Vocal Voices

Time to restart the Ostrich's sports blog ...

01/07 – it is a matter of historical record that the Ostrich has only ever attended four weddings, including his own. It will be five, however, from the Autumn, when Master O ties the knot. I have impressed upon him the seriousness of committing the offence on a Saturday in season, but he has refused to move the whole event to a Friday night to avoid the clash; further, he says I will not be allowed to skip the reception for a visit to Wimbledon RFC. Absolutely impossible, these youngsters. Oh yes, and in all my years of watching football, I’ve only witnessed one live penalty shoot-out, two seasons ago at Eccleshall in Staffordshire ….

Today saw the start of the pre-season friendlies, which clubs use to get players match fit and to hone tactics. Or basically just hoof the ball about in a leisurely manner. So it was off to Wareham for a 1:00 kick-off, and I allowed an hour and a half for the 35 odd miles, being a bit unsure about holiday traffic down on the Jurassic Coast. Possibly a wise move, as the A351 from Upton Heath into Wareham was exceedingly slow, one long 3 mile tail-back. And then, having found the right road in Wareham for the Purbeck Sports Centre, there were two large schools complexes more or less opposite each other and I initially drove into the wrong one!

The Purbeck Sports Centre is council-owned, and quite a rabbit-warren of a facility. I managed to navigate my way upstairs to the AllStars Sports Bar which was busy and provided a pretty comprehensive café dining menu, and then out the back to the sports fields where archery was in progress (I hope we don’t have to fight Agincourt again, based on the accuracy of the competitors ) and the soccer teams were warming up in the far distance. The Centre offers, amongst a large range of classes, something called Family PiYo Spinning, which from what I can gather seems to be a combination of pilates and yoga, and presumably may or may not involve a loom or a yo-yo. Or even, I suppose, a hula-hoop. Strangely, there is a minimum height requirement of 1.35 metres , and it’s £4 for an adult, £3.50 for a child per session. Ossie is fair dizzy at the thought of it.

Wareham Rangers’ pitch is over in the southern corner of the field, and there is even on the touchline an ancient wooden stand, which contained no seats or furniture, only old scaffolding poles. But it was lovely sunny day, and the crowd were mainly slouched on the grassy bank between the pitch and the tennis courts. Some grumbling from the ground-hoppers in attendance who were initially banned from taking photographs of the action under Sports Centre regulations, but a sensible compromise was reached after both team managers had given permission.

After the Ostrich had sorted out which team was which – one side played in orange shirts, black shorts, the other in black and white hooped shirts, orange shorts, while Wareham Rangers’ club colours are basically yellow – we settled down to a quite competitive game in which Bemerton Heath Harlequins, the more senior side ran out, in the end, comfortable winners. Hopefully, we shall run into Wessex League Bemerton Heath again later in the season as they are on my bucket-shop list for a ground visit. Weddings permitting!

Pre-season Friendly: Wareham Rangers 0 Bemerton Heath Harlequins 4
Free admission, no programme, £2.80 for a take-away coffee and Chunky KitKat from the Sports Bar, attendance 37.

I have missed these posts!

Shocked at Master O, no consideration, these youngsters!

Me too Thank you Ossie

well done Ossie,great report.
Buckhorn Weston? -you are venturing into the back of beyond

I hope to get to watch Gosport Borough F .C. when they get going-although looking at last seasons results, i might see more success watching their Ladies team !

victor wrote:I hope to get to watch Gosport Borough F .C. when they get going-although looking at last seasons results, i might see more success watching their Ladies team !

LOL, Vic, all being well, I'm going to see Gosport Borough play at Wimborne Town in a pre-season friendly on 29th July .....

Gosport Borough's home ground's slightly beyond my remit from here - but I do have plans to watch United Services Portsmouth play later this season; their ground's next door to the Harbour station, so an easy one by train ....

Gosport Borough's home ground's slightly beyond my remit from here - but I do have plans to watch United Services Portsmouth play later this season; their ground's next door to the Harbour station, so an easy one by train ....

When you know which game ,we could try meeting there? Must be the Navy pitches not far from the station.

Yes, I believe it's HMS Temeraire (Burnaby Road), vic.

I have a rough plan which suggests Sat 14/10/17 (vs New Milton) but absolutely nothing is written in stone; more than a few leagues haven't released their fixtures yet (in the case of the Dorset Senior League, they still haven't decided which clubs are in what division! ), and that October date is also the 4th Qualifying Round of the FA Cup, so there's no guarantee of anything at this point!

no problem,it,s only just a 2min ferry ride for me

08/07 – the parlous state of village cricket down here in Dorset was apparent on a balmy Tuesday night when I invited Master O to accompany me to a scheduled Buckhorn Stingers T20 evening game; it was obvious when we arrived nothing was doing and the match was cancelled. So we repaired to the Stapleton Arms down the road, where Master O’s attempts to signal 6 leg byes, having downed a pint of Doombar, were always doomed to failure …

The Ostrich stayed local today, not particularly wishing to mix it with the holiday traffic. It was an opportunity to find out the state of progress on Gillingham Town’s new ground and in theory today’s friendly should have been on the new pitch, but the modular buildings for the changing rooms at the new location won’t be in place before August, and then money concerns, lack of voluntary support, and continued wrangling with the local council mean that the move is unlikely to take place before Christmas. This is a saga which has been going on for a number of years now, and to the outsider, it’s becoming apparent that the club may possibly have bitten off more than they can chew. They have taken a voluntary demotion back into the Dorset League, and inevitably a number of last year’s first team squad have moved on, but on a more positive note, quite a few seem to have stayed loyal. I hope the club can keep going; it’s their 150th anniversary in 2020 and it would be a shame if they implode.

I arrived early as the ground is situated beside the railway line, and a steam locomotive charter train was due to pass around 12:45. West Country class 34046 “Braunton” made a fine sight, drifting down the bank into the station , albeit 7 minutes late and delaying the Waterloo bound service train (it’s a single line track with a passing loop at Gillingham Station), and further, the locomotive is now masquerading as 34052 “Lord Dowding”. There seems to be vogue in railway preservation circles for resurrecting the persona of long scrapped steam engines, which does seem a bit silly to me, but whatever floats your boat, as they say ......

Today’s pre-season friendly was against Wessex League Andover New Street, whom we met last season while suffering a 7-1 thrashing “up the hill” by neighbouring Shaftesbury, and friendly, it wasn’t . Gillingham opened up a two goal lead in the first half, the second a huge deflection off a defender which completely stymied the keeper, and things noticeably started to get a bit tetchy around the half-hour mark – up until then it had been the usual fayre of unforced errors and Comedy Falling Over . Usually, in a pre-season friendly, the referee tends to lecture miscreants rather than book them, but this more lenient approach sometimes backfires, as it did spectacularly today when an Andover player took exception at being held back by an opponent, and deliberately back-kicked out at his opponent. One was reminded of D. Beckham’s petulant response in that World Cup game in France. Like Beckham, he made contact, and his reward was a deserved straight red card – a very rare event for a match like this, and I can’t immediately recall seeing a sending-off in a friendly before.

Tempers were not the best in the second half either, but 10-man Andover stuck to their task and turned the game around completely with three late goals, two of them certainly defensive errors, which didn’t bode well for the home team. But we’re a month away from the start of the season, so still plenty of time to get fit and sharpen up.

Pre-season Friendly: Gillingham Town 2 Andover New Street 3
£3 admission, no programme, 70p for a packet of Walkers cheese and onion crisps, attendance 27.

Great report .i remember when i lived in Gillingham that before a match the cows had to be moved off the pitch !!!