Mad Birds and Cornishmen

[Kaz]

Loving the "cider wars" Ossie, they do take the old apple juice seriously in this part of the world

Wow, that business on the A30 must have been a bit hairy! Talk about an accident waiting to happen

[cromwell]

Great read Os. Bad luck with the oven but like you say worse things happen at sea.
Good on Mousehole! After 175 miles on the coach it would take me ten minutes to get off it, I'd have seized up.
That road sounds positively dangerous. Around here I think the standard of driving is just getting worse and worse.
Cornish cider? You live and learn.

[TheOstrich]

To the Garden Centre on Monday morning for Breakfast. The Ostrich always chooses the Full English, then sees the published calorie count - 1,179 - before reluctantly opting for the Light Breakfast (basically, one less of everything) which weighs in at only 582 . I guess the oft-derided publishing of these figures in a menu does have an effect, then . We then toured the Christmas toy area for some small items for the G/S. We have impressed on Master O that, hard as it may be, these gifts must be kept in his flat for the child to enjoy, and under no circumstances be allowed to fall into the hands of the Ex, who is a serial snaffler in this respect ; I needn’t spell out her motivation as the divorce proceedings (hopefully) near conclusion.

Then to Aldi next door where we had on the shopping list one of the week’s Special Buys - a Heated Lazy Susan for £39.99 . Basically, a hot plate for keeping food warm, which we thought we’d experiment with given that we are currently functioning with a small top oven only since the fan oven failed, and which won’t be repaired this side of Christmas.

What we wanted to do was have a dummy run at preparing a Christmas Meal with as many of the traditional trimmings as we could, just on the possibility that SiL might be invited over to dine with us if we find she’s on her own on Christmas Day. Nothing set in stone, yet, but we wanted to see what was feasible. Well, today was the day , and we prepared for lunchtime a chicken breast each, garnished with onion, with pigs in blankets and Paxo sage ‘n onion stuffing balls cooked in the oven, and brussels sprouts followed by a tub of carrot and swede mash heated up in the microwave. We added to this Colmans bread sauce, Quixso (you can tell it’s Aldi ) chicken gravy from granules, cranberry sauce and a packet of ready-to-eat sweet chestnuts. Of course, the challenge was keeping it all hot given our limited capacity and that’s where the Lazy Susan came in. Did it work? Yes, we think so, guardedly; the sprouts could have been hotter on serving, and of course we weren’t able to pre-warm the dinner plates . Anyway, a fine repast, and a replete Ostrich was last seen burping quietly to itself in the corner .

Now the winter’s here and earlier kick-offs are preferred, it’s time to pick up the slack on some of my local footie leagues, and where better to start than right at the bottom of the Dorset set-up . The choice today was a toss-up between this game and Okeford United, and the correct decision was inadvertently made as the latter fixture appears to have suffered a late postponement, reason unknown as social media in this region is very much at a premium when it comes to grassroots soccer . The Cherries’ newly-formed third team play at a pitch on the Sturminster Newton Recreation Ground, more renowned as the site of the town’s Annual Cheese Festival (not that we’ve ever attended as the produce is more than a tad pricey). If travelling south down Stur’s main street (the B3092), you turn hard right into Ricketts Lane just after the last narrow section of the town’s thoroughfare, and the Rec’s at the end of this road. (If you’re travelling north, don’t bother trying to turn left, it’s so tight you’ll never make it ).

There’s a car park at the Rec which should be quite adequate on a normal Saturday afternoon, but not today, as it was apparently the start of the town’s Christmas Festivities and the place was rammed . I secured the last parking bay around an hour before kick-off! I think people arriving later than I did finished up abandoning their vehicles on the Rec’s basketball court. It’s a pleasant, open location on a good day, with wide countryside views across the River Stour and the historic Sturminster Newton Mill to the gentle sloping hills beyond . Today was not a good day, however, as there was little respite from the blustery wind and rain squalls sweeping straight down the pitch from the off. The Rec has two soccer pitches with no pitchside furniture (apart from a couple of strategic park benches). A rather squat, utilitarian building behind the near goal hosts the changing rooms, and the only other buildings on site appear to house the town’s Maintenance Department. The main pitch gently slopes from side to side.

The game pitted Sturminster Newton’s third team, comprising mainly last year’s U16 squad being given their first taste of adult football (so I was told by the club's Youth Coach), bolstered by a couple of players from the reserves, against the league leaders. They started confidently, played a lot of thoughtful, attractive passing football, and looked lively up front.

Their keeper, however, must have studied at the Wayne Hennessey School of Goalkeeping , (thankfully without the degree in martial arts). When you’re in midfield, you’re being closed down and you haven’t got anywhere to go other than to pass back to your keeper, it’s a bit unnerving to find said custodian standing just a couple of yards behind you. It certainly added to the excitement!

Stur deservedly took the lead on 11m when their no.4 applied a close-range finish after the ball had been carefully worked through the opposition defence. Maiden Newton equalised on 25m, beating the offside trap and calmly finishing from around 15 yards. Their winner came just after the interval; I didn’t catch the build-up as I was trying to find somewhere relatively dry! Stur looked a bit more ragged in the second half, but had their chances to level the scores, the easiest by far being when a beautifully flighted free kick into the box landed in front of their on-rushing no.6, but he had the misfortunate to put it over the bar.

All a bit unseemly at the end when a touchline tackle resulted in a prolonged bout of handbags and the dismissal of a home player by the elderly referee, who hadn’t had to do much before the break, but appeared to yellow card a number of players during the second half. I had been aware that a couple of the younger home side players had limped back to the changing rooms having suffered some hard knocks late in the game. Generally though, it was a good game, and a credit to both teams given the conditions - but certainly not a classic.

26/11/22: Dorset League Division 5
Sturminster Newton United 3rds 1 Maiden Newton & Cattistock Reserves 2
No admission charge.
Refreshments: no spectator facilities at the ground, but it’s under 5 minutes’ walk from the shops. With time to kill, I wandered down to the town square to view the pop-up ice-skating rink (crowded!) and the various market stalls. The Rotary Club were offering cups of hot roasted chestnuts for free, and it would have been churlish to refuse . “Hot” was not perhaps the correct indicator; they were flippin’ incandescent having come straight off the brazier and the Ostrich spent the next quarter of an hour complaining pitifully about a burnt beak. I also popped into the local coffee shop cum delicatessen for a couple of large wedges of quiche - cheese, bacon and apple for the bird, and Blue Vinney and broccoli to take home for Mrs. O. £7.90 the pair, but lush!
Attendance: 22

[cromwell]

Sturminster Newton - sounds like a bent solicitor!
Great report Os. I feel a bit sorry for those young lads. Open age sport can be a big step up from the junior level; I'm not surprised some of them were kicked.

[Kaz]

Another entertaining read, Ossie Hope your beak is better now!

[TheOstrich]

Church attendance this morning and I’m pleased to see that the Namaste is being increasingly used as a replacement for a handshake in that rather peculiar CofE ritual known as the Peace. It seems a perfect way of greeting and showing respect in these post-Covid times, and I find I’m using it more and more these days. The young Chinese couple running the Ocean Fish Bar up by the Co-op always seem delighted when I thank them in this way, leading to much bowing and scraping as I reverse out through the chippy’s door, and even the highly-irascible Mr Lee, of blessed memory, used to raise an eyebrow and grunt an acknowledgement on the odd occasion I used to try it out in his emporium.

A busy day on Friday, firstly with the replacing of our existing 20yo electricity meter by Morrison Data as sub-contractors for E.on. It all went very smoothly and took around an hour from start to finish.

“According to my notes, you’ve got Solar Panels?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Well, I’ll have to turn that system off first before I disconnect the electricity. Where’s the Big Red Knob?”
“The Big Red Knob? I was told never to touch it!”
“Trust me, I know what I’m doing!”
So I let him loose in the garage where Mission Control is located. Thankfully, nothing exploded, and most of North Dorset still seems intact.

I asked him what the biggest problem he encountered was when fitting these new Smart Meters. It’s not the actual fitting, he told me; it’s getting connectivity between the in-home display (IHD) and the meter, and between the meter with wherever it sends the info, especially in a rural area like ours. However, our new meter seemed to connect first time on boot-up, so all was well.

The IHD is a bit weird, because (unlike earlier models) it has an internal rechargeable battery, and so came with a battery charger lead rather than a conventional lead and plug. Now according to the Book of Words, the battery only lasts for around 8 hours and it seems there’s no way that you can switch the IHD off, so it just functions till it runs out of juice. Yes, I could keep it connected and on-charge all the time, but I’m a bit wary about over-using any battery charger because they can over-heat etc., tha’ knows. So I’ve been charging it up in the morning and letting it run down during the rest of the day. To be honest, the IHD doesn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know or suspect anyway, so it’ll probably finish up abandoned in a drawer somewhere.

Now the question was previously posed: “would the Ostrich wear its Shaftesbury FC bobble-hat at games other than at Shaftesbury?” You know, the one that makes me look like a demented Santa Claus. Well, so far, I’ve worn it at every match! At Sherborne Town, the Mousehole fans looked very askance at me, and I could see them internally debating if they’d racked up to the wrong ground! At Sturminster Newton 3rds, nobody gave it a second glance as the Cherries play in red and white anyway, and yesterday, at the rugby, it got a few curious glances, but then 2/3rds of the spectators were wearing “Odd Balls” bobble hats anyway. These are sold for charity, to raise awareness of testicular cancer (I would have added “in men” but you’ve got to be very careful about making such a distinction these days). They are like gold-dust, and the only time I found them actually on sale (the Sherborne RFC version in their club shop), I was told I’d have to put my name down on a waiting list!
Here’s an example:
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(I gather from Googling it’s Market Harborough RFC!)

To Saturday, and I needed to stay local after we visited SiL to drop off Xmas presents for nephews and nieces in the morning, plus I wasn’t feeling too grand, possibly as a side-effect following the shingles jab on Friday afternoon surgery (recommended and freely available to over-70s, BTW), so a short journey out of town and up to Slaughtergate for the afternoon’s entertainment. I had been hoping to see the Buffaloes (North Dorset RFC’s 3rds) play Friday night but in the event their fixture was called off; luckily the Badgers (the 2nds) were at home Saturday afternoon to Warminster’s first team.

According to their weekly news round-up, the rugby club have an on-going problem with their water supply. They’re in the sticks, just outside the town boundary, and Wessex Water have been happily digging up the main road near the ground for some time. Anyway, until the tap water at the rugby club finally runs clear, they are relying on bottled water, and Wessex have delivered a huge mountain of plastic 4 litre bottles which, according to the media, could be found outside “the Rose Pavilion”. The Rose Pavilion?? Well, the mountain is situated right next to the huge, dark edifice that houses the equipment, mowers and tractors. An agricultural barn is an agricultural barn, not a Rose Pavilion!

Last year, both North Dorset’s 1sts and 2nds had winning seasons leading to promotions, and back in November 2021, I saw the Badgers demolish Warminster 2nds 119-0 - my current record aggregate score. But this year, whilst North Dorset’s 1sts have recovered from an initially sticky start to their season, the Badgers are having a more difficult time, currently a lowly 6th in a 9-team league, with Warminster in 3rd place.

The Badgers opened the scoring with a straightforward 12th minute penalty, but “The War” soon established superiority with two converted tries, the first following a couple of penetrating angled runs, and the second, on 26m, from a quickly taken penalty in their own half which led to a 40 yard gallop and a try under the posts. A great shame for the home team was that one of their talented teenagers, winger Dan Potts, bravely went in for a hard tackle and came out injured; he couldn’t continue. His replacement, Sam Cripps, is another talented youngster, but sometimes a bit too flamboyant for his own good. Anyway, North Dorset pulled at try back just before half-time to make the score 8-14.

Any hopes the Badgers had of getting back into the game dissipated when Warminster rattled in two further tries in the first 10 minutes of the second half. After that, the interest was in seeing if North Dorset could salvage a losing bonus point, and they did briefly raised hopes on 61m when Ollie Phipps barged over, but an incisive Warminster cross-field movement and try on 72m to make the score 15-29 effectively settled the game.

The Badgers didn’t give up, but had a head-in-the-hands moment when Phipps inadvertently handed the ball off to an opponent when just yards from the line, and that error led to another Warminster try. A Warminster forward was then yellow-carded for a third successive offence committed during a throw-in (“I warned you twice, you didn’t listen!”), and the home team’s Charlie Coleman finally got across the line with at least two of the away team defenders clinging on to him to make the score 22-36 - but that was literally the last play of the game.

A better match, in retrospect, than I had felt at the time, but today’s very cold, blustery easterly wind made spectating a bit of an ordeal. Home inside 5 minutes for a very welcome hot mug of tea!

03/12/22: Counties 2 Tribute Dorset & Wilts Central (Level 8)
North Dorset II RFC 22 Warminster RFC 36
Free admission.
Refreshments: Big Al’s Italian margherita pizza twist from the hatch - £3. I’ll try anything once. I must say, the catering here’s improved dramatically since Covid!
Attendance: 49

[cromwell]

Please tell me that the badgers play in black and white stripes!

The game sounds a good one Os, and with the weather the way it has been I can't fault you for not going far. Great read, as always.

[TheOstrich]

Please tell me that the badgers play in black and white stripes!

LOL, 'fraid not, Crommers, North Dorset's colours are green and black.

I don't have a definitive source for the two nicknames, but I think it's something to do with brands of beer which were brewed at the old Wyke Brewery complex here in Gillingham (now converted into residential units).
It was originally owned by Matthews and Co before being taken over by the much bigger brewers Hall & Woodhouse in the 1960's. Matthews & Co's trademark, according to old photos I've seen, was a buffalo. Hall & Woodhouse (now based in Blandford Forum) produce Badger Beers.

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https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... ajaxserp=0

[cromwell]

Ah, I've seen Badger beer on sale.

[TheOstrich]

A brief resume of the Ostrich’s sporting activities over the last couple of months, which have been very much hampered by the weather and family illness , although the bird itself has so far escaped the lurgy. Mind you, we know an awful lot of folk who have succumbed to the latest Covid variant in the last few weeks ……

From the start of December, as we all know, the weather turned particularly nasty and the cold snaps quickly led to frozen pitches and match cancellations. At the same time, SiL became very ill, initially with the flu bug, despite having had the jab, which resulted in hospitalisation (well, an overnight in A&E at Yeovil) before being sent home - only to then be hit by what we now believe was the norovirus vomiting bug, for which she was admitted a second time, this time to a ward. She was also found to have very high blood pressure, investigation of which led to the conclusion she had a long-standing defect - a heart murmur. She was referred to a cardiologist who wanted her to have an echo-cardiogram, and in order to move it along she finished up going private , something which I suspect we will find will be increasingly common in the future - if you can afford it. Anyway the tests were carried out, and she’s just received a “nothing to worry about, see you again in a year” letter, which was a huge relief all round . All this kerfuffle effectively took December out of the frame for footie!

January’s problem was then heavy rain and waterlogged grounds subsequently freezing. The bird managed to get a couple of games in at Shaftesbury, who have the only 4G pitch for miles around, and it’s only been in the last few weeks that normal service has been resumed. As you must be fed up by now of reading about Shaftesbury football matches and North Dorset rugby games , I’ll just report on a couple of the more interesting of Ossie’s ventures:

04/02/23: Vanarama National League
Yeovil Town 2 Maidstone United 2
Admission: £19 (concession) for a seat in the Screwfix Stand. Car parking £3. I had expected it to be more ruinous !
Programme: £3 - a 36pp glossy, all the basics including Maidstone players’ pen-pics but otherwise not much reading matter. That said, an improvement on the magazine-style offering they were producing pre-Covid.
Refreshments: the pasty meal deal offer inside the stadium - pasty, crisps, choc bar and drink - is now £6.50. I didn’t bother in the event, as it’s a bit of a hassle queuing up and ordering at half-time.
Attendance: 2,421 (as announced). A hundred and something away fans from Kent, good for them!

A very rare appearance at Step 1 of the Pyramid for the Ostrich today, the previous occurrence being on 8th February 2020 (Yeovil 1 Notts County 2), when I broke the habit of a lifetime and foolishly purchased an advance ticket for the Chesterfield game the following Saturday. That was postponed - the infamous Storm Dennis, you may recall - and was duly rescheduled for the end of March 2020, just in time for the blanket Covid cancellations! I never did get my money back.

No changes at Huish Park apart from (I think) the replacement of the old electronic scoreboard with a whizzy super-duper effort that at least gave the teams and also showed video highlights of the previous Tuesday’s home game against Wealdstone. They needn’t have bothered, it was one of the seven 0-0 draws Yeovil have been involved with this season . Shame the screen wasn’t bigger; I doubt you’d get much from it if you were in the Thatchers Cider Stand at the far end.

The bottom-of-the-table visitors were Maidstone United - one of the four remaining teams I needed to see in this league, and the home team were hovering just above the relegation zone. Yeovil’s record this season - 23 goals scored in 27 games - didn’t exactly inspire confidence for a decent game . Most people were forecasting yet another goalless draw!

What transpired was a classic game of two halves. In the first 45, Yeovil were frankly dire . They were afraid to play the ball anything other than sideways or backwards; retaining possession at all costs was the name of the game. That got them absolutely nowhere and the crowd (certainly around me) on their backs . It was almost a relief when Maidstone started hassling them and got hold of the ball; at least they looked positive. And the Kent side got their reward on 19m when they played in from the left, the ball was walked across the box as Yeovil seemed to terrified to clear it, and Sha’mar Lawson had the relatively simple task of rolling it into the net at the far post. Would that wake the Glovers up? No. Continuation of the same old game plan and the team roundly booed off the park at half time. 19 year old Ipswich Town loanee Edwin Agbaje looked the best of a sorry bunch; at least he chased back and recovered his mistakes.

The second half started with Yeovil much more assertive, thanks to the introduction of veteran striker Alex Fisher up front and Chiori Johnson in midfield (plus, no doubt, the mother of all rockets up their backside during the break ). Maidstone, who had been happily timewasting from taking the lead - well, the keeper anyway, who had received a warning from the referee - changed their tactics and booted the ball over the roof of the stand three times in 10 minutes .

The game turned on its head after 67m. Stones’ keeper Hadler fatally hesitated when the ball was swung right across the penalty area, and Fisher, running in, unleashed a 20 yard blockbuster which positively zinged into the roof of the net. Two minutes later, Yeovil were in front, Fisher poking in the ball from close range. Yeovil’s turn now to waste time, but justice was done in the first minute of injury time when the hard-working Jerome Binnon-Williams posted a towering header past Yeovil keeper Smith following a free-kick.

A fair result and a surprisingly entertaining game on a bitterly cold afternoon. I shall no doubt be back to Huish Park - but probably not until 2026!

The second featured game in this round up was right at the other end of the pyramid and involved the Ostrich dressing up in combat gear and shounting “Boom”! Because the Land Warfare Centre has been a venue which has been on my bucket shop list for some time …..

18/02/23: Trowbridge & District Football League Division 2 (Step 9)
The Lodge 1 Aces FC 6
No admission charge, programme or refreshments. Not even Army rations!
Attendance: 6 (and 2 dogs).

This was one of those matches where I initially had no idea which team was which - one played in red and black stripes, the other in grey and the corner flags were green!

The Land Warfare Centre ground is easy to find - take the Imber Road from the centre of Warminster over the railway bridge, follow your nose towards Salisbury Plain, and eventually you see the stylishly modern St Giles’ Garrison Church on your left hand side. Bear left past the front of the church into Elm Hill and then immediately right into a driveway (thankfully with raised and unmanned barriers) which takes you down to a small car park. There’s also plenty of parking on the driveway, but don’t get too close to the razor wire . There’s an elderly caged artificial-surface pitch in front of you (green moss growing on the surface!), but today’s game took place on a traditional grass pitch alongside it. The cage is floodlit and the pylons were audibly clanging like church bells in the gusty breeze.

It’s actually quite a pleasant location with views of the army warfare college with its prominent clock tower in front of you and landscaped surrounds with some quite stunning fir trees to the left. To the right are army depot buildings incorporating some intricate communication devices with the prominent warning “No Loitering within 2 Metres” (Ossie certainly didn’t, otherwise the bird might have finished up like a microwaved turkey ), a nearby windsock presumably for a helicopter landing pad, and the Iron Age Battlesbury Hillfort overlooks the lot.

The home team, The Lodge FC, something to do with a pub down in the town, started brightly but went two down in the first 15 minutes. Firstly, Lodge’s no.5 upended an opponent well inside the area for a cast-iron penalty which the opposition no.10 converted without fuss. The second goal saw the home keeper get a hand to a shot, embark on an elaborate juggling act, and finally flap the ball into his own goal . The only other first half incident was on 38m when the home no.5 received a second yellow for bringing down an attacker from behind, and therefore an early bath!

The away side, Aces FC from Bath, were firmly in control and their third goal on 52m was a close range tap-in after confusion in the defence; a fourth goal followed a few minutes later. An Aces’ player appeared to deliver an excellent forearm chop to an opponent’s throat on 63m , but it was clearly accidental and it wasn’t that sort of a game - although all that changed a few minutes later when a Lodge defender pulled the Aces’ no.9 backwards in the penalty area, also flooring his own keeper in the process, and then appeared to stamp on both of them . The defender was off, reducing The Lodge to 9 men, their keeper couldn’t continue and was substituted, and the game mysteriously restarted with a free kick to the home side on the edge of the area, so I assume there must have been a prior offside . As often happens, the 9 men then scored; a 15 yard shot on 74m, to make it 1-4.

After that, it became more or less one way traffic. The Aces no.11 received the ball unmarked 30 yards out and proceeded to run in, unchallenged, on goal. The substitute custodian came out for the 1 on 1, the attacker couldn’t make his mind up what to do, and finished up colliding with the keeper, who scrambled it clear . A minute later, Ace’s no.15 showed him what he should have done, and sublimely lobbed the keeper from the edge of the area. It became 1-6 on 81m when the away side’s no.8 managed to lob the keeper who was rooted to the spot on his line, and the referee brought proceedings to a close a few minutes early, which nobody complained about.

Thankfully, the earlier drizzle held off for most of the match but returned with a vengeance as I headed back to the car. A highly entertaining game all round!