Vocal Voices

…….. the reason for which may or may not become apparent at some point during the upcoming season!

Every July, the Ostrich settles down with pen and mouse, and fills in a spreadsheet of the fixtures he intends to visit each Saturday through to the following May, targeting the new grounds he wants to visit and the new teams he wishes to see. It is an intricate skill for a bird, juggling with the various matches, and as all the lower level leagues release their fixtures at different times throughout the summer, there’s a lot of writing and rewriting to be done as new information becomes available. And this summer, the whole exercise has been exacerbated by the Football Association’s decision to revamp the non-league pyramid structure, which has led to numerous clubs (41, no less ) bemoaning their fate and launching appeals about their new placements to the FA Tribunal.

Some teams have been extremely cross at being moved laterally into a different league . Metropolitan Police FC, for example, were moved from a London-based league to a south-western league, meaning they’ve suddenly got to cope with unheard of trips to places like Taunton and Merthyr Tydfil. Their appeal was peremptorily dismissed, leading to loud complaints on social media that the Tribunal had supressed parts of their evidence, and threats of a High Court injunction followed. As one wag intimated: “Metropolitan Police, and Failure to Disclose Evidence? Well that’s the biter bit!”.

All this was still rumbling along when the sugar daddy behind a Step 4 team in Barnsley called Shaw Lane Aquaforce suddenly decided he’d had enough, and folded the club. This totally unexpected resignation prompted the FA to embark on an emergency exercise moving different teams around different leagues to fill the gap, the knock-on effect being felt as far away as Essex! So even more teams then became extremely cross (Fleet Town FC, which is near Woking, were told they were going into a south-western league, and found they now had to travel to Barnstaple and Bideford – a lot of their players promptly left the club), but some teams were delighted, none more so than Wimborne Town, who having been pipped at the post for promotion in 2017/18, suddenly found that promotion being handed to them! Not that they have been left with any time to prepare for playing at a higher level, though ….

But nevertheless, despite all these fraught proceedings, midway through the afternoon of Thursday July 19th following the release of the Southern League fixtures, (the last piece in the jigsaw), Ossie finally threw down his pencil, humming with happiness, and declared the exercise complete, all targets having been successfully included!

Just two hours later, one extremely cross bird had ripped it up and was frantically re-writing large chunks of it. Why? The Ostrich had suddenly discovered that the RMT trade union had, two days earlier, called a series of strikes on South Western Railways, and these encompassed every Saturday from July 28th through to September 1st. And he had planned five long distance ventures by train ……

So out went all the proposed rail trips including Dulwich Hamlet to see Master O (I’d even invested in a flipping TfL OysterCard to use to get there on the Croydon Tram), Maidenhead RFC to see an old school friend, and Exeter City to see what their brand new stand looks like, and in came last-minute replacements such as ……. well, all will be revealed on Ossie’s blog in due course. Hopefully the first report of the 2018/19 season will follow tomorrow!

As the saying goes, seems the FA cannot organise a long drinking session in an ale producing unit!!

Not many people would disagree with you, Cruiser!!

04/08 – Ossie’s pre-season friendly games were a rather uninspiring lot. Firstly a visit on 7th July to the opening of local club Gillingham Town’s brand new ground (stadium would be pushing it) which is about an extra ¼ mile’s walk out of town, down a dusty track running at the side of the old ground.

The club buildings are a collection of converted containers and prefabricated structures, comprising a smallish bar with a small widescreen (patio area behind it), a hatchery serving hot and cold drinks and crisps, a toilet block and a changing room block. For this game, the furniture was enhanced by a further collection of patio tables and trestles for the evening’s cider festival, a Dextra Group PLC curtainsider acting as a stage for the live music (indeed, watching local country-rockers “Mustang Sally” warming up was marginally more entertaining than the football at one point ) and a number of straw bales, one of which the bird perched on for a period in the first half.

There’s currently no cover. However, an area has been cleared behind one goal and I understand the intention is that the small pre-fabricated covered stand will be lifted from the old ground and transported down to its new location. A local farmer will be doing this; however, the harvest started early in the light of the weather conditions, so the move is on hold as and until the farmer can get around to it. There’s also no floodlighting, and whilst I guess this is an ambition, I suspect it won’t be anytime soon. The goal at one end of the pitch backs onto land owned by Windy Ridge Farm, and various speculative housing developers have eyes on it, so it may be a race to get floodlighting in before the NIMBYs arrive. Even though the new ground is in a splendidly rural location with some glorious views, especially from the far side of the pitch back towards the town, things may look very different in 5-10 years’ time, given the amount of new development slated for the town.

There was a formal communal ribbon-cutting ceremony at 12:00. I had thought about taking part in this, but in the event, the main participants seemed to be a horde of littlies accompanied by various local town dignitaries and politicians. Given the presence of a photographer, I decided I didn’t want my carefully-nurtured street cred completely trashed sometime in the future by pics of me posing with Conservative councillors surfacing on social media , so I kept firmly pitchside! Another slightly off-putting thing was a camera drone flying – presumably with permission, because I think technically it’s illegal to fly them at sporting events – over the pitch and stadium before and during the game.

Nevertheless, if you pan down to July 8th, there’s rather a good video montage:
https://twitter.com/gilltownfc

The game itself was entirely what you would expect on the first Saturday in July, in blisteringly hot conditions – a pretty pedestrian affair, in which the home team looked marginally the better side and the 2-0 scoreline was about right, even if the last of the two easily-converted goals didn’t arrive until stoppage time.

Next up, a week later, it was too hot to contemplate anything adventurous, so it was back to Gillingham Town for the friendly against New Forest club Bashley. 0-1 and an entirely forgettable affair.

July 21st saw the Ostrich taking advantage of the last Saturday before the rail strikes began with a trip to the Camrose ground in Basingstoke, which will probably be in its last season, the place having been bought out for redevelopment, with Basingstoke FC moving to new facilities in Winklebury.
Although it’s a 1 ¾ miles hike from the station, there is a convenient bus service, no.1 to Brighton Hill, which runs from outside the station right past the ground on a 10-12 minute frequency. The club’s car park separates the large and imposing clubhouse from the stadium itself; the turnstiles, behind one goal, lead you to the Club Shop, the Burger Bar, and round to a small area of covered standing and the iconic elevated main stand, which is accessed up a flight of steel stairs, all rather peeling paint and faded glory.

Again, a fairly turgid game which higher level Maidenhead United won 0-2, and possibly more interesting than the game was the sight of a number of Red Kites lazily spiralling above the ground, riding the thermals. Very distinctive birds of prey with prominently forked tails – you don’t get they in Daarzet!

Finally on July 28th, a trip to another ground under threat of redevelopment, this time Wimborne Town, who welcomed Isthmian League side Worthing (“The Mackerelmen”) for the first ever game between the two clubs, and both teams contributed to a highly entertaining 4-4 draw. The highlight was probably a huge wind-assisted punt upfield by the home goalkeeper which bounced spectacularly on the hard pitch, soaring up and over the stranded Worthing keeper – only to hit the wretched crossbar and ricochet back into play from where it was cleared …

……………………..


So to yesterday, and my first visit to Hardenhuish Park in Chippenham. I drove up on the A350, mercifully free of holiday traffic, and approached the ground down the Bristol Road from the roundabout on the bypass. I was not surprised to see there’s been little progress with the long-running bypass widening scheme since I was last up this way in March , and it’s still a mandatory 40 mph and Traffic Cone Central, as it has been for the last 15 months or so. The ground itself is about ½ mile towards the town centre, and there’s a rough car-park off the road on the left which will take around 40 cars, and a smaller upper car-park dedicated to the football club and accessed up the track to the Sports Centre which has 20 spaces. Totally inadequate, and I was told both are quickly filled for Chippenham Town games, so most folk resort to parking along the length of the main road.

There’s an old-fashioned stand with low-racked bucket seats (the clubhouse / bar is accessed from the rear and is upstairs), and covered standing on the far side and behind one goal. Separate buildings house a VIP Suite, the tea hut, a Control Room or two, and the club shop.

Before the football game, I wandered into the adjacent cricket ground where Beckington were batting against Chippenham 2nds, and 37-0 on my arrival – I spent a pleasant 40 minutes or so watching 7 overs, in which they progressed steadily to 58-2. It’s an attractive location, with a balconied clubhouse and a nifty electronic scoreboard on the far side of the ground. Needless to say, a very hard and fast pitch, with one of the home bowlers incurring what looked like a groin strain mid-delivery, and hobbling off the field.

Back at the football ground, the Ostrich’s target today was Chippenham Park FC who are said to be a separate club but are de facto Chippenham Town’s reserve side. The programme noted Chippenham Park “has seen a huge overhaul of club philosophy, management and playing staff”, which basically meant they sacked pretty much all of last year’s squad and promoted 18 youngsters from their “Academy” side . The disgruntled ex-players have moved en masse to neighbouring Corsham FC, in the same league, and the upcoming fixture between the two teams in a couple of weeks’ time promises to be a bit tasty!

Their opponents today, Warminster, were reprieved by appeal from relegation to Step 7 during the summer (one of very few appeals that were successful), and look like they might well have another struggle on their hands this season, judging by today’s rather disjointed performance. They had their chances, were unlucky on occasions (with one direct free kick cannoning back off the post), and the Chippenham keeper made some excellent saves when he needed to, especially in the last 10 minutes or so. For the home team, Enock Luc, playing as an attacking half-back down the right, had quite an exceptional match, not only getting behind the defence with ease and firing in dangerous crosses, but also sprinting back to intercept and clear a goal-bound effort from Wright just before it crossed the line. Not Warminster’s day! And also a good performance by referee Lewis Mansfield King, who had to supervise a niggly and sometimes peevish match that resulted in numerous fouls and 4 bookings. That said, all in all, it was a pretty run of the mill affair to get Ossie’s season underway …....

Western League Division 1 (Step 6): Chippenham Park 1 Warminster Town 0
Admission: £3 oldie’s concession, programme £1.
Refreshments: burger from the teahut £3, half-time chips £2 (rather bland; they appeared to have had only the briefest acquaintance with the fat fryer) and a can of Pepsi and crisps in the clubhouse £1.70. Sugary J2O’s are on the banned list until the bird has undergone his annual diabetic review ….
Attendance: 48

Fabulous read and great to have you back for another season!

Great read as ever!

I think Hednesford Town were victims of the FA's move around.

Thanks both!

They were indeed, Jo; that was part of the fall-out following Shaw Lane's resignation, if I recall correctly. Hednesford had originally been told they were going to be placed in the Southern League, and then were reallocated to the Northern League to plug the gap, which completely messed up all their planning for the new season. And at least one top player left the club as a result.

http://www.hednesfordtownfc.com/2018/07 ... l-rejected
http://www.hednesfordtownfc.com/2018/07 ... eys-park-3

11/08 – The Ostrich has been going around with a wide smirk on its face this week. Why? Well, when everyone else is safely tucked up in their beds, our Ossie is happily internet gaming! Not gambling, just gaming, and the bird is rather hooked on Microsoft Solitaire Collection Events – these are tournaments where players from all over the world pit their skills in a series of timed puzzle-solving card games. There’s usually anything up to half-a-million contestants, and, based when you log onto the game, you’re placed in a group of 100 players for your individual tournament. And last week, at his 153rd attempt, Ossie actually managed to scoop first place in his group! Not bad for an ancient bird! Mind you, in the overall scheme of things, world-wide, the Ostrich was only ranked 3,378th, but let us allow our insufferably boastful bird his brief moment of triumph – some of these gamers look like serious professionals, so it’ll probably never happen again.

With the SWT rail strikes suspended for this Saturday to allow the resumption of talks, it was back to my original plan - a trip to the Borough of Merton in London for my first visit to Tooting & Mitcham’s ground. Travel from Dorset involves a fast train to Woking, a change there onto the Waterloo stopper alighting at Wimbledon, followed by a tram to Mitcham – this was a first opportunity to use my newly-purchased prepaid Oystercard! I had read up the instructions but watched carefully what the other punters were doing. It seems you just tap in once at the start of your journey, that’s it. I hope I’ve done it right ……

The stadium is under 5 minutes’ walk from the tram stop - turn left on exiting Tramway Road, pass a couple of shops, the fire station and cross the River Wandle, and it’s on your left. I was interested to see the Wandle, one of London’s “Lost Rivers”; quite wide where I crossed it, it’s around 9 miles long and joins the Thames at Wandsworth – it also features in the current Freida Klein series of psychological thrillers written by Nicci French, which are a good read if you're that way inclined.

It’s a strange old ground, Imperial Fields, all brutalist concrete with one large stand, and a small amount of high, open-sided cover over the terracing at both ends that probably wouldn’t offer much protection from the elements. There’s nothing at all on the far side, other than a pleasant view over a field and a bit of woodland. The dark and gloomy function room in the stand, reminiscent of Birmingham New Street station before the rebuild , was somewhat spartan (although they were apparently selling ale from a barrel on a table) and I wasn’t aware, from a cursory glance, that there were any TV wide-screens to view pre-game.

Dulwich Hamlet have moved in with Tooting and Mitcham as tenants; that’s because they’ve been locked out of their own ground, Champions Hill, in the course a three-way row with a development company and the local council over planning permission and unpaid debts. They are hopeful they’ll be able to move back sometime, but nothing is writ in stone. Founded in 1893, and FA Amateur Cup winners four times between the wars, they are today a successful, award-winning community club, especially championing anti-discrimination and anti-homophobic causes (the club colours are pink and navy blue ).

In contrast, Concord Rangers started life as a boys club in 1966 playing next to Concord Beach on Canvey Island, hence the name. Over the years, they have graduated to adult football, the Saturday league football, and worked their way up the pyramid from the Mid-Essex League to the heady heights of National League South (Step 2).

The previous Wednesday, Dulwich recorded a last gasp victory over East Thurrock United in what I’ve seen described as a thrilling encounter, coming from behind to win 2-1, and the home set out for a repeat performance today, firstly going 0-1 down to Jack Midson’s sharp header at the far post conversion of a free kick on 34m, and then attempting to pummel Concord in search of an equaliser / winner in the second half. The trouble was, Concord hadn’t read the script , and defended resolutely to secure the points! Dulwich’s Akinyemi hit the bottom of the post on 71m but that was the closest they came to scoring.

I didn’t warm to either team, to be honest – there was a lot of falling over in the penalty area from Dulwich early doors (and of course, the time when Figueira did get totally buried in the box by a Concord defender, the referee wasn’t having anything of it). Concord might think it’s good practice to deny Dulwich quick free kicks by ploys such as picking up the ball and strolling away with it, but to me, it’s a time-wasting irritation . Dulwich need to work a bit on defence, it was all slightly lackadaisical at times. For Concord, Alex Wall up front looked a threat throughout most of the game. Attacking, Dulwich showed a great deal of flamboyance and flair without really troubling the away keeper. All that said, though, it was always an entertaining game, and the result was just about right.

Back at 8:15 after a long day out!

National League South (Step 2): Dulwich Hamlet 0 Concord Rangers 1
Admission £5 concession, which is remarkably cheap at that level.
Programme: £2. 44pp glossy, good content, interesting articles.
Teamsheets: Available for a donation from the 12th Man supporters club table amongst other places. I paid £1 and decided I’s better not wind Mrs O up by purchasing a pink and navy scarf for a tenner …..
Refreshments: (not my usual fayre ) jerk chicken pasta £3.50, 2 x bright yellow patties £4 (the veg was better than the beef) from the “Shak”. There seems to be quite a West Indian presence at the club. I saw one man carrying an inflatable palm tree …...
Attendance: 822

What a smashing read Ossie! Thank you.

I can just picture those bright yellow patties!

Internet gaming?!

The best bit of the new season, Ossie’s tales are

Yayyyy, the Ostrich has migrated back to his Shed, for the season

I want an inflatable palm tree now!