No pie n chips?!
FAO Ossie
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• Page 1 of 1
Re: FAO Ossie
by TheOstrich » 23 Oct 2016, 01:16
Ha! See post in the main forum .....
Anyway, here's reports on October's games up to last weekend (as recorded for my archives):
02/10 – in 1016, according to the advertising blurb, King Alfred the Great roundly defeated a Viking horde at the Battle of Slaughtergate; not a bad feat considering he actually died in 899, but let us not let a little historical inaccuracy get in the way of (a) a hog roast (b) fund-raising and (c) the opportunity for a knees-up at the local rugby club. In any event, the battle, according to the curator of the Gillingham Town Museum, who had a small archaeological exhibition on display in the clubhouse, was not on the rugby fields, but was at Penselwood, around 5 miles to the north-west!
We were supposed to have had a Viking Skirmish Re-enactment at noon, but the Sealed Knot Society had let them down, according to the Club President to whom Mrs.O had a long chat. “The whole thing’s been a nightmare,” he opined, “I wish they’d have quietly ditched it but the Committee insisted …..” The replacement re-enactment consisted of a mock game of rugby between two teams of 8 year olds who were daubed with red paint by an adult, intended to represent wounds, and who promptly fell down and “died” at regular intervals during the second period …..
However, the showpiece, kicking off at 2:00, was a match between North Dorset RFC’s Colts and a visiting team of U17 year-olds from Copenhagen, here on an exchange visit. Both North Dorset and their visitors fielded well-drilled teams, and the standard of play was pretty good – open running rugby, and some neat passing moves strung together. The Danes had performed their version of a haka prior to the start (involving donning Viking Helmets and noisily advancing in an intimidating skirmish line towards their opponents to the beat of a sword on a Danish shield), and indeed they opened the scoring, but North Dorset quickly pegged them back and led 22-7 at the end of the regulation (for colts’ matches) 35 minute first half. By 53m, they were 39-7 up, at which point the referee and captains agreed to limit the second half to 5 minutes’ further play. The Danes scored two tries in this closing period, and nobody begrudged them that, as their plucky performance merited it despite the defeat. Not a bad afternoon’s entertainment – I’ve seen worse games at senior level!
Friendly: North Dorset RFC U17 39 Rugbyklubben Speed U17 19
Free admission, no programme, over-cooked venison burger £2.50, attendance 154.
04/10 – probably the first time I have eaten a half-time pasty whilst sitting on a haybale! Two porous defences tonight resulted in a bit of a goal fiesta and an always watchable game. Gillingham looked relieved to have won, despite (or probably in view of) my presence!
Western League Premier (Step 5): Gillingham Town 4 Cribbs FC 3 (a Bristol-based club)
Attendance: originally counted at 84 but then realised I had to deduct 21 as I’d inadvertently included the members and followers of the two teams of skittlers in the bowling alley in the clubhouse bar ….
08/10 – an action-packed day that started with morning flu-jabs and concluded with the town Carnival procession – although Gillingham’s event is on the Wessex Circuit and therefore “Division 2” stuff, some pretty impressive floats worthy of the “Premier” Bridgwater Carnival Circuit did attend … triple-trailer efforts which nearly quashed us as we were on the corner at the bottom of town where they had to take a sharp left-hand turn, and sound systems that vibrated most bones in the body. For the afternoon’s entertainment, I decided on visiting one of the more peculiarly-named local rugby sides which had caught my eye when, back in the Birmingham days, I had internet and could research grounds.
I remember Google Maps had placed their orange marker for this one firmly on a mud-bank next to the River Nadder, a good half-mile from the nearest road, which had seemed a highly improbable venue at the time, so I had browsed the internet further and concluded that the team played somewhere at the rear of the Salisbury Cattle Market on the A3094 between Netherhampton and West Harnham, and I actually had a fair inkling how to get there, as when I was working down here 20 years or so ago, we used to have training days at Salisbury Race Course, a mere spit away. So, off to Shaftesbury to access the A30 for a leisurely run across country, which was where the trouble started, with huge tailbacks due to traffic-light protected roadworks. A quick deviation over Cranborne Chase brought me back out onto a strangely deserted A30 a number of miles further east, so I leisurely pootled along an empty, winding road at 35-40 mph enjoying the scenery, only to suddenly realise, glancing in my wing mirrors, that I’d suddenly acquired an angry “snake” of about 50 cars behind me that had made it through the road-works! At which point, I thought I’d better hit the gas and travel at line speed …..
Finding the Cattle Market proved easy, although having got there, the place was deserted and there was no visible sign of any rugby pitches. I wandered round the campus without any illumination, then drove back to the nearby Wyevale Garden Centre, parked and investigated a track running up the side of it which yielded no further clues. The checkout operator in the garden centre allowed there was a rugby club nearby and believed the Cattle Market was the key, so I drove back there and this time pursued two cars around the main building, both of which promptly disappeared through a gap in a hedge at the rear of the site. I followed and found a small car park and a cunningly disguised changing room block – no other facilities. On enquiring where the pitch was, I was pointed up a steep incline where the tops of a pair of rugby posts were just visible if you knew where to look!
To kill some time, I walked back to the garden centre to buy some food, just in time to see a U-Drive minibus disappear up the afore-mentioned track! When I got there, I spotted it was conducting a 7-point turn half way up it, so I waited at the bottom and when it eventually descended, a window was wound down with the plaintive enquiry “Do you know where the rugby pitch is?” It was the opposition team! “Yes, so happens I do!” laughed Ossie
….
The pitch was indeed on a small plateau about 50 feet above the clubhouse, with sheer drops on three sides of it, including the two goal-lines … the descents actually started as soon as you passed the try-line, so if you decided to touch down at the back end of the in-goal areas, you could actually ground the ball about 10 feet lower than the base of the posts – most peculiar!! But the upside was that there was a stunning panoramic vista across to Salisbury, with the single spire of the cathedral in the mid-distance and light aircraft visibly descending into Old Sarum Airfield, up by the football ground north of the city. A beautiful location on a pleasant sunny day.
I asked one of home team players about the origin of the Wheatsheaf Cabin Crew RFC name. “It’s after the bar in the pub where we were founded,” he said, and gave me a set of incomprehensible directions to it, although I suspect they hailed from nearby Wilton. The opposition, Oakmedians 2nds, were from Bournemouth and might have had some connection with the University there. Fitter, younger and more mobile, they were comfortably 7-19 up at the interval, but the second half proved an unexpected revelation as Wheatsheaf bludgeoned over for 5 unanswered tries and ran out comfortable winners, to keep pace with the league leaders in their division.
Dorset & Wilts 2 South (Level 9): Wheatsheaf Cabin Crew RFC 34 Oakmedians RFC II 19
No admission or programme, attendance 28, jar of Farmhouse Pickle from garden centre £3.19.
15/10 – another Plan B match, this time due to the weather. This was a Cup weekend for local teams in both soccer and rugby, and neither of the previous Sunday’s sports newspapers printed any fixtures, so I was somewhat reliant on Friday’s local “Western Gazette” which can also be a bit hit or miss in this respect. Nevertheless. Plan A was Westland Sports, but one look at the looming storm clouds on the western horizon as I breasted the hill on the A303 by Yeovilton sent me scurrying further onwards to Chard Town where I knew I’d get shelter; Westlands is merely a railed pitch with no cover. The rain started at 2:45, and it bucketed down for around an hour.
Chard Town’s Zembard Lane ground has a certain notoriety as a sloping pitch; indeed, the Western League had been muttering last season about throwing them out due to the slope failing ground grading considerations, but I gather they made some attempt at raising the bottom end, and the "goal to goal" descent is now only 12 feet. There is a general air of decrepitude about the place and the Ostrich, with much fluttering, had to rapidly relocate itself whilst enjoying a drink inside the clubhouse after two officials investigating a suspected guttering leak contrived to dislodge two ceiling tiles and a strut virtually over the bird's head! The covered seating area outside the bar hosts just 50 and had certainly seen better days.
Now it’s always been a claim to fame of mine that I’ve only ever seen one live penalty shoot-out (at Eccleshall last season), and I was thwarted again today – Welton went downhill in the first half, looked the better side, yet conceded a 41m goal which I thought went directly in from a 35 yard free-kick, but apparently McGuinn got the faintest of headed touches. Welton then equalised from the spot on 55m, and there matters remained until literally the final moment of extra time when Chard’s Caball drove the ball home from 15 yards and an acute angle. The referee allowed the restart - and promptly blew for the end of the match!
Les Phillips Cup (Western League version): Chard Town 2 Welton Rovers 1 (aet)
Admission £3, 24pp programme (rather a lot of adverts) £1, attendance 64, cuppa tea inna mug £1.
Anyway, here's reports on October's games up to last weekend (as recorded for my archives):
02/10 – in 1016, according to the advertising blurb, King Alfred the Great roundly defeated a Viking horde at the Battle of Slaughtergate; not a bad feat considering he actually died in 899, but let us not let a little historical inaccuracy get in the way of (a) a hog roast (b) fund-raising and (c) the opportunity for a knees-up at the local rugby club. In any event, the battle, according to the curator of the Gillingham Town Museum, who had a small archaeological exhibition on display in the clubhouse, was not on the rugby fields, but was at Penselwood, around 5 miles to the north-west!
We were supposed to have had a Viking Skirmish Re-enactment at noon, but the Sealed Knot Society had let them down, according to the Club President to whom Mrs.O had a long chat. “The whole thing’s been a nightmare,” he opined, “I wish they’d have quietly ditched it but the Committee insisted …..” The replacement re-enactment consisted of a mock game of rugby between two teams of 8 year olds who were daubed with red paint by an adult, intended to represent wounds, and who promptly fell down and “died” at regular intervals during the second period …..
However, the showpiece, kicking off at 2:00, was a match between North Dorset RFC’s Colts and a visiting team of U17 year-olds from Copenhagen, here on an exchange visit. Both North Dorset and their visitors fielded well-drilled teams, and the standard of play was pretty good – open running rugby, and some neat passing moves strung together. The Danes had performed their version of a haka prior to the start (involving donning Viking Helmets and noisily advancing in an intimidating skirmish line towards their opponents to the beat of a sword on a Danish shield), and indeed they opened the scoring, but North Dorset quickly pegged them back and led 22-7 at the end of the regulation (for colts’ matches) 35 minute first half. By 53m, they were 39-7 up, at which point the referee and captains agreed to limit the second half to 5 minutes’ further play. The Danes scored two tries in this closing period, and nobody begrudged them that, as their plucky performance merited it despite the defeat. Not a bad afternoon’s entertainment – I’ve seen worse games at senior level!
Friendly: North Dorset RFC U17 39 Rugbyklubben Speed U17 19
Free admission, no programme, over-cooked venison burger £2.50, attendance 154.
04/10 – probably the first time I have eaten a half-time pasty whilst sitting on a haybale! Two porous defences tonight resulted in a bit of a goal fiesta and an always watchable game. Gillingham looked relieved to have won, despite (or probably in view of) my presence!
Western League Premier (Step 5): Gillingham Town 4 Cribbs FC 3 (a Bristol-based club)
Attendance: originally counted at 84 but then realised I had to deduct 21 as I’d inadvertently included the members and followers of the two teams of skittlers in the bowling alley in the clubhouse bar ….
08/10 – an action-packed day that started with morning flu-jabs and concluded with the town Carnival procession – although Gillingham’s event is on the Wessex Circuit and therefore “Division 2” stuff, some pretty impressive floats worthy of the “Premier” Bridgwater Carnival Circuit did attend … triple-trailer efforts which nearly quashed us as we were on the corner at the bottom of town where they had to take a sharp left-hand turn, and sound systems that vibrated most bones in the body. For the afternoon’s entertainment, I decided on visiting one of the more peculiarly-named local rugby sides which had caught my eye when, back in the Birmingham days, I had internet and could research grounds.
I remember Google Maps had placed their orange marker for this one firmly on a mud-bank next to the River Nadder, a good half-mile from the nearest road, which had seemed a highly improbable venue at the time, so I had browsed the internet further and concluded that the team played somewhere at the rear of the Salisbury Cattle Market on the A3094 between Netherhampton and West Harnham, and I actually had a fair inkling how to get there, as when I was working down here 20 years or so ago, we used to have training days at Salisbury Race Course, a mere spit away. So, off to Shaftesbury to access the A30 for a leisurely run across country, which was where the trouble started, with huge tailbacks due to traffic-light protected roadworks. A quick deviation over Cranborne Chase brought me back out onto a strangely deserted A30 a number of miles further east, so I leisurely pootled along an empty, winding road at 35-40 mph enjoying the scenery, only to suddenly realise, glancing in my wing mirrors, that I’d suddenly acquired an angry “snake” of about 50 cars behind me that had made it through the road-works! At which point, I thought I’d better hit the gas and travel at line speed …..
Finding the Cattle Market proved easy, although having got there, the place was deserted and there was no visible sign of any rugby pitches. I wandered round the campus without any illumination, then drove back to the nearby Wyevale Garden Centre, parked and investigated a track running up the side of it which yielded no further clues. The checkout operator in the garden centre allowed there was a rugby club nearby and believed the Cattle Market was the key, so I drove back there and this time pursued two cars around the main building, both of which promptly disappeared through a gap in a hedge at the rear of the site. I followed and found a small car park and a cunningly disguised changing room block – no other facilities. On enquiring where the pitch was, I was pointed up a steep incline where the tops of a pair of rugby posts were just visible if you knew where to look!
To kill some time, I walked back to the garden centre to buy some food, just in time to see a U-Drive minibus disappear up the afore-mentioned track! When I got there, I spotted it was conducting a 7-point turn half way up it, so I waited at the bottom and when it eventually descended, a window was wound down with the plaintive enquiry “Do you know where the rugby pitch is?” It was the opposition team! “Yes, so happens I do!” laughed Ossie
….The pitch was indeed on a small plateau about 50 feet above the clubhouse, with sheer drops on three sides of it, including the two goal-lines … the descents actually started as soon as you passed the try-line, so if you decided to touch down at the back end of the in-goal areas, you could actually ground the ball about 10 feet lower than the base of the posts – most peculiar!! But the upside was that there was a stunning panoramic vista across to Salisbury, with the single spire of the cathedral in the mid-distance and light aircraft visibly descending into Old Sarum Airfield, up by the football ground north of the city. A beautiful location on a pleasant sunny day.
I asked one of home team players about the origin of the Wheatsheaf Cabin Crew RFC name. “It’s after the bar in the pub where we were founded,” he said, and gave me a set of incomprehensible directions to it, although I suspect they hailed from nearby Wilton. The opposition, Oakmedians 2nds, were from Bournemouth and might have had some connection with the University there. Fitter, younger and more mobile, they were comfortably 7-19 up at the interval, but the second half proved an unexpected revelation as Wheatsheaf bludgeoned over for 5 unanswered tries and ran out comfortable winners, to keep pace with the league leaders in their division.
Dorset & Wilts 2 South (Level 9): Wheatsheaf Cabin Crew RFC 34 Oakmedians RFC II 19
No admission or programme, attendance 28, jar of Farmhouse Pickle from garden centre £3.19.
15/10 – another Plan B match, this time due to the weather. This was a Cup weekend for local teams in both soccer and rugby, and neither of the previous Sunday’s sports newspapers printed any fixtures, so I was somewhat reliant on Friday’s local “Western Gazette” which can also be a bit hit or miss in this respect. Nevertheless. Plan A was Westland Sports, but one look at the looming storm clouds on the western horizon as I breasted the hill on the A303 by Yeovilton sent me scurrying further onwards to Chard Town where I knew I’d get shelter; Westlands is merely a railed pitch with no cover. The rain started at 2:45, and it bucketed down for around an hour.
Chard Town’s Zembard Lane ground has a certain notoriety as a sloping pitch; indeed, the Western League had been muttering last season about throwing them out due to the slope failing ground grading considerations, but I gather they made some attempt at raising the bottom end, and the "goal to goal" descent is now only 12 feet. There is a general air of decrepitude about the place and the Ostrich, with much fluttering, had to rapidly relocate itself whilst enjoying a drink inside the clubhouse after two officials investigating a suspected guttering leak contrived to dislodge two ceiling tiles and a strut virtually over the bird's head! The covered seating area outside the bar hosts just 50 and had certainly seen better days.
Now it’s always been a claim to fame of mine that I’ve only ever seen one live penalty shoot-out (at Eccleshall last season), and I was thwarted again today – Welton went downhill in the first half, looked the better side, yet conceded a 41m goal which I thought went directly in from a 35 yard free-kick, but apparently McGuinn got the faintest of headed touches. Welton then equalised from the spot on 55m, and there matters remained until literally the final moment of extra time when Chard’s Caball drove the ball home from 15 yards and an acute angle. The referee allowed the restart - and promptly blew for the end of the match!
Les Phillips Cup (Western League version): Chard Town 2 Welton Rovers 1 (aet)
Admission £3, 24pp programme (rather a lot of adverts) £1, attendance 64, cuppa tea inna mug £1.
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TheOstrich - Posts: 7391
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