Four Weddings and a Penalty Shootout

[cromwell]

Are they stuck at the bottom though Crommers? Ee by gum!

I was glueless as to their league position!

[Kaz]

[TheOstrich]

21/04 - The Ostrich woke looking very out of sorts this morning . “You’re rather down in the beak, Ossie,” I said to the bird, “have you got the hump?” “Yes,” he suddenly chortled, “because we’re off to see the Camels! ”

Wadebridge Camels RFC (and I haven’t been able to find out if there is any particular reason why they are called the Camels) apparently number both the celebrity chef Rick Stein and the somewhat risqué Cornish comedian Jethro amongst their past players - and the latter was reputedly quite a successful 2nd XV captain back in his day.

But before we actually meet the Camels, there was another game to see - I had planned a cheeky little double for today – two back-to-back matches which will probably end my rugby season for this year, unless any interesting play-offs or cup games emerge. Starting early, and leaving on the 10:17 Exeter-bound train, I encountered some disruption on the downward journey, firstly involving a failed half-barrier crossing at Crewkerne – interestingly, the one about 200 yards from our former home in that town, where I used to take a very young Master O to watch the trains when he was a nipper. The problem didn’t delay us too much, thankfully, and I must say full marks to the driver who did everything he could to make up lost time. I have never been on a train before that has actually accelerated up Honiton Bank! And then goodness knows what the problems were on Cross Country, but on arriving at Exeter St David’s, I found everything in both directions were heavily delayed, which meant the local Pacers from Exeter St David’s to Torbay were at the mercy of late running express services. Ultimately, a five minute wait outside Newton Abbot station, which seemed to have run out of available platforms, led to a similar delay in arrival at Torquay, so despite haring out of the station and across the road into the ground, I missed the first 5 minutes and first try in my first game, although strangely the first four people I spoke to on arrival confessed they didn’t know what the score was!

Anyway, this first match of the day, between Torquay Athletics 2nds and Kirton 3rds (they insist on calling themselves that; to non-Devonians, it’s Crediton ), and kicking off at 12:45 before the main event, appears (having researched the RFU’s website) to have been a Devon Merit Table League 2 fixture. The main event of the afternoon, being played between the clubs’ first teams, was absolutely crucial today as no less than 5 clubs (Tiverton, Falmouth, Paignton - and both Torquay and Crediton) were battling to avoid the second Western Counties West relegation slot alongside Burnham-on-Sea, so even for the junior game, the ground was beginning to fill, and I counted an attendance of over 100, including at least 20 characters dressed in hula skirts, lei and straw hats , up from Truro apparently …..

As for the game, which finished 19-29, it was basically a pedestrian affair on a very warm day. Nobody was particularly exerting themselves, including the referee who sensibly let things flow. Torquay scored all their points in the first half, Crediton in the second. I sat high up in the elderly stand, in the shade, taking care to avoid the mountainous piles of guano which I suspect could be commercially mined at a profit if the club put their minds to it.

I visited this ground earlier in the season, and out of curiosity this time, I wandered over to the far side from the clubhouse to carry out a geophysical inspection of the area surrounding what is a strange steel framework construction housing the training floodlights . I had wondered if a second stand of any description had been located there in the past, and the framework was all that was left of it, but there’s no evidence of any old groundworks that I could see.

With the game finishing around 14:05, I turned my back on the main event, and was smartly out of the ground, across the road to the promenade, and onto a no.22 bus for the 20 minute ride to the other crucial relegation battle in Torbay!

Like Torquay, Paignton RFC’s ground at Queens Park is very easy to access by public transport. Exit the bus station, over the level crossing by the railway station, and head down the main drag towards the sea front. The rugby ground is down a side street off on the right, but make sure you don’t do as I did , and turn into the road that leads to a pair of wrought iron gates with the rugby pitch visible behind them - that will only take you into the local Bowling Club which is a dead end! You need the next road down.

I had hoped to call in at the independent pasty shop, which was always a favourite when we used to visit Paignton again back twenty-odd years ago when Master O was a nipper. Long since gone, alas, now a ubiquitous coffee shop. Paignton has rather a lot of these, along with charity shops, betting shops and the usual seaside novelty shops. There’s an Oggy Oggy franchise nearby, but I didn’t fancy one of their pies today. Mind you, there’s always the Paignton Pudding. The Paignton Pudding, first made in the 13th century, is the origin of the nickname “pudden eaters” for the people of Paignton, according to Wiki. The puddings were made infrequently and were of great size. When thousands turned up hoping to obtain a piece of a huge pudding that had been baked to celebrate the arrival of the railway, chaos occurred and the event became notorious. A Paignton Pudding was baked in 1968 to celebrate the town's charter, and another baked in 2006 to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. I missed out on those ….

The ground has two rugby pitches running parallel but they are set apart; there’s a cricket square and mini-pitches between them. The main pitch is on the left and it’s floodlit. The clubhouse, with an elevated stand on top of it, runs behind the cricket square and the no.2 pitch. However, it is high enough to give a pretty good view across the main pitch as well, and I repaired there for a bit of peace and quiet, out of the sun. It is also high enough for you to look down on the seagulls flying past in search of something to scavenge, and I made sure my half-time chips were well hidden . Most spectators stood around the pitch or in the two covered standing areas flanking the scoreboard half way down the far side of it. Unlike Torquay’s ground, which is flanked by open spaces, the Paignton ground has quite an enclosed feel to it, effectively being in the town centre and surrounded on three sides by old, probably Victorian buildings. The fourth side, behind the far goalposts, backs onto the Dartmouth Steam Railway’s platform, and an 0-6-0 pannier tank hove up during the interval, carefully positioning itself between the trees where the train crew could watch the match.

Wadebridge Camels, despite being 5th in the table, according to the Paignton faithful don’t travel very well. What played out was a very tense affair in which the home side took a 3-0 lead on 13m through a Michael Sandercock penalty kick, a great effort from 40 yards out and wide. After 21m, the Rugby Gods smiled on Paignton – Wadebridge were away down the left wing with an overlap of 3 players, beautiful cut inside, final pass nicely timed to put Thomas in under the posts – and he dropped the wretched thing! Dour Paignton defending nearly got them through to the interval in the lead, but Thomas notched an easy 38m penalty to tie the score.

In the second half, Paignton gradually got on top, and claimed the territory. Sandercock missed a penalty, central and 35 yards, but then lifted one from a bit further out neatly between the posts.(46m). Further huge kicks were successful on 50m and 58m to put Paignton 12-3 up. At that point, the Camels lost heart, captain Collings was sin-binned for a high tackle, and Paignton had the finishing line in their sights. They kept their nerve – crucial – and a 5th penalty for Sandercock on 82m was the icing on the cake.

Not a game for the purist, but an absorbing 80m nevertheless. News came through from the Recreation Ground that Torquay had narrowly lost to Crediton – that confirmed Torquay’s relegation, and Paignton were certainly celebrating as I left, the other results going their way and pushing them up to a final table position of 9th ex 14.

Having travelled down in brilliant sunshine, sparkling off the waves rolling in on Dawlish beach, and up the River Teign estuary with a backdrop of lush green South Devon hills, the return journey was an entirely different matter. The view from the train out into the English Channel at Dawlish was obscured by a rather eerie fog-bank about a mile offshore, backlit by a now hazy sun. As we passed Starcross, a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, and the train windows were pattered with the first rain droplets. After change of trains at St David’s again (time to grab a medium sized cup of coffee from Starbucks - £2.99! ), the lightning display intensified around Honiton and by Axminster, the rain started in earnest. The storm continued to provide a spectacular backdrop as we ploughed back to Dorset, and Mrs O picked me up from the station in a veritable cloud-burst. And it’s just started raining and thundering again as I type this just gone midnight ….

Tribute Western Counties West (Level 7): Paignton RUFC 15 Wadebridge Camels RUFC 3
Admission including programme: £3 – once I managed to track down the guy taking the money, who was in the middle of the patio terrace rather than at the entrance. I had been told on arrival they hadn’t issued anything for today; thankfully that proved to be fake news.
Refreshments: from the barbie, hot dog £2.50; from the hatch in the clubhouse, a rather run-of-the-mill tray of chips £2.
Attendance: hundreds … thousands …. It was a Kids Family Day. The place was rammed and rockin’, boom box music pumping out from the stand, enough shrieking to drown out the seagulls. All the club-shirted colts teams youngsters were invited to line up before the start to provide a guard of honour – I counted them and that was 56 alone! Seriously, there must have been an attendance of at least 300 overall. Plus another 50 inside the bouncy castle …..

[Ally]

Fabulous report Ossie - I felt I was on the train journey with you and could almost feel the rain storm.

Thank you for a great read.

[cromwell]

Wadebridge Camels RFC

Stuff like this is one of the reasons why I love this country - the sheer randomness of things!

I missed the first 5 minutes and first try in my first game, although strangely the first four people I spoke to on arrival confessed they didn’t know what the score was!

And this!

Brilliant report Os. Is Dawlish the place where the railway line is right next to the sea?

[TheOstrich]

Thanks both!

It's been pointed out to me on Another Forum that the River Camel (Dowr Kammel) flows right through Wadebridge (it rises a few miles north of Camelford) . The poster hails from Cornwall so knows these things!

Yes, Crommers, it's that stretch of track. You can see the quite lengthy section where the sea-wall has been repaired just before you arrive at Dawlish station. Lots of folk out on the sea wall yesterday morning (the tide was in) with the youngsters waving at the passing trains.

I'm still unable to work out the rationale behind the train fares from Gillingham. The trip to Topsham a few weeks back - just down the Exmouth line from Exeter - cost £21.25. All the way to Paignton via Exeter yesterday, only £16.95!

Mrs O now has a dilemma. I bought her a box of clotted cream shortbread buttons, "A Gift from Paignton" yesterday and she was very appreciative - until she saw the calorie and sugar content ..... She is trying to find a way of dumping them in the food waste bin! One thing going for her is that they must have been last season's stock (I thought £1.99 was cheap! ) and the Best Before date is 28/04/18 .......

[Kaz]

We rented a cottage between Dawlish and Teignmouth once, and used to walk along the sea wall there Another good read Ossie

[victor]

I'm still unable to work out the rationale behind the train fares from Gillingham. The trip to Topsham a few weeks back - just down the Exmouth line from Exeter - cost £21.25. All the way to Paignton via Exeter yesterday, only £16.95!

Os ,a bloody super computer couldn't work out the prices on UK rail

[TheOstrich]

28/04 - Today is officially the last Saturday of the soccer season, and at the higher levels, all matches have been duly completed. At the bottom end of the pyramid, however, re-arranged games following all the bad weather mean that some leagues are still playing fixtures until 26th May! So Ossie will still have plenty more opportunities to stand for 90 numbing minutes in some remote rain- and wind-swept field - but as all these games will inevitably be “local”, (and many will involve Trowbridge Town), I think it’s now time to draw a line under the bird’s blog for this season.

After last week’s frolic in Torbay, Ossie was very much winding down this week with three games involving little travelling. First up on Tuesday was an early-evening kick-off at Trowbridge, which I previously visited last August. Trowbridge Town went from 21st October to 24th February without being able to stage a first team home game due to the state of their pitch, and on arrival at the Axe and Cleaver Ground, the first thing I had to do was carefully negotiate a wide, water-filled pothole of unfathomable depth at the entrance to the car park. There, waiting for me, was The Man on the Mobility Scooter, a tyrannical enforcer who collects the gate money . I drove past him to a parking spot and he accelerated after me, carefully blocking me in.

“Game definitely on, then?” I enquired.
“Ar”. He is a man of few syllables, and most of them enigmatic.
“You’ve had a difficult time with the weather, this season, haven’t you?”
“Ur”.
“And I see it’s just started raining again ….”
“Eek!”

Money paid, I tried walking in a straight line across the grass to the clubhouse. Big mistake, I was quickly mired in swamp . Having extracted myself and clambered back onto the driveway, it was into the hospitality suite – well, portacabin – for a couple of buns, a tea and a chinwag with the very friendly folk there. The pitch looked very lush, as you might expect considering nobody’s hardly played on it, but I noted there was a slightly boggy patch up by one corner-flag, and the grass generally was fairly long and tussocky, which didn’t exactly aid ball control.

As for the game, it was the usual entertaining Step 7 mix of skill, luck and rank bad passing. Third in the table Shrewton United, from the edge of the Salisbury Plain up Amesbury way, initially took the game to the homesters, but as often happens, pushed up a shade too far and after 18m went behind when T.9 ran through the defence for a simple goal - Trowbridge’s first meaningful attack of the game . S.11 equalised on 34m, again an easy chance.
Shrewton took the lead on 54m when S.7 did well to wrong-foot a defender and beat the home keeper at his near post, and after that Trowbridge threw everything they could at the opposition, only to see S.4 stretch and get a foot to a goal-bound shot, deflecting it over the bar, before in the closing minutes the Shrewton keeper just managed to tip a looping back header from that same defender over his own cross-bar!

Not a bad game at all on a bleak, grey, cloudy evening with the occasional passing rain-shower, and a chill wind. Ideally it should have been a draw, but Shrewton just about edged it on the night. Trowbridge were perhaps a shade too tentative in midfield, and that gave the away side the edge.

Wiltshire Senior League Premier Division: Trowbridge Town 1 Shrewton United 2
Admission: £3, programme: £1, refreshments: ham bun, cheese ‘n onion bun and cuppa tea from the kitchen, £2.60, attendance: 42

To Wednesday, and at least my third “final visit” to Gillingham Town’s Hardings Lane since the on-going ground move saga began. Pre tonight’s match, I wandered the extra ¼ mile down the hill to inspect the new “stadium” and pitch; all looks very smart, but there’s no covered accommodation in place there yet, as far as I could see.

Both tonight’s teams in the lower reaches of the Division, (admittedly with games in hand), and that was well reflected in the standard of play. The game never caught fire, apart from a brief spell in the second half following a couple of contested refereeing decisions, and on a cold evening, there was little to get enthused about in the stand.
Gillingham took the lead on 21m when G.6 swept the ball home after a couple of defenders had failed to clear it on the edge of the area. Going downhill in the second half, the home side doubled their score with a long range effort by G.15 (46m) and one might have thought that they would go on and score a few more, but Gillingham, whilst having by far the lion’s share of territory and possession, merely gave a masterclass in how high the ball could be blazed over the bar. By the end, it was getting painful to watch - one of those games that will be quickly consigned to the annals of statistical history, I’m afraid.

Dorset League Division 2 (Step 10): Gillingham Town Reserves 2 Okeford United First 0
Free admission, no paperwork, refreshments: 90p KitKat from the clubhouse, attendance: 21

Of some concern is the Football Association’s non-league website, FA FullTime. This is showing the result of the above match result as 6-1! Either they have made an error, or I dozed off at some point in the game and missed 5 goals ….

A trip on Friday with Mrs O to Stur (Sturminster Newton) where there’s a decent independent electrical goods shop, Marshes, and there’s also a somewhat more upmarket country store, Harts of Stur, where we could compare products – we were after a soup maker! Mrs O has a love/hate relationship with North Dorset District Council’s car-park ticket machines, which she swears are in league with the Devil himself, and which usually require a good kicking before disgorging any paper. Today, amidst a lot of unseemly muttering, she managed to purchase a ticket for 1 hour only rather than the 2 hours we usually buy, so that rather concentrated our minds during the shopping! Eventually we came away with a £60 Morphy Richards model, which promises East To Use and Simple Instructions. We shall see ….

And so to Ossie’s final match report of the season on this blog. The Ostrich CBA to go anywhere too far on yet another raw, windy day, so opted for the short, well-worn journey up the hill to Shaftesbury’s Cockrams Ground to tick the last of the three Wessex League Isle-of-Wight based teams he needed to see. Initially, I couldn’t remember if I’d previously seen Cowes Sports or the udder one, East Cowes Victoria , but a quick check of the records confirmed Cowes Sports, theYachtsmen, were the required club, and they were indeed Shaftesbury’s opponents.

It was the last game of the season for both clubs, nothing at stake, so a fairly laid back affair although it did get a bit tetchy later in the second half. An easy enough win for the home team who took the lead after just two minutes. Cowes keeper Hatt did well to pull off a full length save from a 15 yard drive, only for Hewlett to easily head home the resulting corner. 2-0 on 33m when a Mitchell shot came back off the post leaving Mundy an easy tap-in.
The Rockies made it 3-0 on 55m when Schroeder sent the keeper the wrong way from the penalty spot and Cowes scored a deserved consolation goal on 88m, Insley inadvertently deflecting home Watkins’ shot. I suspect there will be some discussion on the minibus back to the IoW who’s getting the credit for that one …..

Sydenhams Wessex League Premier Division (Step 5): Shaftesbury 3 Cowes Sports 1
Admission: £3, programme: £1, hot Chinese chicken wings from Tescos next door £1, attendance: 43

So there we are, and the Ostrich is now laying down his pen, with thanks to you all for bearing with him throughout what has been a n unusually long, hard and occasionally frustrating season, duly interrupted by those twin scourges of weddings and flu. Let’s hope we now get a decent summer. I think we’ve deserved it!

[Ally]

Ossie - you are an absolute star writer!

I've loved every single one of your reports.

Your final one has been a typical cracking read. Full of information on the ground(s) so much so I can just imagine being there.

Your astute descriptions of train/car journeys, food availability (or not in some cases! ) and your clarity of match reporting has been a pleasure to read.

I really hope you continue next season!

Al xxx