It's Murder, On The Orient Express ....

[cromwell]

A thirty year old en suite? That's practically new! Christine does all our Christmas cards, if it was up to me I'd forget until December 24th.
Slavomir Huk? Same El-Abd? These foreigners, coming over here, filling up our non-league football teams? It's a scandal I tell you, a scandal! I like the sound of the cheese Os.
I don't blame you for wanting to get back in the car if it was cold and miserable!
Great read thanks. I always enjoy them.

[TheOstrich]

01/12 - somewhat belatedly, Ossie’s report on the weekend’s big sporting action, but first a disclaimer with regard to a previous post. It may not have been a sparrowhawk. It might have been a kestrel. Both birds are of similar size, and slightly different colouring, but it’s the kestrel, or “windhover” to give it its 17th century moniker, which remains fixed in flight above the ground, scanning downwards for small mammals, whereas the sparrowhawk tends to dart and chase small birds. In fact, having studied our bird book, we were pretty sure what we’d seen was in fact a kestrel - but there’s then been a discussion this week on the Town’s facebook page surrounding a pic someone took of a bird of prey in a tree in their back garden, and the general consensus was that that was a sparrowhawk, and you "don’t get no kestrels round here" …. So the jury remains out!

Saturday morning and Ossie emerged dressed in shabby, but brightly coloured clothing with a circlet of flowers above his bony bonce. The bird was getting into the hippy mood for our trip to the New Age community of the self-styled Isle of Avalon.
“Look, Ossie, we’re only going to flippin’ Glastonbury,” I muttered. But the bird was undeterred and started crooning strange melodies.
“You’ll never headline the Glastonbury Festival making that racket,” I laughed.
I think in retrospect he was trying to cover Bryan Ferry’s classic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpA_5a0miWk

So a relatively easy drive under lowering skies and spattering rain down the A303 and up through Somerton and Street to the town overshadowed today by a grey and rather threatening-looking Tor, where the rugby ground is located just off the A39 bypass in Lowerside Lane. This is very much on the edge of the low-lying moors, once the home of the Somerset peat digging industry, and crossed by straight, narrow lanes known as “droves”, but Glastonbury itself these days is quite industrial, with new retail parks and small manufacturing businesses built on the extensive land that used to be the old Morlands sheepskin jacket and footwear factory.

The Brian Harbinson Memorial Ground has a large car park and an impressive, shiny, almost futuristic square two-storey clubhouse clad in galvanised steel, with the changing rooms below and bar above. The latter is quite spacious; there’s two rooms, a single widescreen TV in the main bar (which seemed to be showing a different game every time I looked in ), and - best of all - an extensive balcony overlooking the main pitch, which was to become Ossie’s vantage point for the afternoon.

The pitch is railed on two sides with plenty of advertising hoardings and a manual scoreboard in one corner. I am not sure if there may have been a small stand or something in front of the clubhouse in the past, because there is a strange steel step construction like you see with modern fabricated “kit” stands, but no cover over it, and there is also some evidence of old earthworks to the rear of it. The main pitch is floodlit, as is the extensive training area behind it, this being certainly big enough to accommodate a second pitch, but there’s no evidence of any goalposts and I assume it’s mainly used by the club’s junior section.

Today’s game kicked off at 1:00 and pitted league leaders Tor RFC against second place Stothert and Pitt RFC, down from Corston, near Bath. As an aside, Corston is acknowledged as being the inspiration for the name of the county town of Causton in “Midsomer Murders” although filming of scenes for the latter, of course, usually takes place in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. Stothert and Pitt, founded in 1903, are a works team – the old Stothert and Pitt Ltd. can be traced back to George Stothert’s ironmongery business which he acquired in 1785. The company developed into a general heavy engineering business, building hand cranes and steam engines, and even tanks and miniature submarines in the Second World War, although the former weren’t exactly successful, being rather tall and vulnerable . In later years, it produced numerous small hand-operated road-roller type thingies, but in 1986 was taken over by part of Robert Maxwell’s empire, and went bust not long after ….

For the first fifteen minutes, Tor attacked their visitors relentlessly, but a greasy ball on a muddy pitch inevitably got mishandled, allowing Stotherts to gleefully hack it and chase upfield, where Tor’s backfield players had to pull off some spectacular defensive interventions before returning to the attack. Added to this, there were a few minor instances of handbags, but the referee was quick to stamp on these and eventually Tor got an easy penalty award for dissent and opened the scoring (14m). Stotherts equalised 5 minutes later when their no.3 set off in pursuit a long boot upfield into the far corner and was rewarded for perseverance when the ball held up just before going out of bounds, and he was able with a last gasp to collapse on it and touch it down . A 20 yard penalty made it 3-8 but on the stroke of half-time, Tor managed a 2 yard plunge over and an impressive conversion from wide made it 10-8.

Stotherts had played a rather careful, almost languid brand of rugby, but started the second half in a much more determined fashion, Tor being fortunate to keep them out, but on 56m the visitors had a player sinbinned and on 60m Tor went further in front with a fine dummied try – only for Stotherts to quickly bring it back to 17-15. Tor managed a third try on 67m to give themselves a breathing space, and then denied Stotherts a losing bonus with some heroic defending on the line in the final few minutes.

Following this game, which concluded around 2:30, a bonus match! Under the floodlights with a 3:00 kick-off, Tor 2nds took on Cheddar Valley 2nds in a Somerset 3 South (Level 11) league game. Many years ago, a comic writer called Michael Green wrote a classically funny book entitled “The Art of Coarse Rugby”, an affectionate look at the lowest reaches of the game, and Cheddar 2nds today epitomised everything he wrote about! They turned up with only 12 men, had to loan a player from the home side, and thus played 13 vs 15 throughout the game, although it was often 12 vs 15 when a Cheddar player walked off for a quick but necessary breather. When they came out of the changing rooms, the first two players, easily aged 45 or over, were exchanging a crafty last minute ciggie , and one of the props must have been well over 20 stone of solid flab, with a belly you could hide a beer barrel in. Cheddar should have conceded three tries in the first 10 minutes (Tor were suffering from a “failure to pass even though there’s an overlap of 3 players outside you” syndrome ), and managed to hold the home team to 19-0 at the interval, but after the break it was a different story; Tor 2nds rattled in 4 long-range tries in quick succession, and the referee, having taken soundings from the captains, mercifully blew the final whistle on 62m with the score 59-0.

A quiet trip back home in increasingly gloomy conditions, but not before tanking up at Tescos in Glastonbury at just 124.9p/litre, which is at least 5p cheaper that the local filling station here ….

Tribute Somerset 1 (Level 9): Tor RFC 24 Stothert & Pitt RFC 15
Admission: free, no programme
Refreshments: pretty basic cheese ‘n onion and ham rolls from the bar, two for £3, and a half of draft Diet Coke only 75p.
Attendance: 71

[Ally]

Thanks Ossie - your weather is certainly starting to get wintery.

at the footy players faggin it coming out.

[cromwell]

Os, I read that book lol!
The Tor game sounds like a good match, your description of itvdoes take me back.

[Kaz]

Oh, I do love the West Country!

[TheOstrich]

01/12 – Blessed relief – the skip finally disappeared off the front lawn on Monday (just managed to intervene before the skip driver loaded the ancient Ossiemobile on it as well) and the plumber and electrician (to wire in the replacement shower) came on Tuesday to finish the en-suite refurbishment off. Only 7 months from inception to completion! It may be a Dorset record. Also, the guy who does the mowing came and said he wouldn't be back until March as he's off to Tenerife for the winter ("I told you you pay him to much," muttered Mrs O ). At last we have been set free from workmen and endless rounds of tea-making, so off on Wednesday to the Hunters Lodge Inn near Wincanton for a lunch-time Senior Citizens 2-course at £9.50 each (we both started with 4 tempura prawns on a bed of salad and with a fairly eye-watering chilli dip, followed by scampi for Mrs O and Pie of the Day for Ossie (pork, apple and stuffing) with chips, veg and gravy. Very nice too. It’s a biggish place, a number of Christmas Parties were also taking place, and the girls on the table opposite us managed somehow to set their Christmas decorations alight!

We followed this on Friday with a second trip up to Shaftesbury Tip for Ossie with a load of cardboard boxes and various things the workmen had left behind that didn’t make the skip (so we can now get the car back in the garage again! ) and a mooch round Waitrose to plan our Christmas menu. It’ll only be the two of us, so a cooked ham joint was earmarked for purchase closer to the day, as were various cheeses, nibbles and other treats. And we also purchased two of they small £2-summat mini bottles of wine (Australian!) to accompany the meals. So all is slowly coming together for the Festive Season.

Now the clocks have gone back and the weather’s turned, time for the Ostrich to knock off a few local footie grounds. AFC Blandford, a relatively new club founded in 2007, play at the Dick Draper Memorial Ground (aka Stourpaine Playing Fields); Stourpaine is a pretty village a few miles north of Blandford on the A350 Shaftesbury road. Coming south from Shaftesbury, Ossie turned right at the “Village Hall” sign just before the locally well-respected White Horse pub (which we must try out sometime), and at the end of that road, a quick dog-leg to the right brought the bird into the road called Havelins. The ground is around 100 yards or so down there on the left, as the tarmac peters out into a “trailway”. There’s a small car park (about 20 spaces) and the clubhouse (“Pavillion Bar”) lies behind the nearest goal. Alongside it is the rather attractive, wooden-clad Village Hall itself, and beyond that a kiddies play area and a couple of tennis courts, in other words standard “Village Rec” fayre.

The pitch is railed with some hoardings and two small brick dugouts painted in club colours. It was certainly in good condition; someone showed me a pic of the neighbouring Shillingstone ground which is currently under two feet of water thanks to a flooding River Stour! There’s a small hardstanding area but no spectator shelter other than the clubhouse veranda, which does, however, afford quite a decent view straight down the pitch and was very welcome today as a series of hefty showers rattled through from the west, down the wooded valley and across the ground – in any other conditions, this would be a very attractive setting.

Blandford had beaten Allendale 0-8 on their patch earlier in the season, but certainly during the first half, Allendale looked the sharper side up front. Unfortunately, they were wasteful. They took an 8th minute lead after A.9 had, possibly unintentionally , delivered a half-volley into the area completely wrong-footing the home defence, and A.10 was able to knock the ball in from close range. Blandford however were 3-1 up by the interval, thanks to taking their chances and more clinical finishing. Overall though, it wasn’t the highest quality game - but the conditions were largely responsible for that.

Both keepers looked a bit dodgy, to be honest, and the second half saw a further 7 goals. The home custodian tended to get away with some of his less impressive moments, like spilling the ball but being able to block the follow-up attempt. In contrast, the Allendale keeper, as Blandford piled on the pressure in the second half, wilted along with his defence. He left alone one gentle looping header from B.2 which he thought was going wide – but it didn’t, it hit the post and bounced into the net – and later dived over a B.16 effort which he really ought to have saved. As well as the goals, there were plenty of chances missed by both sides; indeed in the last minute, two Allendale players found themselves totally unmarked at the far post, but somehow contrived to put the ball wide.

Rollicking entertainment in very testing conditions, and a fair result at the end pf the day. The clouds miraculously lifted as the final whistle blew, so a drive home under faded blue skies, trying to avoid the copious amounts of standing water still left on the roads.

Dorset Senior League (Step 8) : AFC Blandford 8 Allendale 3
Admission: none
Programme: amazingly for this low level, yes, a 12pp colour with a good level of content; available from the bar for a donation, and I gave £2 as it was at least on a par with others I’ve seen at that price this season.
Refreshments: £1 Mars Bar, 50p tea from the bar. No hot food available , as far as I could see. Chicken nuggets and pizza were being offloaded from a car into the kitchen at half-time, but I think there was some sort of function on this evening.
Attendance: 17 rather wet and bedraggled spectators.

[Kaz]

Shame about the hot food Ossie - you could do with it on a day like today!

[Ally]

Shame about the hot food Ossie - you could do with it on a day like today!

We really do live in different climes - people in the centre of Malaga were queuing up for ice cream yesterday and the parlours were rammed. I had a medium sized tub of melon flavour. Sorry. *blush*

Great read Ossie..well done to all 17 of you.

[Kaz]

That's OK Ally, we have our compensations - I'm sat in a wintery wonderland right now, watching the ice skating and the kiddies queueing up to see Father Christmas

[cromwell]

Blandford eh? I'm glad it was a good result Forum...