The Chronicles of Ostrick ....

[Ally]

Linda Lindskog

Best name ever for a referee!

(Funnily enough, watching the Malaga-Barca game tonight Don happened to remark on how young the ref looked. Yes, he did. But I was more tuned into thinking how nice he looked in his pink ensemble! )

Guess what?! I think I remember Pom bears.

A bear shaped snack (like you say, Quaverish) but crunchier?

Thanks for a brilliant read Ossie!

[JoM]

If good old Linda's competent I wonder if she'd like to step up to the Prem. What a fab name though

I'm craving Pom Bears now. And giggling at the pheasants. Billy has a knack for scaring them away, the sudden screeching they make as the fly up out of nowhere makes me jump every time.

[cromwell]

Poor old Cranborne! Beaten 11-2 at home. You have a gift for this Ossie, this bit did make me laugh!

the road into a small close of housing just behind the ground was called Friday’s Heron. That left me musing. What possibly could Friday’s Heron have done to be awarded such an accolade as having a street named after it? How did Tuesday’s Heron feel about being snubbed – was it cheesed off, narked, writing letters of complaint to the local council and the RSPB??

Mind you I had to look twice when I initially thought you mentioned Pornbears!

[Kaz]

There's a place called Martin's Heron, near Bracknell! Clearly Martin did something clever and was awarded his own bird!

[TheOstrich]

There's a place called Martin's Heron, near Bracknell! Clearly Martin did something clever and was awarded his own bird!

Love, it Kaz!

I looked up Martin's Heron on Wiki. Quite interesting!

The name does not in fact have anything to do with the avian heron but stems from the obsolete word hern, meaning nook or corner of land.

Also:

Martins Heron is well known locally as being the site of Harry Potter's uncle and aunt's house. The filmed version of the first of JK Rowling's famous stories, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was filmed partly on location. The external scenes with the actor Daniel Radcliffe playing Harry Potter at his house were shot on location at a house in Picket Post Close, Martins Heron. .......
Martins Heron Tesco was also used for filming. Until 2009 it was one of the very few Tesco supermarkets in the country that was not open on Sunday, owing to concerns from local residents. It also had restricted opening hours on weekdays. It has therefore been used as a filming location for many of the Tesco television adverts featuring Prunella Scales and Jane Horrocks among others.

You live and learn!

That wasn't Cranborne's biggest defeat of the season by any stretch, Crommers - apparently Westland Sports hammered them 20-0 back last October .... and funny you should mention that about the Pombears, because I'd never heard of them before; I'd ordered "anything cheese 'n onion" and did a double-take myself when the packet was handed over

As for Linda the referee, Jo and Ally, I believe she's from Eastern Europe, and she's not the first excellent female Eastern European official I've come across. Back in the Midlands, more than once I encountered Sasa Ihringova, formerly from Bratislava, and she's now running the line in the Football League, I think. A referee you'd always respect, unobtrusive but not adverse to waving the yellow card if needs be ...

[Kaz]

You do indeed, Ossie! I'm sure the mythical Martin was far better off with his own plot of land than a fish-eating bird!

[Ally]

I thought she might've been Ossie - it's not a surname you find willy nilly in the BT directory.

[TheOstrich]

15/04 – the avians have been getting frisky this week – we’ve just seen four wood pigeons clutching onto the garden fence, cooing and wooing. Yesterday, as I loaded the shopping trolley into the car, a female blackbird, under pursuit, actually flew at top speed beneath the trolley basket, between the wheels, and away! I was lucky I wasn’t knee-capped! During the week, we watched a chaffinch alight on the rim of the birdbath in the back garden, with his back to and totally oblivious of a wood pigeon lumbering slowly across the lawn, three feet off the ground, almost like a jumbo jet and intent on landing on exactly the same spot on the bath the chaffinch was occupying. Just at the last moment, when we thought it was about to be terminally squashed, the chaffinch took off vertically like a rocket, shot ten feet up in the air and straight over the hedge. And on a more ominous note, our neighbour across the road told me he had watched a sparrow-hawk perching for around 15 minutes on our back gate door-post ….

Two rather unedifying games to report on from midweek; firstly on Wednesday Gillingham Town Reserves defeated Parley Sports (from the Poole area) 2-1, and then on Good Friday Gillingham Town’s first team beat Sherborne Town by the same score. Both matches featured totally forgettable first halves, but were more entertaining after the break in which the home sides scored their two goals, only for their opponents to pull one back and do everything but equalise. The Good Friday first team game brought out one or two of the ground-hopping fraternity, and Ossie spent the vast majority of the game jawing with a fellow anorak from the Croydon area, which relieved the tedium on the pitch. The only exciting bit came in the last minute when Gillingham’s keeper was sent off for deliberate handball outside his area, but Sherborne couldn’t capitalise on the resulting free-kick.

So to today, and, not wanting to get caught up in any holiday traffic, I opted to visit Milborne Port, just over the border in South Somerset, simply because I was able to drive there using back lanes, avoiding the A30 and A303. A leisurely trip – the bluebells are in flower on the banks alongside the road, and some of the gardens in the villages I passed through, such as Buckhorn Weston, were a colourful riot of tulips and wallflowers. Milborne Port is quite an ancient settlement – back in the 900’s it was noted for minting coins – and in 1770, it featured in a ground-breaking legal case:

Milborne Port was the site of events involving an exploding squib at the local fair that would result in a landmark case for the development of modern tort (personal injury) law. The case of Scott v. Shepherd helped establish the principles of remoteness, foreseeability, and intervening cause in modern common law torts. Shepherd tossed a lit squib into a crowded market in the town, where it landed on the table of a gingerbread merchant named Yates. Willis, a bystander, grabbed the squib and threw it across the market to protect himself and the gingerbread. Unfortunately, the squib landed in the goods of another merchant named Ryal. Ryal immediately grabbed the squib and tossed it away, accidentally hitting Scott in the face just as the squib exploded. The explosion put out one of Scott's eyes. Shepherd was found to be fully liable, because, said De Gray CJ, "I do not consider [the intermediaries] as free agents in the present case, but acting under a compulsive necessity for their own safety and self-preservation".

The Memorial Playing Field is on the northern edge of the village, an attractive location in the lee of Bowden Hill which I’d just descended, and part of a complex featuring cricket, soccer (the team dates from 1891), tennis and bowls. The Village Hall is also there, in which the local operatic society were busy setting up the scenery and rehearsing for next week’s production of “Into The Woods” by Steven Sondheim. The Ostrich, on an unsuccessful foray for food, was nearly run over by a grand piano being trundled into the auditorium.

Outside, I was slightly bemused by the sight of the Dorchester Sports Reserves team arriving when there were already two teams warming up on the closest soccer pitch. So I wandered over, and was immediately alighted on by the blue team’s no.16.

“You alright?”
“Yes, I’m alright” (cautiously )
“So you supporting us today?”
“Well I would do if I knew who you were …”
“We’re Keinton Park!”

From which I deduced this was not the match I’d come to see, and only after much research on the local sports pages in last week’s Western Gazette have I now concluded it was Milborne Port “A” vs Keinton Park Rangers Reserves! It kicked off at 2:00, so I settled down to watch whilst the players for the main event started warming up on the adjacent pitch. Actually, it wasn’t bad. Plenty of chances in a goalless first half before Keinton took the lead with a simple goal from a corner I didn’t think had been awarded correctly, the referee over-ruling the linesman’s flag for a throw-in. I certainly thought it had been a throw-in….. But Milborne Port equalised within a couple of minutes, then took a 2-1 lead, before their No.5 thundered an attempted clearance into his own net in the last minute!

The main event, Milborne Port v Dorchester Sports Reserves (we met Dorchester Sports’ first team at Cranborne last week), when it got underway wasn’t as entertaining as the junior match had been. There again, it was 4th vs 2nd in the table, so an often tense affair, and Dorchester Sports needed a win, which they duly achieved after a lot of hard work.

Yeovil and District League Division 2 (well outside the non-league “pyramid”!): Milborne Port “A” 2 Keinton Park Rangers Reserves 2
Dorset Football League Senior Division (Step 8): Milborne Port 1 Dorchester Sports Reserves 2
No admission or programme, neither food nor drink , attendances 9 and 33 respectively.

[Ally]

Love the avian report!

You mentioned not wishing to get caught up in traffic. I'm sure there wouldn't have been any Ossie as it seems like the world and his wife might have flown into Malaga!

I was picking my folks up on Friday morning and I'm sure I've never seen as many planes coming in in such a short space of time. Flicking through a paper when I was having a coffee in Malaga yesterday it stated "numerous British tourists had fainted in the arrivals hall whilst waiting for the Spanish to finish their rigorous security checking."


Back to your report - no programme?! No food?!

Outrageous my good man!

[cromwell]

I love the place names in your part of the world Os. Milborn Port, Buckhorn Weston. They are archetypal old English names. Tim Heald, who wrote the Simon Bognor murder mysteries in the 1970's used some of these place names for characters in his books! Milborn Port was a character in Deadline!

No food or drink! That's hardcore!