The Ostrich snored blissfully through the heavy rains of Wednesday night, not realising that an environmental flood warning had been posted for the town
. And this differed (so I subsequently learnt) from the usual generic pronouncements, in which the Environmental Agency’s interactive map shows most of the areas surrounding the three watercourses that converge in or just south of the town in orange, simply meaning “be aware”.
These orange areas are invariably depicted the same for every potential flooding event, (the flood area is shown as lapping up to the bottom of the cut-through from the river to The Nest), so over the years, complacency has set in
, not least because since we moved down here, the Stour has never overflowed its banks in the country park behind our house, nor has there been any evidence of water in the flood defence attenuation tank nearby. We did due diligence before moving in; the flood risk was stated as 1 in 75 (if that’s years, it’ll see me out!
) and asking around in town, nobody had ever known of water in the attenuation tank.
What differed this time was that the flood warning was specifically targeted at the other two minor tributaries, the Sheen and the Lodden
. And boy did they get it right! In the next suburb to us, the Shreen burst its banks, relocated several park picnic tables downstream, and reportedly completely trashed somebody’s raised vegetable beds
, thankfully leaving the debris in his garden, as there was some alarm it might have got stuck under the Town Bridge downstream (our famous landmark, on the grounds it was once painted by John Constable, and the result’s in the Tate Gallery
). Worse, however, the Lodden overflowed in the town’s southern suburb, and some homes were unfortunately flooded out
.
Now this may sound very minor compared with the devastation heavy rainfall has wrought in other parts of the country, like York and Carlisle in recent memory, but believe me, it was a big event here
, and Twitter was awash with commentary such as “Never known it like that” and “That were worse than the Great Flood of July 1982” and “D’you remember, Rosie, you had to get taken home on a tractor from school that day
” and “Yes, I was so scared it lurched so much, we nearly fell off the bridge over the river
”. And the other thing the local residents rushed out to do in the aftermath was to photograph and post on-line shots of the flooding immediately south of the town where the new development of 1,200 homes is planned – yep, on a flood plain
. Cue various memes such as “Welcome to The Lakes, every new house comes with a free dinghy
” and so on. Seriously, this town extension is increasingly looking like a very bad idea, but there you go, can't argue with Government.
Flooding was also bad in the neighbouring village of Motcombe and several main roads, including the one to Shaftesbury were impassable. But 24 hours later, it had all subsided, just leaving a few shallow lakes in some of the local parks, and we didn’t have to wade our way to Aldi on Friday!
Meanwhile, Ossie’s torrid footie season continues, and after last week’s Mystery of the Missing Referee, I should have known better than to involve myself with any team with “Midsomer” in its name.
I’m continuing to stay local (petrol prices have now hit 143.9 for unleaded down here
) and Wincanton RFC have been on my bucket shop list for at least the last four years. During this time they’ve folded, reinvented themselves and changed location. Previously up at Dancing Lane, using the secondary school’s pitches and changing rooms, they are now down at the Wincanton Sports Centre (Moor Lane) on the other side of town, with their pitch behind the Maddocks Pavilion (which we last visited a few weeks back) and Wincanton Town FC’s main stadium. There’s no furniture, not even a scoreboard, but there is what at first sight appeared to be a pair of medieval stocks on the side-line
but this wood, concrete block and cast-iron contraption turned out on, closer inspection, to be an extremely ancient scrummaging machine …...
The first problem was to find on arrival that only half the car-park was in use, with the other half set aside for a travelling funfair
, which was just cranking up to open. Having managed to wedge the Ostrichmobile into a corner, I wandered over to the Pavilion, the main door of which was, due to the burgeoning pandemic cases, festooned with Somerset County Council Covid announcements - “Nobody allowed in except on business”, “Facemasks shall be worn”, so on – so I didn’t bother. The “Closed” sign was the clincher.
The second problem was Midsomer Norton. Had they turned up? There was no obvious sign of them until they emerged from the changing-room complex at 14:52. Who ever heard of a rugby union team not spending at least 40 minutes out on the pitch warming up
? Wincanton had been out there for at least that time. Anyway, the referee gave Midsomer a short time to practice a few set pieces and we duly commenced at 15:04. At 15:06, a Wincanton player went down in midfield and didn’t get up – and it didn’t look good
. A neck injury, I subsequently learnt, and (understandable in the circumstances) nobody wanted to move him off the pitch. Shades of Sherborne Town a month back, “Here we go again
”, I thought.
So in the light of that, I promptly decamped through a hole in the hedge
to go watch Wincanton Town Reserves in action on the soccer pitch. I arrived about 6 minutes late into this game, ascertained from a fellow spectator
that the score was 0-0*, and settled down to watch a rather feisty encounter, presided over by a very young referee who had a very decent game, and turned out to be Spencer Chinook, who I mentioned seeing a few weeks back running the line at a game with his Dad. It’s a small world in these parts ......
* I scored it 1-5. The FA Fulltime results website says 1-6. So it might have been 0-1 when I arrived …..
Anyway, it was a good old-fashioned, hard-fought, end-to-end encounter with the away side Sturminster Marshall scoring on 20m and Wincanton Reserves then having to chase the game, occasionally a bit too robustly
, but with only one yellow card to show for it. They eventually got their goal just before half-time; a scrambled effort after an attempt from a corner had been blocked on the line.
At half-time, I returned to the rugby pitch to see if the fixture had been formally abandoned - and found not only that unbeknown to me they’d resumed play, the score was 7-7
! A dilemma – do I return to the rugby game or continue watching the soccer? Well, eight minutes or so of spectating the rugby indicated it was likely to be a pretty scrappy affair, so I opted to meander back through the hedge for the second half of the football
. The rugby game eventually finished 19-19, according to the RFU website, and I’ll have to pencil in yet another attempt to see Wincanton RFC some time later in the season
.
Back to the footie. I had anticipated on the balance of play in the first half that Sturminster Marshall would probably go on to win it, but I didn’t expect the total demolition job that unfolded in the second half. The away side (who have always had a good reputation locally) ratcheted up their game, started playing some beautiful football raiding down both wings, and the Wincanton Reserves defence crumpled. A glorious diving header on 61m, an own goal on 66m when a Sturminster attacker failed to connect with a hard, fast cross into the box- but the defender standing behind him unfortunately did with disastrous results
- and further close-range goals on 78m and 79m, both from left wing crosses, the first a header and the second a volley, completed the scoring. No arguing with any of that, and to add insult to injury, Sturminster Marshall also cannoned one off the bar deep in added time.
23/10/21: Tribute Somerset 3 South
Wincanton RFC vs Midsomer Norton III – aborted!
No admission charge, attendance 32
Dorset Senior League
Wincanton Town Reserves 1 Sturminster Marshall 6Nobody charging admission at the hole in the hedge
Refreshments: CANDYFLOSS!
From the funfair!* £2 for a bag, carried triumphantly home to Mrs O, and we gobbled it. Gawd knows what the calorie count / sugar content was …… and with an accompanying £7.50 cod ‘n chips from Mr Lee, it was just like an end-of-the-day seaside Summer holiday feast!
Attendance: 51
* No, the bird did not have a go on the scary Wurlitzer ride, or the dodgems …..
…… any self-respecting feline would have got the message by now, but this one hasn’t and the feud, I fear, is set to run and run ….
