Another Load of Cobblers ....

[JoM]

That sounds like an organisational nightmare Ossie
It must be bad enough anyway in Winter without Covid causing problems.

We went up to Old Trafford for the FA Cup game on Monday night. Covid passes were thoroughly checked at our turnstile, the man in front of me didn’t have one (according to him it was on his phone which he’d left in his car, then his wife butted in to say that it was probably still in the hotel room). They couldn’t persuade the steward to let them in, and boy did they try, so were turned away. Passes were the first thing checked before any searches.

Joe’s now on his way to the Villa with his friend, whose Dad’s season ticket he’s using (Zak uses mine for Villa league games at Old Trafford). I’ve warned him not to join in with our lot when they’re chanting

[TheOstrich]

Joe’s now on his way to the Villa with his friend, whose Dad’s season ticket he’s using (Zak uses mine for Villa league games at Old Trafford). I’ve warned him not to join in with our lot when they’re chanting

Reminds me of visiting Millwall at the Old Den many moons ago, along with a WBA fan. We sat in the main stand, poker-faced (I had taken the additional precaution of buying a blue Millwall top from their club shop and had put it on), staring aghast at the home mob doing their "Everyone hates us, we don't care" conga on the terraces behind the goal . Millwall beat the Baggies 2-1 from memory; we got out unscathed ...


“What’s that frantic squawking coming from the Study?” I asked Mrs O.
“Oh, just Ossie. He’s got right worked up about something or other …. “

“What’s the problem, bird?”
“Can you believe it? We’ve run out of STAPLES!!”

And no, I couldn’t believe it. Staples are one of those things you always have, don’t you, in a little box in a drawer somewhere, or loose at the bottom of the biro ‘n pencil tub. In 70 years on this planet, I have never run out of staples. And now – and in the middle of a pandemic, too!

So down to The Copy Shop in town.

“I need some standard size staples for a standard size stapler, if you have any?”
“Well, we don’t have any 26/6 in at the moment but we do have 26/4.”
“OK … err … what’s the difference?”
“There isn’t any!”
“Um … I’d better have the 26/4 then.”

A box of 5,000. That’s a heck of a lot of staples if they don’t work ….

I guess all you bright people know everything about your staple gauges, but for those dunces amongst us:

The staple number indicated on packaging does cause some confusion. The first digits (24, 26, 23 etc.) normally indicates the gauge of wire. The smaller the number, the heavier the gauge. The second digit indicates the depth of the shank in mm. This means that 26/6 = 26 gauge wire and 6mm shank length. It is important to use the correct shank length! If you use on too short, the staples will not bind the papers together. If you use one too long, the staple will have too much ‘fold over’.

So now you know. I think I’m quite happy with my reduced shanks, thank you.

A run out on Monday, at the start of Mrs O’s Birthday Week, to the Stourhead National Trust property, where there is a decent (albeit small) farm shop which we occasionally frequent for treats! They had only just re-opened after Christmas and the New Year, and weren’t particularly stocked up, but we managed to acquire a home-made chicken and leek pie, deliciously creamy (£6.95), 6 pork, apple and scrumpy and 6 venison and pork sausages (£7.10), a wedge of Bath Blue cheese – a Stilton – (£5.60) and 2 boxes of Thomas Fudge’s Florentines (£9). OK, it was expensive, and I was particularly annoyed that I subsequently found the Florentines in Waitrose for £7 , but it was Mrs O’s treat, and as I keep on reminding the lad, it’s good fun spending his inheritance!

To Saturday, then, and a welcome return for Ossie’s Footie Adventures - a successful second attempt to knock off Wincanton RFC, after being thwarted by that serious, 2nd minute injury to a home player in their fixture against Midsomer Norton 3rds back last October. You’ll recall that the club play at Wincanton Sports Ground behind Wincanton Town’s stadium, and as previously mentioned, there’s no furniture or other amenities around the pitch. Well, actually, there is a rotting bench behind one goal next to an oak tree, but one horizontal slat is missing and the other two were covered in oak leaves and bird poo. Not from his previous visit, the Ostrich hastens to point out.

There’s only 6 teams in the Somerset 3 South these days, (9 having started the season but 3 dropping out), and Huish Tigers are runaway leaders whilst Wincanton were second. I guess this a reflection that, apart from Wincanton, all the other teams are / were “social rugby” seconds and thirds, whilst Huish Tigers are anything but. They are a (relatively) new side based around present and former pupils of the Richard Huish College in Taunton. It’s a State Sixth Form College from age 16 upwards, and one of the few such in the country to offer boarding facilities, apparently. £9,550 pa for 2022/23, according to their prospectus, which I suppose is not too bad, this day and age. Richard Huish isn’t a specifically sports-based academy, so it’s nothing like Hartpury (Kaz and Mick will know that campus near Gloucester), but you get the picture. The reverse fixture last October had finished 102-3 …..

All things considering, the very wet, tussocky pitch held up very well; I was expecting a bit of a quagmire, to be honest, because the Sports Ground is a notoriously bad drainer and indeed next door, Wincanton Town’s Western League soccer game against Lebeq United was called off by the match referee due to waterlogging. No such problems on the rugby field, although the ball was a tad greasy leading to a lot of frantic recovery work by both sides.

We got under way, and after just 2 minutes and 26 seconds by my stopwatch, a Wincanton player went down injured in midfield and didn’t get up. I couldn’t believe it - talk about déjà vu!! Thankfully after treatment, he was able to carry on.

Huish started the stronger side with a converted try after 7m, which they then doubled on 13m when Shane Jordan bulled his way over under the posts. Wincanton were trying to run everything out of defence, and when they did resort to kicking, a wayward attempt gave Lloyd Cotton the opportunity to notch Huish’s third try on 22m. Wincanton did then start to take the game to Huish and matters got a bit fractious ; although no actual handbags were swung, the referee did however separate and lecture both teams individually at one stage. Wincanton were rewarded with an unconverted try on 37m after prolonged pressure; 5-21 at the interval.

Wincanton scored a second unconverted try on 50m, but never looked likely to recover the deficit. The apparent lack of a specialist kicker didn’t help matters, but it all became academic when Huish scored the killer fourth try on 57m, Kieran Brock going over after the ball had been spun out down the line. Their final try came just before the end when George Gass won a race to fall on a loose ball behind Wincanton’s goal line. Not the most memorable of games, but at least I can knock Wincanton off my “To Do” list now.

15/01/22: Tribute Somerset 3 South
Wincanton RFC 10 Huish Tigers RFC 33
No admission charge
Refreshments: because the footie had been called off, the eatery in the pavilion wasn’t open, and they’ve also removed all the £1 bag of sweets slot machines from the entrance foyer – so now’t.
Attendance: peaked at 45 after an influx of dog-walkers at half-time.

[miasmum]

now't??????

[cromwell]

No refreshments????
The country's going to the dogs I say, going to the dogs.
And the dogs were going to the ground, by the sound of it!
Great report Os, and it sounds like a game worth watching.
Jo, many years ago I went to see Leeds play at West Ham in the days when there were terraces. i thought, "Not behind the goals" as it would be standing and more than likely full of Hammers fans. So I went in one of the stands that ran along the touchline at the old Upton Park stadium. Which turned out to be standing, and absolutely crammed with West Ham fans...
I watched in silence! (and we won, one nil).

[Workingman]

Staples! I thought it was a stationers.

Better a game of rugby than nothing at all, we still have nothing at all on the rec or YMCA pitches - I have no idea why.

That was an expensive day out on Monday, far too expensive for a Yorkshireman, but as it was for Mrs O I suppose once a year is acceptable.

[Kaz]

Oh Hartpury have world-class sporting facilities. B was up there for the animal side of things, but we did have a look around the equestrian centre, which was fantastic, and until very recently Gloucester rugby held their training sessions up there. On top of all that, the views from up there are astonishing

No refreshments???!!! Better take your own bird seed next time

[TheOstrich]

Yes, now't! A testament to the lack of country / village stores in this part of Dorset, I'm afraid ....

A slow, dreary week in which, like the weather, nothing much happened here in Dorset. Mind you, we did get one sunny morning midst the otherwise unrelenting gloom and took the opportunity to race across town to the garden centre for an early morning breakfast. Ossie, as usual, went for the Full English (£9.95) but it’s a truism these days that the bird cannot feast on as much bird seed as he did, so he spent the rest of the day curled up groaning in a corner of the Nest . I think the quality of the food there has gone down a bit since Covid started; the hash browns and black pudding slice had a bit of a peculiar taste , and although it was only 9:30, the Americano coffees (£3.10 each), we agreed, seemed a bit stewed. Mrs O indulged in an Eggs Florentine (£5.95) which looked very nice, but she did say she felt a bit icky afterwards – always the trouble with eggs! The eagle-eyed bird also spotted chipped crockery, which doesn’t wind him up as much as cutlery that hasn’t been completely cleaned by the dishwasher – another hazard of dining out, as I’m sure we’re all well aware – but the Ostrich still don’t like it. Nevertheless, it was a morning out, and we had a good poke around the shop for birthday cards and post-Christmas bargains.

Now – a question! I went up the pharmacy to pick up the monthly prescriptions, and more in hope than certainty, took along my sheet of paper with the NHS QR code I’d obtained from the Lateral Flow Test website. Amazingly, they had a small supply of LFTs in, so I handed over the paperwork and got the standard box of 7 test kits. But I noticed the pharmacy assistant didn’t scan my QR code, all she did was write down the 16 digit alpha-numeric bit on a pre-printed pad and gave me my sheet of paper back with a stern reminder to report the test results. So – are these QR code thingies purely for one-time use (which I’d been led to believe), or can I use that original code again? Anyone know?

To Saturday, and yet another match involving the Cherries’ Reserves. But not South Cheriton United this week – a different club nicknamed the Cherries! This was the Ostrich’s first visit to the Barnets Field “stadium” of Sturminster Newton FC since they ambitiously put their eight new floodlights in, each with three directional LED bulbs on top. The couple of old dismantled pylons which have been hanging around rusting away in the undergrowth behind the “stand” ever since I started going there 5 years ago have now been finally removed, and the brand new installation looks quite smart. Interestingly, I was told that the cost of running them for an evening game was just £20-£25. The new facility encouraged the Dorset County FA to stage a Representative game under the floodlights there last Autumn, in front of a bumper crowd – all very nice but they laid claim to all the gate receipts for County funds so Stur were out of pocket!

On arrival, I found an old geezer standing by the entrance extracting admission money , which I hadn’t been expecting for a Reserves match, and having paid up, I was frogmarched into the Social Club and invited to spend more dosh! Interesting – around 20 folk were in the club, and not a mask in sight . I’ve lost track of where we are with the restrictions now, so I just went with the flow – back to pre-Covid normality, in a way.

We started late as the home team seemed reluctant to vacate the change rooms, perfectly understandable on what was a bitterly cold afternoon , but once underway, the game had an explosive start with Stur scoring twice in the first 3 minutes. The first was a 25 yard lob that the keeper misjudged and let drop over his head; for the second, he executed a perfect swallow dive, but nowhere near the ball!

The rest of the game was inevitably an anti-climax with the Cherries failing to push home their advantage, and Broadmayne (a village club from the south of the county) increasingly getting the better of the exchanges but displaying some woeful crossing, many of which finished up well behind the goal line and the home keeper had a pretty relaxed afternoon. Broadmayne’s best chance in the first half came when an attacker got away down the right, had two team-mates unmarked in the middle screaming for the ball, but delayed putting in the cross, allowing a defender to get back and eventually block it. Shortly afterwards, Stur scored their third goal (36m), a breakaway down the middle finished with a curling shot round the keeper, and the fourth goal was a close-range acutely-angled effort on 64m. The game petered out after that.

The match was overseen by a very young referee, Ben Haskett (thin as a rake, ginger hair and glasses! ) who had to contend with some very uncompromising tackling and over-enthusiastic appealing from both sides, which, at the end of the day, he handled well, largely by studiously ignoring all the histrionics . Luckily, nothing got beyond a bit of pushing and shoving , but I do wonder how he would have coped if things had escalated.

A watchable game – but, like the week before it, it won’t be particularly memorable.

22/01/22: Dorset League Division 2
Sturminster Newton United Reserves 4 Broadmayne 0
Admission: £1
Refreshments: Coffee and ‘am bun from the social club £2.20. I went back at half time for a cheese and onion one, but they’d sold out!
Attendance: a very respectable 43

[Workingman]

Another good and readable report, you should go pro. You are streets ahead of that plank on the BBC, Dan 'I love Livapool' Roan.

Now about these attendances: Do they come up on the big LED screen or does the Ostrich do a personal head count?

[TheOstrich]

Thank you for your kind words, but please be careful you don't give the Ostrich delusions of grandeur ... he's pompous enough as it is.

Now about these attendances: Do they come up on the big LED screen or does the Ostrich do a personal head count?

Anything above Step 7 (the County leagues) tends to get officially reported on the FA FullTime website (i.e. Shaftesbury in the Wessex League on Saturday):
https://fulltime.thefa.com/displayFixtu ... d=21756792

Otherwise, I send Ossie round with an abacus .... It keeps him occupied, and away from the food hatch.

It's not an exact science . Recreation grounds can be a problem, dog-walkers come and go. Do you include under 4's in pushchairs? The teenagers in the adjacent skate park with half an eye on the game? Are those guys around the dugout part of the coaching staff or hangers-on? And it's amazing how many people turn up half way through a match; Saturday at Stur we had around 25 for the first half and an influx of folk in the second half pushed it over 40.

Rugby crowds can be quite a hoot. You have to remember to include the all the bars (downstairs and upstairs as well), not to mention scouring the loos and peering underneath the tables for any who have indulged in too many shandies. My personal best effort was a Midlands Cup tie at Old Saltleans; I think I got to well over 350 before the game started. Given the clubhouse was about 1/4 mile from the pitch, and there was a constant procession in both directions, how many punters I counted twice goodness knows!

What's the expression? "Lies, damn lies and statistics" ....

[cromwell]

Same around here with the farm shop breakfast Os. They used to describe their eggs as farm eggs; they don't now, good job as the farmer was spotted buying a load of eggs in Costco!
The toast is now extra and the sausages not what they were. Going to the dogs I say, we're going to the dogs.
Sounds like a good match apart from the arctic conditions, and a good read as usual, thanks.