Blast from the Past
It’s six-fifteen and it’s pretty clear the groundsman’s having Saturday morning off. Yesterday he ran out of ink while listing his various debilitating ailments, most of which he copied down from Volume Two of his prized literary possession, ‘Medical Conditions of the Middle Ages’. Being a man of both order and habit it’s an alphabetical trawl, so next week looks decidedly dodgy as Bubonic Plague’s next up on page 32.
Father Beaumont and Father Curtis, a nom de guerre that makes them sound like a pair of Buddhist monks but without the waistlines, are right on cue though and the stadium begins to rise like a phoenix from the sward. The Chef’s about, waiting to practise his Bruce Forsyth (‘Nice to see you, to see you, nice’) routine on anyone who’s prepared to listen, but after a quick scan of the ground and immediate neighbourhood, puts the idea on the back burner until the groundsman decides to show his face again.
Job done and Father Beaumont, who’s recently applied to the Board of Agriculture for Class One Vegan Status, tucks into a semi-healthy (it’s all relative) fried egg roll; Father Curtis on the other hand beats a swift retreat as he realises the thing’s likely to explode on impact, which is exactly what happens. Thankfully though, FB’s moved to the outer edge of the patio in plenty of time and only the decorative log is in receipt of the yolk-ridden fallout.
With just a single game taking place today, there’s a limited gathering at GL2 which, after circumnavigating the library twice and clicking in the early morning dog walkers who’re wandering the adjacent streets, JK announces as totalling a nice round sixty. At exactly the same moment, there’s a noticeable stir in the home changing room as Croose clocks in exactly three minutes and twenty one seconds before the designated meet time, an occurrence that will no doubt become synonymous with day seven on future years’ advent calendars.
In attendance today are ex-players Sam Carter & Niall Wellington (both 2004/05) and Ollie Long (2010/11), who are representing Carter’s Builders. The company, which has been very supportive of GPSFA over the years, now has eight former players in its employ and has bought a commemorative brick for each of them in aid of our pavilion roof appeal. As such, Sam has arrived with a state-of-the-art presentation cheque which, sizewise, isn’t far shy of one of our pitchside advertising boards and the team gathers round for a pre-match publicity photo in front of the pavilion.
Joining them is former Gloucester MP Parmjit Dhanda, who now lives in upmarket Amersham and whose son, Max, is leading the line in this morning’s encounter versus both Chiltern & South Bucks. Parmjit put in a lot of work publicising Gloucester City FC’s plight after the floods of 2007 rendered them homeless and he is one of a very pleasant group of visiting parents who The Lens has taken a particular shine to, having spent three hours post-midnight googling ‘House Prices in South Buckinghamshire’ and realising there’s a sale or three to be had on this early December morning.
The game gets underway at a minute after ten and there’s not much in it in the opening quarter, though the hosts are indebted to JC for a terrific goalline clearance when it looked for all the world as if Chiltern would take a twelfth-minute lead. As these things often turn out to be, it’s the turning point of the contest as six minutes later, JC and Hine combine to give Croose a shooting opportunity and a potential 0-1’s become an actual 1-0. JC and Croose soon work an opening for Bennett to double the homesters’ advantage and the same player makes it three on the stroke of half time, Milton and Croose providing the spadework on this occasion.
No-one, apart from Hine that is, seems to notice that the weekly helping of Tesco’s jelly babies has been replaced by a selection of Sainsbury’s fruit jellies, meaning there are no heads to bite off in that moment of unmitigated aggression that make half time breaks the fun that they are.
It may also be part of the reason why Chiltern now seem to have the upper hand as the second period gets underway and Beaumont, Brockbank, Simpson and Curtis are called into action on far more occasions than they were in part one. Ansermoz is in action too, with a couple of smart saves as the visitors turn up the heat in their search for a way back.
Another blast from the past, ex-Chiltern manager Paul Sutton is also here, and he’s trying his hardest to blow the ball into the Gloucester net from his position behind the visiting dugout. The last of PS’s quarter of a century of away matches in charge of C&SB was here at GL2 in April 2011 and afterwards we presented him with a book about Millwall FC, which has served as an extremely effective door-stop ever since. Paul’s visiting Slimbridge this afternoon before journeying off to Antarctica for a while, which is quite apt as the founder of the wildfowl trust, Sir Peter Scott, was the son of Captain (Robert Falcon) Scott who famously became the first Briton to reach the South Pole a while back in March 1912. While this was an amazing achievement in itself, it ultimately turned out that he was five weeks too late, which may have contributed somewhat to his untimely demise on the Ross Ice Shelf not long afterwards. Croose, take note.
Errington pulls a goal back for Chiltern following a particularly strong exhalation of breath from the current-day polar explorer and they almost grab a second, Jenkins denied by another fine save from the in-form Ansermoz. Colonel Stavrou emits a proud smile from beneath his Guns of Navarone hat as if to say, ‘He got it from me,’ but everyone knows this isn’t true. At the other end, Ali and Bevan go close to extending the city team’s lead, but it’s the visitors who are in the ascendancy for most of the second period without quite being able to restore parity to proceedings. In the end though, without really being on top apart from during the second quarter when we rattled in three without reply, the team dug in and eked out a very pleasing win despite not reaching anywhere near the levels of the previous week.
The Chef’s suffering from a touch of PTSD due to the players talking too much in the contented inner sanctum and as such being late for their post-match frites and fruit, though not many of them eat the fruit. As usual, the nice ones come in first – Beaumont, Bevan, Hine and Milton, who’s been doing a pretty good impression recently of a born-again something-or-other, meaning he’s joined the front of the queue, even though just over a month ago in the Isle of Wight, he was one of the stragglers hovering around the rear end. Croose however, remains last, though at least he’s got his tie on today, even though his left trouser leg is tucked into the top of his right sock. Clearly the ferrets in Sissons Road are beasts not to be messed with.
Mother Simpson and Mother Bennett are on Eating Room serving duty; Mother Simpson’s wearing her bottle green jackboots while serving the chips and Mother Bennett’s modelling her once-woolly ankle huggers while dishing out the nuggets. Mother Beaumont, the other jackbooted member of this season’s yellow & black entourage is ‘doing a groundsman’ and as such is elsewhere this morning, though her absence is probably due more to the stress levels caused by last week’s blog assertions than any semblance of internal malfunctioning.
It’s two o’clock and the floors are swept, the chairs are stacked and the changing rooms’ fumigated with a mixture of fresh air and elbow grease. The kitchen’s been cleaned, the rubbish binned and the toilets polished to a point where you can glimpse your reflection in things that you really wouldn’t want to glimpse your reflection in.
You know it’s been a good day for The Photographer as he offers to buy the Chairman and Secretary lunch, as long as we choose from the £4.99 menu and refrain from enquiring about any ‘sides’ that have a price tag attached. It would be the perfect ending to the first blog of December if this sudden act of benevolence were a blast from the past, but the Chairman’s convinced it’s never happened before. And he’s prone to remembering these things.
But maybe it’s a sign of things to come. The idea appears instantaneously to two of the three people sitting around the dining table and an imperceptible nod silently passes across the unused cutlery. The solution is crystal clear. The games against Sutton, Swansea, Bath and Plymouth will be waived and a call to an 01494 number made. And when all that’s done, we’ll organise a match against both Chiltern and South Bucks. Every week.
Gloucester A: Stavrou Junior; Croatia Testudine, Pink Alert, JC; Milton, Bevan, Bennett, William I; Croose; Brockbank, Hangman.
Father Beaumont and Father Curtis, a nom de guerre that makes them sound like a pair of Buddhist monks but without the waistlines, are right on cue though and the stadium begins to rise like a phoenix from the sward. The Chef’s about, waiting to practise his Bruce Forsyth (‘Nice to see you, to see you, nice’) routine on anyone who’s prepared to listen, but after a quick scan of the ground and immediate neighbourhood, puts the idea on the back burner until the groundsman decides to show his face again.
Job done and Father Beaumont, who’s recently applied to the Board of Agriculture for Class One Vegan Status, tucks into a semi-healthy (it’s all relative) fried egg roll; Father Curtis on the other hand beats a swift retreat as he realises the thing’s likely to explode on impact, which is exactly what happens. Thankfully though, FB’s moved to the outer edge of the patio in plenty of time and only the decorative log is in receipt of the yolk-ridden fallout.
With just a single game taking place today, there’s a limited gathering at GL2 which, after circumnavigating the library twice and clicking in the early morning dog walkers who’re wandering the adjacent streets, JK announces as totalling a nice round sixty. At exactly the same moment, there’s a noticeable stir in the home changing room as Croose clocks in exactly three minutes and twenty one seconds before the designated meet time, an occurrence that will no doubt become synonymous with day seven on future years’ advent calendars.
In attendance today are ex-players Sam Carter & Niall Wellington (both 2004/05) and Ollie Long (2010/11), who are representing Carter’s Builders. The company, which has been very supportive of GPSFA over the years, now has eight former players in its employ and has bought a commemorative brick for each of them in aid of our pavilion roof appeal. As such, Sam has arrived with a state-of-the-art presentation cheque which, sizewise, isn’t far shy of one of our pitchside advertising boards and the team gathers round for a pre-match publicity photo in front of the pavilion.
Joining them is former Gloucester MP Parmjit Dhanda, who now lives in upmarket Amersham and whose son, Max, is leading the line in this morning’s encounter versus both Chiltern & South Bucks. Parmjit put in a lot of work publicising Gloucester City FC’s plight after the floods of 2007 rendered them homeless and he is one of a very pleasant group of visiting parents who The Lens has taken a particular shine to, having spent three hours post-midnight googling ‘House Prices in South Buckinghamshire’ and realising there’s a sale or three to be had on this early December morning.
The game gets underway at a minute after ten and there’s not much in it in the opening quarter, though the hosts are indebted to JC for a terrific goalline clearance when it looked for all the world as if Chiltern would take a twelfth-minute lead. As these things often turn out to be, it’s the turning point of the contest as six minutes later, JC and Hine combine to give Croose a shooting opportunity and a potential 0-1’s become an actual 1-0. JC and Croose soon work an opening for Bennett to double the homesters’ advantage and the same player makes it three on the stroke of half time, Milton and Croose providing the spadework on this occasion.
No-one, apart from Hine that is, seems to notice that the weekly helping of Tesco’s jelly babies has been replaced by a selection of Sainsbury’s fruit jellies, meaning there are no heads to bite off in that moment of unmitigated aggression that make half time breaks the fun that they are.
It may also be part of the reason why Chiltern now seem to have the upper hand as the second period gets underway and Beaumont, Brockbank, Simpson and Curtis are called into action on far more occasions than they were in part one. Ansermoz is in action too, with a couple of smart saves as the visitors turn up the heat in their search for a way back.
Another blast from the past, ex-Chiltern manager Paul Sutton is also here, and he’s trying his hardest to blow the ball into the Gloucester net from his position behind the visiting dugout. The last of PS’s quarter of a century of away matches in charge of C&SB was here at GL2 in April 2011 and afterwards we presented him with a book about Millwall FC, which has served as an extremely effective door-stop ever since. Paul’s visiting Slimbridge this afternoon before journeying off to Antarctica for a while, which is quite apt as the founder of the wildfowl trust, Sir Peter Scott, was the son of Captain (Robert Falcon) Scott who famously became the first Briton to reach the South Pole a while back in March 1912. While this was an amazing achievement in itself, it ultimately turned out that he was five weeks too late, which may have contributed somewhat to his untimely demise on the Ross Ice Shelf not long afterwards. Croose, take note.
Errington pulls a goal back for Chiltern following a particularly strong exhalation of breath from the current-day polar explorer and they almost grab a second, Jenkins denied by another fine save from the in-form Ansermoz. Colonel Stavrou emits a proud smile from beneath his Guns of Navarone hat as if to say, ‘He got it from me,’ but everyone knows this isn’t true. At the other end, Ali and Bevan go close to extending the city team’s lead, but it’s the visitors who are in the ascendancy for most of the second period without quite being able to restore parity to proceedings. In the end though, without really being on top apart from during the second quarter when we rattled in three without reply, the team dug in and eked out a very pleasing win despite not reaching anywhere near the levels of the previous week.
The Chef’s suffering from a touch of PTSD due to the players talking too much in the contented inner sanctum and as such being late for their post-match frites and fruit, though not many of them eat the fruit. As usual, the nice ones come in first – Beaumont, Bevan, Hine and Milton, who’s been doing a pretty good impression recently of a born-again something-or-other, meaning he’s joined the front of the queue, even though just over a month ago in the Isle of Wight, he was one of the stragglers hovering around the rear end. Croose however, remains last, though at least he’s got his tie on today, even though his left trouser leg is tucked into the top of his right sock. Clearly the ferrets in Sissons Road are beasts not to be messed with.
Mother Simpson and Mother Bennett are on Eating Room serving duty; Mother Simpson’s wearing her bottle green jackboots while serving the chips and Mother Bennett’s modelling her once-woolly ankle huggers while dishing out the nuggets. Mother Beaumont, the other jackbooted member of this season’s yellow & black entourage is ‘doing a groundsman’ and as such is elsewhere this morning, though her absence is probably due more to the stress levels caused by last week’s blog assertions than any semblance of internal malfunctioning.
It’s two o’clock and the floors are swept, the chairs are stacked and the changing rooms’ fumigated with a mixture of fresh air and elbow grease. The kitchen’s been cleaned, the rubbish binned and the toilets polished to a point where you can glimpse your reflection in things that you really wouldn’t want to glimpse your reflection in.
You know it’s been a good day for The Photographer as he offers to buy the Chairman and Secretary lunch, as long as we choose from the £4.99 menu and refrain from enquiring about any ‘sides’ that have a price tag attached. It would be the perfect ending to the first blog of December if this sudden act of benevolence were a blast from the past, but the Chairman’s convinced it’s never happened before. And he’s prone to remembering these things.
But maybe it’s a sign of things to come. The idea appears instantaneously to two of the three people sitting around the dining table and an imperceptible nod silently passes across the unused cutlery. The solution is crystal clear. The games against Sutton, Swansea, Bath and Plymouth will be waived and a call to an 01494 number made. And when all that’s done, we’ll organise a match against both Chiltern and South Bucks. Every week.
Gloucester A: Stavrou Junior; Croatia Testudine, Pink Alert, JC; Milton, Bevan, Bennett, William I; Croose; Brockbank, Hangman.
