Westbury in the first place proved difficult; the Warminster bypass was closed with no signposted diversions (the result of an accident during the morning) and Warminster town centre was therefore understandably virtually in gridlock. That cost me 30 minutes or so on the journey, but I still arrived in good time.

The soccer ground is at the top end of a road called Northover, a narrow lane leading off the village’s main drag by the Co-op and car park. It’s on top of the downs, with fine views over the valley, and has plenty of parking, albeit a bit rough in places. There’s a changing-room pavilion with a small overhang behind one goal, and abutting this building, on each side, are (a) a small wooden equipment store and (b) a squat, stone building which looked for all the world like a cricket ground score box, but turned out to be the toilets! The pitch noticeably slopes from side to side. There are no railings, no dugouts, and nearly no corner-flags either, but they arrived belatedly after three minutes’ play . The other interesting feature is the 16 or so training floodlights, spread around the perimeter (apart from one lonely one seemingly abandoned in a neighbouring field) and mounted on poles of varying heights and wonkiness. Most, but not all by any means, were even pointing towards the pitch!

The first half was a bit too fast and furious for its own good. Both sides got stuck in from the start with some hefty challenges on display, and the referee had to keep a firm hand on proceedings from the outset. Potterne’s attack looked a bit lightweight and the visitors had little difficulty repelling them; there were also rather a lot of aimless downfield punts by both sides through to the opposing keepers. It wasn’t spectacular, but it was certainly absorbing, and I was taken by surprise when the half-time whistle blew; I realised I hadn’t looked at my watch once during the half!

Seend United, the visitors, took the lead straight after the interval. A long throw-in into the box, the ball bobbled, the defence froze, and Reynolds headed home from a couple of yards out. That rattled Potterne, recriminations set in, and they looked in danger of falling apart – a second goal for Seend was thus no surprise and arrived on 56m, a glancing header from a corner, and the referee had to have a lengthy discussion with the home goalkeeper to dissuade him from throttling his defence . Seend then had plenty of chances to make the game safe – not least from the penalty spot (72m) but the kick was well saved. There was a final twist to an entertaining game when Potterne did manage to pull a goal back, poked in from a quickly taken corner (87m), but by then it was too little, too late. A deserved win for the away side on the run of play.

30/08/21 – Trowbridge & District League Division 2
Potterne 1 Seend United 2
No admission or paperwork.
No refreshments available on-site, but I’d taken along 2 scotch eggs (Aldi – 89p) and, because scotch eggs are so dry, Mrs O’s Yokebe diet milk shaker flagon with about ½ a pint of milk!
Attendance: 43 – a lot of families enjoying the hot and hazy weather.

[Kaz]

Another cracking read, Ossie, and a recipe thrown in for good measure I love green tomato chutney, Debih posted a recipe here on VV years ago, I made some, and jolly nice it was too

[TheOstrich]

A quiet week at the Nest, enlivened only by Master O’s pleas for emergency finance as the engine warning light on his car activated leading to a call to the RAC, and the resulting diagnostic led to the apparent necessity of replacing the catalytic converter. He contracted with Halfords to have this done, and when they were testing the system after fitting it, the alternator blew in a completely unrelated fault! So he was off the road for a week, and the Bank of M and D had to stump up a four-figure sum . In fairness to Halfords, they did give him a hefty “manager’s discretion” discount on the original quote which did save a few hundred squid from extinction. Mind you, Master O only told me that after we’d sent him the full original cost! He did offer to pay the excess back, though …..

We were due to have an old work colleague of mine and his wife over last Thursday for morning tea and bikkits, but 15 minutes after he was due to arrive, we had a frantic call to say they were stuck on the A303 and weren’t moving. It transpired they were caught in the aftermath of a very serious fatal accident that blocked the road for around 4 hours – when they did get past it, all they wanted to do was head back for home and who could blame them? So Ossie is now sitting on 4 unopened packs of bikkits, wondering what to do with them ……

To the footie, and on a Saturday when many of the games in this area recorded a hatful of goals, I managed to pick a 1-0 scoreline, and was somewhat fortunate to get that . One of my alternatives finished 2-2 in a Cup game and it was then decided 14-15 on penalties!! Nevertheless it was an enjoyable game, and a bit of a giant-killing in that Timsbury Athletic defeated a team from a higher division, although Nailsea United are hardly Manchester United and there wasn’t a Ronaldo in sight .

This was my first visit to Timsbury’s ground, although I had passed by it on a couple of occasions heading to games further north. It was a reasonably straightforward drive, although I’d previously mentally logged and then totally forgotten (such is the effects of old age ) that 11th September was Frome Show Day, so I got caught up in a bit of traffic. Plus much of BANES (Bath and North East Somerset Council) has a default 20 mph limit through every habitation. Timsbury itself is a large village on the northern edge of the Mendips, mid-way between Radstock and Keynsham; historically, it was an important part of the Somerset coal industry and the recreation ground (at the north-west end of the village) where the football club play is dominated by the Conygre Hall social club building - Upper Conygre Pit (1791-1916), according to Wiki, was just across the road.

Timsbury, architecturally, is very attractive. The core of the village is said to be centred around the Square and the High Street. The former is actually a curve, not a square, and features a chippie (closed) and a tea-room (also closed; it should have been open, thus depriving the Ostrich of a cooked breakfast ). Many of the villages buildings are constructed from the local White Lias stone; to give you a flavour:
9 High St - Google Maps

Back at the recreation ground, which has plenty of parking, there’s tennis courts and a kids play area, as well as the village’s cricket pitch. There are two soccer pitches, the main one used by Athletic being fully railed, with two dug-outs along one side and a small area of covered standing between them. It’s a pleasant, tree-lined location.

First half, and Timsbury took the game to their opponents from the outset – they fought for every ball, worked together as a team, and some of their close passing, especially in attack, was delightful to watch. All they needed was a breakthrough, but it didn’t come, thanks to a very composed Nailsea defence that soaked up all the pressure. At the other end, Nailsea’s attack hardly got a look-in – too many long balls aimlessly pumped forward – but the home keeper did have to make one outstanding flying save, and later in the half, dropped smartly on the ball as it bobbled along the line just before an attacker got to it.

The Nailsea manager gave his side an absolute roasting at half-time ; I lost count of the number of expletives somewhere around the two-dozen mark. It did have the effect getting them to raise their game somewhat, and as a result the second half was much more even – and unfortunately much scrappier. All of which led to Timsbury scoring a pretty scrappy close-range effort after 76m, a lead which they never really looked like relinquishing.

30/08/21 – Somerset County League Premier and First Division Cup 2021-22
Timsbury Athletic 1 Nailsea United 0
No admission charge or paperwork
No refreshments available on-site today, and Mr. Lee’s chippie was crammed to the rafters when I got back home after the match , so I settled for a Chinese from Mr. Chan’s, over-ordering as I always tend to do , and forking out £20.20 for pork ‘n ginger, beef ‘n bamboo shoots, chicken ‘n beansprouts, and egg-fried rice. But you do get complimentary prawn crackers and spring rolls …..
Attendance: 35 (h/c) – put plenty of families coming and going during the course of the afternoon.

[cromwell]

Poor Master O Os. Cars can be an absolute money pit. Bonus biscuits though!
That sounds like a decent game you saw, regardless of the low score. Nailsea, that's where Adge Cutler used to live?
Great read, thanks.