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A Vs Swindon 270419 - GPSFA
Saturday 11th May: SCSF: Gloucester A 2 Gloucester B 0. SCF: Portsmouth 4 Gloucester 1. 3rd/4th place: Wokingham 8 Gloucester B 2. Girls' SC Trophy: P1 D2 L2.    Saturday 18th May: Gloucester A v Wokingham (SCCSF; OCFC).    Saturday 25th May: Gloucester B v Greenwich (N).

Finals, Lasts & Milestones

Saturday

There’s an undercurrent of finality at the Home of Football. It’s the season’s final event at GL2 and Erdington & Saltley, Swindon and Cardiff have all been tempted to attend the upcoming jamboree by the distant aroma of The Chef’s sausage and chips and the promise of absolutely non loqui whatsoever from the direction of the pitchside kitchenette.

The Crack of Dawn Club are all in action by the crack of dawn, or they would have been if the clocks hadn’t gone back. Or forward. Or wherever. Father Vye is adamant that it’s shorts weather despite the threat of Storm Kevin hanging in the air, while Father Jones follows suit by modelling a pair of By-the-Poolers, a fashion item he first introduced to the world during a Prospective Coaches’ long weekend in Magaluf back in August. They weren’t the only things he introduced to the world during those fateful seventy two hours, but that’s a subject and a tale for a completely different resume. One that Mother Jones won’t read, at any rate.

Father Ted has surgically removed his dog collar in case one of Kevin’s larger gusts creeps underneath and sends it winging down to the roof of the local synagogue or similar, while Father Burgess has refused to remove his Duke of Wellingtons, even though the last home game was back on the 8th April.

The Groundsman’s in attendance, having spent most of Jersey week digesting the contents of ‘The Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine’, a 250-page tome he picked up from the Car Boot at the Cattle Market on the very same afternoon that MJ was admiring the medieval latrines at Mont Orgueil Castle. The ancient remedies have worked wonders with both his constitution and his demeanour; this morning’s bubbling concoction of Chamomile, Echinacea and Ginseng, topped off with more than the odd clove of garlic means that not only does he look and feel decidedly better, but also ensures that no-one comes within a thirty yard radius of his line marking machine.

Coach Bebber pops by en route to a local hospital appointment, the stated intention that it’s ‘to check on Coach Delaney’ being somewhat undermined when she’s spotted tucking in to a triple banger & egg bap in the far corner of the eating room. Coach Delaney himself is utterly distraught, as yesterday morning a ‘States of Jersey’ speeding notice dropped through his letter box and he became the first person in the island’s recent history to receive an injunction for driving too slowly. It’s a toss-up between a £300 fine and six penalty points or compulsory attendance at a Speed Awareness Course in St Helier town hall next Tuesday morning, a Hobson’s Choice which makes him consider that using a medieval latrine for a month and a half would be a far more palatable alternative than either of the possibilities on the correspondence’s rather posh headed notepaper.

Swindon coach Beale is the first visiting official to arrive, even though his team is playing last, the allure of one of The Chef’s breakfast specials and a chance to man the programme box for a full half hour being too good a joint prospect to turn down. He sells fifteen copies of the final matchday magazine and twenty three strips of raffle tickets, meaning he’ll shortly receive a letter from The Chairman offering him a permanent post for next season. And knowing The Chairman as we all do, it’ll probably be written on some rather posh headed notepaper.

Both Erdington & Saltley come through the big green gates together, Coach Delaney casting an envious sideways look as Coach Hynan saunters past sporting a chin growth that’s somewhere between a Vandyke and an Abraham Lincoln, but from whichever century it emanates, impressive it most certainly is.

WC’s the first home combatant to rock up, gelled to the eyeballs; Wasp’s in second place, black & yellow to the core. Mother May’s popped by, even though she’s in Monmouth, while Mother Brown hasn’t as he’s in Minehead. Coach Harris has arrived with a brand new pair of black & red boots which have nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that he’s playing in a cup final later this evening. He doesn’t know what cup it is or who his team beat to get this far, only that it’s at QWFC and his feet, if nothing else, are going to shine come 6.30 this evening.

Father Myatt wanders in, a deeply furrowed brow suggesting a touch of apprehension lurks in the air, while a John Wayne-style gait suggests that maybe it’s more than just a little angst that’s creasing his forehead. It is of course the last Saturday of April and tonight is his final opportunity for ultimate victory at the Red Lion knees-up & Fancy Dress Challenge before the Retro season closes down for its annual four-month Summer recess. It’s going to be a case of all or nothing and the understanding assemblage at the Home of Football wisely leave him to his individual thoughts and personal reverie. As everyone is acutely aware in situations such as this, it’s the hope that kills.

The Real Manager’s on her ‘Round Britain’ agility tour with the dog, which is a bit like Father Jones’s pre-season sojourn to Magaluf, but without any of the excessive bits. Hopefully. As such, Mother Daniels, shorn of most things yellow but still retaining an inner glow following her recent well-deserved success and subsequent adulation at the Jersey Merton Ultimate Extravaganza (JMUE), has replaced Swindon Coach Beale in the programme kiosk as the man from Wiltshire has popped indoors to sort his tactics board out. The closest we’ve ever got to a tactic was when we shared a carton of orange, green & white tictacs circa November 1995, but as The Chairman observed all those years ago, you’re better off doing it the wrong way around than not doing it at all.

The Yellows get matters underway with a very good 2-1 win over an Erdington side strong on individuality but limited in collectivity, while the Development register a win and the Girls a defeat against E & S and Cardiff respectively.

The BYs kick-off against a navy-blue clad Swindon and Captain Marvel thankfully rediscovers his navigational prowess by sending a 25-yard free kick unerringly to its intended destination after Obieri is upended midway through the first half, Burgess’s feet thankfully being far more directional than his pseudo-magnetic internal compass. Obieri strikes the base of the near post just before the interval, while Burgess extends the lead shortly after the break following a bit of a fumble by the Swindon keeper.

The goals apart though, there’s little to choose between the two sides on a day when wind and work rate are the real winners in a game that even the ever-optimistic Edson Arantes do Nascimento would struggle to associate with his forever ‘beautiful’ adjective. The Wiltshire side compete tenaciously throughout but Full English, Wasp and the excellent Ferrous remain steadfast in more ways than one, meaning High Definition in particular resembles a Cheshire Cat at the final whistle, having kept that much-coveted clean page.

For once however, it’s a case of ‘Never mind the quality, feel the width’ as the result has a number of notable milestones associated with it. The fixture is a double-headed Southern Counties / Cotswold League game, meaning the CL has been won outright and the SCL campaign completed with a hundred per cent record. To make it a triple success, all seventeen home games during 2018/19 have been won, the first time this has been achieved since El Supremo’s fastidious record-keeping began. Which is an awful long time ago. Attendances for the second season running have averaged three figures, a statistic which has seen the crowds at Longlevens over the course of the campaign numbering higher than all twenty clubs in the Hellenic Premier League. A big thank-you to everyone that has played a part in this honours board of successes, both on and off a pitch that is about to undergo its annual end-of-season makeover.

In the eating room, Vye gives thanks that global warming hasn’t yet properly kicked in and applies a bag of ice to a swollen foot for the second week running. High Definition sensibly refuses to eat any of The Chef’s ‘Premium’ pork sausages following Miss Bussey’s Friday afternoon Year 6 pep talk at Norton Centre of Excellence that included which bits of pig the things probably contain, whereas Myatt downs three without thinking as 2.53pm yesterday was the only bit of the day that he spent in class not listening. May the Force Be with You and Vespula Vulgaris have also been studying nutrition during Science Week at Queen’s and leave both chip-less and sausage-less in their up-to-now futile search for a healthier existence. Jones swaps health for stealth and sits ever so quietly at the end of the table, waiting patiently for The Chef to rustle up fifths. Iron Man and Slider dip into the fruit bowl, much to the disappointment of The Chairman, who’s been eyeing up the red & orange residue for a good quarter of an hour after emptying the flapjack tin.

The Photographer helps himself to a couple of bananas from the Swindon table as he begins his Saturday lunchtime lament, a high-pitched wailing sound that those who regularly frequent these parts are used to hearing whenever team snap sales are disappointingly low. He’d been so enthusiastic yesterday evening, the prospect of a four-game morning leading him to ask Sandra to sew an extra pair of synthetic reinforcers to the bottom of his already strengthened trouser pockets in anticipation of the upcoming expectant windfall. As it is, Swindon have been here before and unsurprisingly aren’t overly interested while Erdington have a fan base of six who’ve left as soon as the final whistle’s blown, meaning the only thing he manages to sell is a handful of Cardiff team photos and a picture of The Groundsman, which one of the grandparents has bought for a quid so he can nail it to a post in his allotment in a last-ditch attempt to scare the birds away.

Sunday

It’s the morning after the night before, and what a night it is/was. The great and the good are here and it’s clear to everyone involved that The Lion has precious little chance of getting very much sleep tonight. Mother and Father Freeman in their 50s bobbles, Mother May in her 60s Sherlock and Father Ted with his timeless dog collar and mock-Irish accent are all in attendance and feeling remarkably confident. Father Jones looks good for a placing in his 70s coaching gear, while Father Vye in his 80s navies and Father Burgess in his 90s wellies are looking, at the very least, at a Europa League-type finish. Mother and Father Daniels don the same garb that’s stood them in fine stead at every event they’ve entered since the turn of the year, but there’s less good news for Father Fieldhouse, who was desperate to see how far his 2019 military airport fatigues would take him. Kandahar Province is the answer, as the MOD turned down his last-minute application for a night out in Wainlode and returned him, economy class, to Afghan on the 18:30 eastbound shuttle bus.

The Photographer is here with his big red money making machine set up next to the juke box that will spend the entire evening playing a whole range of dreadful 60s numbers, while the Lens himself will shout himself hoarse in an attempt to advertise his latest ‘One for the price of three’ scam over the top of Roy Orbison’s ‘Pretty Woman’, who is not only walking down the street, but who is resonating around the place at a thousand decibels a second.

The Chairman has hot-footed it straight from Coach Harris’s red & black-booted final to the Red King of the Jungle and is immediately recognised as Henry VIII, while Andrew Bruce Forsyth Foran introduces himself to all and sundry with his default, ‘Nice to see you, to see you nice,’ greeting that no-one at all replies to. Sat on a high stool at the corner of the bar, wearing a melancholic expression and a sign saying ‘Job’s Comforter’ is The Groundsman, but nobody realises he’s entering the fancy dress challenge as everyone thinks he’s come as himself. Only Coach Delaney is missing from the invitation list. He left straight after the game this morning, so isn’t expected to arrive until around eleven thirty. On Monday.

And then, as the clock strikes twelve, the great moment arrives. James Haw - ‘Bridge ‘ to his friends, grabs third spot with his impression of Hannibal Lecter eating a piece of extremely fresh looking meat, while in second place, to everyone’s amazement, is Miss Bussey. She’s only popped by on the off-chance of a late ‘un and a touch of Saturday evening jollity. She’s come as ‘Archie’s Nice Teacher’, or ANT for short and is wearing a pair of round, oversized lens-less spectacle frames and a brown all-in-one number with ‘Worker’ emblazoned across the front. ‘Soooooo original,’ coo the panel of judges, ‘and soooooo clever.’ And then there’s the drum roll and the waiting and the anxiety and the anticipation and the stress and the hope and the fear and the tension and the smell of the barbecue and the sound of the river and the announcement that says yes, at last, after eight whole years of pain and false hope and disappointment and sixty four ‘Never, ever again Kate’ declarations, a beaming Father Myatt is standing in the centre of the stage, fists pumping, eyes watering, head raised triumphantly to the ceiling, his name blaring out of the publican’s rather antiquated quadraphonic speaker system, red, white & blue confetti littering the lapels of his brown faux-leather jacket that he’s now peeling off to the obvious horror and acute discomfort of Ms Emily from the Norton WI, to reveal the winning 1970s navy blue shell suit that he’d promised Kate he’d thrown out in October but hid instead beneath a six-pack of dark red interlocking roof tiles in the back corner of the outhouse, before receiving and holding aloft that elusive lamb shank, that bit of leg just below the knee that looks so ordinary but means so much, with the roar of the crowd and the applause of his family and the chortling of The Chef and Queen’s ‘I Am The Champion,’ screaming from the juke box that Tony Hickey abandoned some two and a half hours earlier, fused into a single cacophony of disbelief and thrill and jubilation and excitement and euphoria and utter, unadulterated joy.

Saturday 27th April – a day of milestones – a CL win, a 100% SCL record, a 100% home statistic and the amazing scenes at the Reddest of Lions, while it’s also been a day of ‘lasts’ – the last Crack of Dawn club, the last home game and ‘At Long Last’ for Father Robert ‘El Champiano’ Myatt. Coming soon - last stop Oxford. Twice.

Gloucester: High Definition; Full English, Ferrous Man, Vespula Vulgaris; WC, Slider, Captain Marvel, May the Force be with You; The Determinator; Lettuce.