A tale of two very different matches this week, with by far the best organised and most entertaining being Tuesday night’s clash between Heytesbury and Dilton Marsh Wanderers, both of the Trowbridge and District League!
Heytesbury is a quiet, attractive little village a few miles south of Warminster, and lends its name to the nearby Heytesbury House, a grand old English country mansion built in 1782, and home to the Holmes à Court family, who possess the hereditary Baronetcy of Heytesbury. Interestingly, one of the junior family members appears to have emigrated to Australia backalong, and made a fortune over there through managing vast cattle stations in the bush, and more recently acclaimed wineries.
Back in Wiltshire, however, the family couldn’t stop a Compulsory Purchase Order targeting a swathe of the grounds of the house to facilitate the building of the A36 bypass around the village, and that effectively cut the house off from its (private) cricket pitch and associated acres running down to the village. This area has now become an extensive sports field known as Heytesbury Park, with a soccer pitch added to the cricket facilities. When I arrived, and turned in at the gate, the cricket club’s carpark was comfortably full with a players gearing up for what looked like an evening under-15’s game, so I headed the Ossie-mobile down a bumpy grass track at the side of the soccer pitch towards a lone portacabin, so I could ask where parking for the football might be permitted. The home team manager requested I go park back on the road outside the ground, no problem, but:
“While you’re here, can we temperature-check you?”
“Well, err yes, if that’s part of your Covid policy.”
“Excellent!”
(The Ostrich muttered “I think I’m a guinea pig ….”)
The manager addresses assorted other folk standing around the portacabin:
“Has anyone got the digi-thingy?”
Mass denial.
Eventually someone owns up and produces it from somewhere.
“35.8!”
“Is that good, bad or ugly?” I enquire.
“OK, I think. If it was over 37, we might be worried …..”
“Fine then. Do you want my contact details for Track and Trace?”
“Ooo, yes please!”
Much scrabbling in the back of a white van prior to producing a blank sheet of paper …..
Having driven out of the ground, and parked up on the main drag, I found a small flight of steps leading up into the ground by the portacabin, and it then became clear that they’d put a lot of thought into their Covid preparations. The pathway was marked with “2m” stickers, just like you would find inside a supermarket. The club’s noticeboard on the side of the cabin displayed their formal Covid policy, nicely laminated. Only 4 players at a time were being allowed into the changing rooms. Signs on the pathway fence stressed spectators should under no circumstances touch the ball. Further, spectators should stand on the opposite side of the pitch from the trainers and substitutes. Finally, spectators should stand at least 5 metres behind the touchline.
That was all very well, but standing on the opposite side of the pitch from the trainers and substitutes and at least 5 metres behind the touchline would, as I subsequently discovered, put me the wrong side of two fences, (one of which looked as if it were of the electric variety
), and into a horse paddock!
Higher-ranked Heytesbury started with a bang and scored twice in the first 10 minutes. The first goal was somewhat fortuitous as a long throw to the near post cannoned off no.9’s back and dropped in the net – he knew little about it! And the second was a speculative long cross that looped over the keeper’s head. That rather set the pattern of the match and Heytesbury were comfortably 4-0 up at the interval and doubled that in the second half although Dilton Marsh did score a consolation goal when their no.11 chased the ball through the defence and neatly clipped it past the keeper. Full marks to the underdogs though who never gave up trying – a thoroughly entertaining game all round.
There was one funny moment when a Heytesbury player launched a wild shot into the top of the beech tree behind the goal, under which the Ostrich was perched on the grass. “They’ll not be getting that back in a hurry
” chortled the bird, only to look up and find the ball rapidly descending, bouncing from branch to branch like an old-fashioned bagatelle!
At the last minute the bird had to throw himself full-length sideways so as to avoid touching (or rather getting brained by) the errant ball, much to the amusement of other spectators!
And following a beautiful, calm, sunlit summer's evening, a return journey home over the Deverills, noticeably into the gathering gloom of the onrushing Storm Ellen ….
18/08/20 – Pre Season Friendly: Heytesbury 8 Dilton Marsh Wanderers 1
Admission: free
Refreshments The village has two pubs and a general stores cum post office, but the latter was shut, so no refreshments tonight …
Covid Rating: 10/10. Everything thought through, everything in place, couldn’t fault it.
Attendance: 32
Today’s match was an altogether different affair, and at a location you’ll all be familiar with. Glastonbury’s Abbey Moor Stadium presents a much different façade from the humble village recs I’ve attended so far this season; indeed, it used to be a “flapping track”.
Apparently that’s the nickname given to a dog racing stadium which was not affiliated to the National Greyhound Racing Club. In fact, I seem to recall hearing that occasionally they raced canines there which were not actually greyhounds. Whippets? Lurchers? Dachshunds?
I can’t remember. The dog racing finished in 2006, and the cinder track was grassed over; the soccer club had played there (the pitch was in the middle of the circuit) since 1982, and so took over sole occupancy.
Now I have been here before, accompanied by Master O, in the late 1990’s, back when we lived in Somerset. All I could remember about the place was it was borderline derelict, a stand had been demolished, and we finished up sitting on jumbled concrete blocks in the middle of a pile of rubble.
To say Master O was somewhat bemused by this would be putting it mildly; the previous week we had been at Cardiff Arms Park for the SWALEC Welsh Rugby Cup final between Swansea and Pontypridd …..
Today, the ground’s quite neat and attractive. There’s a huge car-park, half of which has been cordoned off for used by a motor-cycle training school, and the main building sports a long veranda pitch-side with pub tables and benches laid out for spectators / drinkers. There’s also the remnants of covered terracing, and six floodlight pylons dating from the dog-racing days which looked in reasonably good condition; whether or not they’re still operational, I don’t know.
Glastonbury FC was founded in 1890, and has played at a far higher level than they are at today. Back in 1951, for example, the club actually reached the First Round proper of the FA Cup and some 4,000 spectators watched them narrowly lose at home to Exeter City 2-1. These days, they are in the lower depths of the Somerset County Leagues, one step below today’s opposition, Wrington Redhill FC.
Glastonbury are strangely nicknamed “The Dollies”.
I asked one of the officials why. He launched into a long convoluted story about some old guy who used to attend their games, many years ago, who was virtually blind as a bat and wore spectacles with very thick lenses. It didn’t stop him hollering at the players at the top of his voice. At which point (back in 2020) some more spectators arrived and he went off to supervise them signing the track and trace book. When he came back, he’d forgotten all about my enquiry, started talking to someone else, and I never did get to find out why the nickname came from!
As for Wrington Redhill FC, they have a very politically-incorrect nickname (“The Redskins”), otherwise I know nothing about them apart from the fact they hail from somewhere near Weston-super-Mare.
The match itself certainly had incident – a serious injury to the home keeper, who was knocked out in a goalmouth melee after 9m
; thankfully two of his teammates had the nous to quickly put him into the recovery position and call for the medics. That caused a 10 minute delay and a substitute keeper was inevitably needed to replace him. Then in the second half, something sparked a mass brawl on the touchline between 15 or so of the players
; I didn’t see exactly what caused it, but an advertising hoarding was demolished in the fracas
, and when things calmed down, the referee booked at least 6 players.
In between all this, the home side had taken the lead with a well-worked goal on 49m, but Wrington equalised with three minutes remaining. It was a reasonably watchable game, but rather turgid at times; not one to live in the memory. It’s always interesting to me that as I travel to these different clubs, some you come away from with a good vibe, others you simply don’t gel with. Glastonbury was one of the latter, I’m afraid, not easy to express precisely why, but I did have a bit of difficulty with other spectators who totally disregarded social distancing
- at one point I had to deploy the Ostrich Stare and although I did receive an apology, the whole thing didn’t leave a particularly pleasant taste .....
22/08/20 – Pre Season Friendly: Glastonbury 1 Wrington Redhill 1
Admission: free
Refreshments: bag of cheese ‘n onion crisps from the bat at a rip-off price of £1
Covid Rating: 3/10. Apart from the track ‘n trace book, I wasn’t personally aware of any other measures being actively adopted.
Attendance: 65, and - hence the social distancing grumble noted above - all in front of the clubhouse as it wasn’t easy to walk round the ground ……
And finally, from the town's FB page:
Has anyone else had an infestation of dark blue mint bugs?
Ossie says he's always found them a bit chewy, and they stick his beak together .....
. Such are the perils and tribulations of modern Britain today. Quite a decent range of produce on display (although rather a preponderance of tomatoes); however, it’s a proper farm shop rather than one of those tourist traps selling up-market and expensive pickles and chutneys. For £6.38, I purchased a sizeable head of broccoli for tomorrow’s lunch, an exceedingly large marrow (which I have had to hide from Mrs O protem, and wait for the right moment to introduce it into the larder 
.