Monday, and a trip out to the garden centre, as Mrs O fancies some aubrietia plants …..
“How many shall we get?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, “how many do you want?”
“What about half a dozen?”
“I was thinking four …” (I’d seen the price
)
“I was thinking six.”
“Let’s compromise and say five!”
“That’s just plain silly!
Well, we’ll have it your way and say four.”
“OK, so, you go and choose which variety you want,” I responded.
“I fancy the purple. Or should it be the blue. What would you choose?”
“Well, it’s your choice, you know, have whatever you like.”
“
You choose.”
“I’m not flippin’ choosing, they’re your aubrietia. I’d only get it wrong.”
“Don’t be like that. I’ll choose two and you choose two.”
“OK, if you insist,” I said, dubiously.
“Right,” says Mrs O, “I’ll choose two purple ones!”
“OK,” says I, “I’ll choose two of that variegated leaf variety, then.”
Dead silence. Then:
“Perrrrsonally … I wouldn’t have chosen
those …”
Saturday, and the Ostrich’s second only visit to Castle Cary Cricket Club, which is also the home of the town’s soccer team. The ground is situated off Catherine’s Close behind the town centre; by car, though, it’s best approached from the traffic lights on the A371 in neighbouring Ansford, because driving through the narrow town streets in Cary can be a nightmare, especially if you’re caught behind a bus or a lorry. There is a one-way system round the town, but on-street parking still makes for congestion.
There’s adequate parking inside the Cricket Club’s grounds, mainly on grass, and there’s also a free public car park just beyond the cricket club entrance. Somerset do seem to encourage local communities to offer free parking (which is funded by the town centre businesses) and that does make shopping there more attractive. Dorset Council, in contrast, are hiking up all their parking charges from the 1st April in order to rook any holidaymakers venturing down to the Jurassic Coast.
From that Catherine’s Close car park, there’s a nifty footpath down to the town which brings you out on Bailey Hill and the main shopping street – a decent chippie is located at the bottom end of the latter, but I’m still in crash diet mode, so no visit today
. There is also an excellent independent bookshop to browse around, and I picked up a couple of paperbacks.
Back to the ground, and the football pitch is the other side of the cricket square from the smallish Sports Pavilion / changing rooms building, which supports on its front what I assumed is a cricket scoreboard - but it was firmly roller-shuttered closed, presumably against vandalism. The soccer pitch is roped on all 4 sides, with a footpath linking Cary and Ansford running immediately down one side behind the dugouts; this is the only hard-standing available and is constantly busy with passing shoppers, dog walkers, kids on bikes, etc., so any attendance figures need to be taken with a pinch of salt!
The pitch has a noticeable slope from the half-way line down to far goal; it is definitely a pitch of two halves
. The elevated location gives long-distance views across to Glastonbury Tor and the Mendip Hills TV transmitter.
Today’s visitors, Ashton & Backwell United Ressies, hail from Backwell, a large village / small town situated between Weston-super-Mare and Bristol Airport. Their first team are Big Cheeses; they play in the Western League Premier
.
This game pitted 1st vs 3rd in the table, and in consequence, with much to play for, it turned out to be a pretty scrappy affair
. Not much skill on display, and rather too much hoof-ball throughout, not helped by a strong cross-wind and a bobbly, uneven surface. Cary, going downhill, spurned a glorious chance in the first minute when a player, through the defence and 1 on 1 with the goalie, to the horror of the home bench elected to pass the ball sideways to a totally non-existent teammate!
After that initial glip, the Ashton defence set about man-marking the Cary front line out of the game, with a fair bit of success, whilst at the other end, Ashton’s goal attempts were invariably high, wide, or both. Just when it looked like being a goalless first half, C.11 by sheer persistence got round the back of the Ashton defence and hammered the ball across the goalmouth and C.10 was able to ram it home. 1-0 at the interval.
Cary then threw away their advantage. On 61m, their keeper and a couple of defenders started tiddling around with the ball in the penalty area, got themselves under pressure, and finally cleared the ball upfield with no real conviction and only as far as A.11 - who promptly lobbed the keeper from 25 yards
. The game then got increasingly ill-tempered
and the tackling, which had always been a bit tasty, much wilder, culminating just before the end in mass handbags with a home player receiving a deserved straight red for the foul that sparked off the melee.
Let’s just say not the best of games today …..
19/03/22 – Uhlsport Somerset County League Division 2 (Step 9)
Castle Cary 1 Ashton & Backwell United Reserves 1Admission: free
Refreshments: a small bar was open in the Sports Pavilion, but there was no evidence of food or hot drinks available. So, as mentioned, I wandered down into the town and from the Co-Op bought a British Chicken and Duck Sushi Selection with soy sauce in one of those dinky little fish-shaped squeezy for £3 (250 kcals)
. T’was alright if you like that sort of thing, I guess ….
Attendance: 17 initiall,y but another 15 turned up halfway through the first half – this was the Cary Reserves team, their Yeovil & District League game having been abandoned for reasons not known.
by JoM » 13 Mar 2022, 19:35 
