Another Load of Cobblers ....

[JoM]

I can’t be the only one who wants to know about Polish Shop-gate…..

[Kaz]

[TheOstrich]

All rather unfortunate really. We bought a jar of this stuff about 3 weeks ago, the fried carrot and pea.
http://provitus.com.pl/en/products/read ... n-a-plate/
Got it home and put it into one of our (formerly Brexit, now Covid ) storage boxes.

Then last week Mrs O noticed the side of the cardboard storage box was wet and rotted through - on investigation, we found that the carrot and pea jar glass had neatly cracked in two and the contents were now a sodden morass at the bottom of the box. We lost not only that jar, but also a 1+1/2lb bag of self-raising flour and a tub of Bisto Lo-Salt gravy granules which had also got affected. The cardboard box was a write-off as well, which was annoying as it was a very useful flat-pack one.

The Polish jar hadn't shattered as such, as if it had been dropped, it had cracked into two pieces, so I'm guessing it could possibly be a manufacturing fault; weak glass rather than damaged in transit. Who knows? Never known that happen before, have you?

Anyway, it's put us both off shopping there again, I'm afraid . Imagine if the glass had shed shards inside the jar and we'd then been eating from it ......

[TheOstrich]

There wasn’t a report from the Ostrich last week simply because virtually every soccer match in a 30 mile radius was called off due to the Covid pingdemic. It only needs one key player in a 20-man squad to test positive or get forced into isolation for a whole team to be affected, and this has become a real problem in this area as cases have soared. Annoying, because there were some interesting games scheduled . In any event, my first two choices had been called off by Wednesday, and by Friday just about everything else had too. Some clubs were desperately advertising on twitter for replacement opponents to get in contact, but nothing really materialised. So a blank day, but I wasn’t over sorry given the heatwave that weekend. At least, though, the very first of our outdoor cherry tomatoes ripened …..

The heatwave also affected our new French windows, which at one point were refusing to close. I managed a partial solution, but in the end, it became apparent that one of the doors had actually settled on its hinges, not uncommon in a new installation we were told, so we had to call back the firm, who cheerfully sent a fitter round to fiddle with it and correct the problem inside 10 minutes.

The other talking point this week has been the threat of Covid Passports for spectators at sporting events from this Autumn , and in soccer’s case, for games of 20,000 spectators or clubs from League 2 upwards, depending on which rumour you last read . I know Jo has already had to go through that bureaucracy to get into Old Trafford but it looks like it could became “the new norm”. It won’t affect the bird, as Sturminster Newton United are hardly likely to attract 20,000 fans (especially not the way they’ve been playing in the last couple of truncated seasons ) as 20,000 is about half the population level of the Blackmore Vale. Still, a worrying development which will undoubtedly get Crommers ticking nicely!

So to yesterday, and I had my eye on a fixture advertised on Wiltshire Senior League club Frome Collegians FC’s twitter feed – they were going to take on lower Trowbridge & District League Hilperton United. Excellent, except they didn’t say (a) when and more crucially (b) where. I played a waiting game, and eventually Hilperton let slip on Friday it would be 1:00 at their place, so, last minute Covid interference permitting, game on!

HIlperton is a small village to the north-east of Trowbridge which has been all but swallowed by the rapid expansion of its larger neighbour. Trowbridge is technically the County Town of Wiltshire, although what Swindon’s views on that would be, I have no idea . It has always been a ‘mare to drive through, and the many recent bland housing developments have led to a lot of “link roads” being built which seem to run from nowhere in particular to some other nowhere. I avoid the town centre like the plague as it seems to be a constant traffic jam, preferring to detour around the whole area through the suburbs of Southwick and North Bradley, even if it puts an extra 5 miles or so on the journey which it did today.

This was the Ostrich’s first visit to Hilperton’s Whaddon Lane ground. To get to it, as I know the Trowbridge RFC ground from previous visits there, and Google Maps showed a road running up the side of the rugby campus connecting the A361 with Whaddon Lane, (albeit some way north of Hilperton itself), I chose that as my route to get to the ground - big mistake! The “road” quickly petered out into a single lane cart-track which obviously hadn’t seen any form of Highway Maintenance since Wat was a Tyler . Once committed, with no hope of turning back and travelling through grass and nettles seemingly taller than the car itself , I had to press on, at a maximum of 5mph whilst praying the suspension would hold up. It was a huge relief to emerge at the other end of it; never again, lesson learned – I’ll have to try and navigate those link roads if there’s a next time.

The pitch turned out to be at the back of the Village Hall, which was busy-busy-busy today. There was some sort of function or children’s party going on and the small car-park was completely rammed. Those of us who had to go park on the grass behind the goal (conveniently ignoring the “Do not park on the grass behind the goal” notice ) actually found ourselves boxed in at the end of the game due to eejit latecomer partygoers. It was all quickly sorted out, though. There’s no “furniture” around the pitch, not even a seat let alone dugouts, and the whole playing area is rather exposed and did notably have a bit of a crossways slope.

I arrived in incessant rain, thinking rude thoughts about the weather forecasters who had confidently predicted “scattered showers, clearing”. Sitting in the car reading a newspaper 20 minutes before the start, there was a tap on the window. It turned out to be an elderly gent who had arrived after me, politely hoping he hadn’t parked too close (he hadn’t), so I had a pleasant chat with him. He turned out to be a former Chairman of the Frome Collegians club, 81 years old, and he did say in the course of conversation that he had brought a folding chair with him as, because of age and diabetes, he couldn’t stand for a long time, but sitting also affected his circulation. I was able to mention the physical anti-swelling exercises which Frank posted on another thread recently, and he was very pleased with the information!

The match pitched Step 8 Hilperton United against Step 7 opposition, so on paper you would expect an away win, but Hilperton have always had a bit of a reputation as a good team at their level, whilst Frome Collegians are a middle-of-the-table side rather than shakers and movers. So in practice, the only small surprise on the afternoon was Hilperton’s 3-0 victory wasn’t a heck of a lot more emphatic – it would be no exaggeration to say they could have been 6 or 7 up at the interval based on all the chances that went begging. Collegians’ keeper had a nervy start, spilling the ball, but he did settle down a bit after the first 10 minutes or so. Hilperton were constantly getting round the back of the defence and firing crosses across goal, but the strikers, often sliding in on a very wet pitch, simply couldn’t connect with accuracy. There were more than a few “How did he miss that one? ” moments. And the only goal in the first half, on 34m, looked to me like it was an own goal from my angle, Collegians’ no.4 trying to scramble clear from the goalmouth, but I subsequently see it’s been credited on Hilperton’s twitter feed to their Rhys Fricker.

It was a more even game in the second half, but it was marred on 68m by a bout of handbags, completely out of the blue – the game had been quite good-natured up till then - but one home player took matters a bit too far , so the referee indicated he wanted him substituted, rather than brandish a minimum yellow card which the offence deserved. A couple of minutes later, the home bench got lectured for whinging at the referee, after which things calmed down, although there was still an undercurrent of muttering from the sidelines . Hilperton wrapped their victory up late with goals by Ben Spong (78m) and Jack Sterling (84m), both close range conversions of crosses fired in from the right, and the latter goal a quite spectacular thumping header. If Hilperton hit form, some unlucky Trowbridge & District side is going to be on the end of a right tanking this coming season ; it will be interesting to keep an eye on how they do.

24/07/21 - Pre-Season Friendly
Hilperton United 3 Frome Collegians 0
No admission or programme.
Refreshments: although there was an outside BBQ on the grass next to the Village Hall, it was part of the function / party, so I had to keep Ossie on a tight rein lest he gate-crash the event . So it was a quick visit to the Co-op on my return journey for a couple of Ginsters’ slices (one chicken, one been) and a couple of Belgian Chocolate Eclairs to share with Mrs O (just £5, thanks to BOGOFS).
Attendance: basically 11. When the party spilled outside for the kids to play an impromptu game of rounders, you could argue the crowd actually reached 45 ….

[TheOstrich]

Ossie mentioned last week on a different thread how he’d been having trouble with his credit cards in Waitrose. He’d raised a formal complaint, and was supposed to be rung (as in telephone, not neck ) but MM, I think it was, said “you’ll be lucky ….”

And so it came to pass that by Wednesday there had been no calls whatsoever on the landline - well, apart from some automated voice-mail message left on our 1571 service at least a dozen times at random hours inviting the bird to go to a website and download a “WhatsApp” style of app. These calls appear to have originated from the mobile phone of one of Mrs O’s old friends, and we can only assume someone had hacked into it and raided her contacts list. We did alert her, and we also blocked her mobile number using BT Call Minder to get some respite from the problem. Anyway, I digress ….

Ossie, drawing himself up to his full height in righteous indignation , decided that Waitrose ought to be “punished” for ignoring his complaint, and also, while we’re at it, for the failure of their website which has unilaterally decided to remove the bird’s preferences and stop sending him emails every other day (not that he reads them , but they can sometimes be useful). They did this to me before, back in 2018, and I had the devil’s own game to get my preferences reinstated, especially as I was losing out on the money-off vouchers they occasionally send out. Again, it’s down to their IT, not the Ostrich. I did get a £10 compensation voucher back then, however ……

So – shock, horror – the Ostrich decided that last week’s shopping trip would be to (roll of drums) …. Aldi! Traditionally, he has discounted German discounters because they’re furriners, but what the heck! There’s a new Aldi store on t’other side of town so I tootled off over there to see what was what. And it was very interesting …..

Firstly, the supermarket was well laid out, quite spacious, and well signed. Reasonably quiet mid-afternoon and around 50-60% of customers masked up – as for staff it seemed closer to 100%. Yes, there were the obligatory aisles of special-offer tattle in the middle, but the food and drink, fruit and vegetable sections were all well stocked, with an accent on British-sourced products. I was amused by all the sort-of “rip-off” product packaging, such as “Lurpack” butter sold as “Nordpack” in a similar silvery tub. Yellow and purple “Utterly Butterly” marketed as “Butterly Utterly” or something, and green and yellow tubs not of “Clover”, but of “Meadow Flower”. At least it wasn’t “Ragwort” ….

I was able to purchase everything on my “list” apart from courgettes which they didn’t seem to stock, so I substituted an extra 3-pack of peppers. Went to pay and was a bit shocked – 25 items and a bill of only £20.52! When I got home, I did a price-comparison with the last month’s Waitrose receipts, and with about 95% matching, I costed it out at £43.12 …… now I knew Aldi would be cheaper, but a saving of over 50%

One of the peppers turned out to be rotten, but 5 gooduns out of 6 ain’t bad, especially when you’ve only paid £1.62 compared with £2.80. And we’ve definitely had our moments with Waitrose’s quality at times .

So, bottom line, as long as Aldi’s quality stacks up, I think in future we might do alternate shops between their place and Waitrose. And frankly, that’ll be Waitrose’s loss.

So to yesterday’s footie. Now I have yet to see a “Plan A” game this season thanks to Covid, although today’s star fixture, Westbury United v Cornish club Dobwalls FC in a friendly, was called off because the home players were off to a wedding. Honestly, the warped sense of priorities of some people …. Sherborne Town v Hengrove Athletic was a good substitute, however, as I’ve never managed to catch up with Hengrove in previous seasons, so an ideal opportunity to knock ‘em off the bucket-shop list.

There have been no obvious changes in the set-up at Raleigh Grove in the last couple of seasons, but they’ve now renamed the place as the Consol Stadium after some international tanning salon chain . As an aside, before the start, I popped in to Sherborne Rugby Club’s ground opposite for a nosey and was surprised to find a lush first team pitch, rather than its usual state of waterlogged mud. They’ve apparently spent some £15,000 on sorting the drainage problems out.

A strange sort of game, this one - despite 7 goals, not a lot really happened. I’ve seen more exciting goalless draws. That said, Sherborne Town, the Zebras, got off to a cracking start with two in the first 4 minutes; first Mapletoft with a close-range conversion following a defensive error, and then Murphy with an easy unchallenged header from a corner. McCarthy stretched out to meet a cross and pulled one back for the visitors after 30m, and then Hengrove’s Mancini received what I thought was a harsh yellow card for a tussle right on the edge of the penalty area, but Sherborne couldn’t make anything of the resulting free kick. Apart from that, it was all pretty run-of-the-mill midfield-orientated play with very few goal attempts, certainly nothing to get the adrenalin rushing.

More of the same in the second half – Sherborne restored their two-goal lead on 57m when Burton lofted a long ball over to the far post – an Hengrove defender on the line completely misjudged the flight of it and failed to clear. Arguably the best goal of the game came on 64m when Napier-Lawrence followed up after the away keeper could only block a shot, and wellied it home perfectly between two despairing defenders.

4-1 would have been a fair (if slightly flattering) result, but Sherborne added a further two goals in injury time through substitutes Hebbard and Beeson. Hengrove had more or less given up by that point, but they didn’t really deserve to be on the end of such a heavy defeat. Sherborne were simply clinical in their finishing when the chances arose, and that’s what counts.

31/07/21 – Western League Division 1 (Step 6)
Sherborne Town 6 Hengrove Athletic 1
Admission: £4 concession for elderly Ostriches (£6 otherwise)
Programme: On-line only, access it via a QR code set up by the turnstile if that’s what toots your flute. I don’t have the technology, so that’s that. It may be made available on the club’s website – other editions from last year are available there - but it isn’t on it at present. Now Sherborne have always been serial offenders in my experience when it comes to failing to issue programmes – “The Secretary’s on holiday”, “The printers have let us down”, “The dog ate my homework”, although the best one I ever had was “We only printed 5 and they’ve all gone to the officials” – I mean, honestly!
Teams: No announcements were made, but on a positive note, they do provide a whiteboard with the information, which is pitchside by the entrance.
Refreshments: the food hatch was open, but I didn’t bother at halftime, the queue too long and social distancing was non-existent. So it was a call in at “Mr Lee’s” on the way home for a freshly battered and cooked large cod and chips (£7) which provided a fish supper for both Mrs O and myself..
Attendance: 117 according to my informal count, but it’s been officially reported as 152. Make of that what you will.

As a final aside, I do post a more formal “match report” on a football website where I’m a member. This morning, I had a response from the Hengrove Athletic secretary! Luckily, he agreed with my summary but did add that they had had to play a number of 16 and 17 year-olds in the team alongside the more grizzled veterans. Why? A lot of the established players had disappeared off to a wedding …..

[Workingman]

Talking of phones.... I was bombarded with numbers beginning 020 or what looked like mobile numbers. As they were not recognised I never answered but I always did a call back to continuously be told 'the number you have dialled is not recognised....' Vodafone mobile were not in the least interested so I dumped them. Not had a single one on SMARTY even though I kept my number.

As for Aldi & Lidl; I could never do a full shop there but do get stuck into their European charcuterie and cheeses. Well worth a pop.

So, to the football. A bit like the bird I have seen some edge-of-your-seat 0 - 0s and a lot of pointless rugby type scores. Once a team goes four in front it is often time to pack up and go home.

Another good write up. Cheers.

[Kaz]

We have an Aldi a mile up the road from here, I walk past it on my way up to the hairdressers and have popped in a few times - and am always amazed at the low prices I would probably happily do my week's shop here, but I've been going with D to Sainsbury's regularly for ages now, she likes to shop there and I'd feel I was letting her down if I stopped as she finds it heavy going alone The product names can be funny, can't they?

Fancy that Hengrove chap getting back to you!

[JoM]

I used to shop a lot at Aldi pre-Covid. I still pop in for their mint infusion ‘tea’ bags. They don’t contain tea, just dried mint leaves and are lovely. Tesco’s equivalent are almost twice the price, same packaging apart from a different print on the box. Aldi’s are £1.69.

Ahhh QR codes. Our season tickets have gone digital this season, I’ve got mine on my phone and on my watch so hopefully I’ve got back up if my phone battery dies. We’re all waiting to find out how we can pass the ‘tickets’ onto the allowed friends and family, it was easy when it was a card. Even for non season ticket holders paper tickets are a thing of the past and there were a few hiccups with digital match tickets at the friendly last week, massive queues and people getting in 20 minutes into the game.

Anyway, Joe went to the friendly v Brentford and came across a certain Bruno Fernandes as they were leaving. I had a very excited Joe on the phone as he walked back to his car and then this arrived on my phone

F871B253-4276-49FA-9FB5-B3E4666D454E.jpeg (194.36 KiB) Viewed 3484 times

[TheOstrich]

Brilliant! I bet Joe will be dining out on that for some time ......

On the subject of technology, some clubs are now going completely cashless at their grounds (and the odd one or two are also saying any admission ticket needs to be pre-booked on-line)

League clubs who I understand are doing this include:
Chelsea, Leyton Orient, Wycombe Wanderers, Luton Town, and Fleetwood Town - and moving down the divisions: Ascot United, Faversham Town, St Albans and Hitchin Town.

Leyton Orient say on their website:

This will be the case moving forward into the new season at The Breyer Group Stadium. The decision has been made, not only from a health and safety perspective, but also to ensure we deliver a quick and convenient experience to supporters.

I'll leave you to form your own opinion about that. And what the rationale behind non-league clubs going down this route is, I have no idea. You think they'd just be grateful to get people in through the doors, so to speak .....

[TheOstrich]

A mid-week visit to SiL for morning coffee, which commenced with a trip to the pharmacy to pick up the monthly prescriptions. The Ostrich found they had omitted an item (it always pays to check before leaving the premises ), and the – possibly trainee, I haven’t seen her before – pharmacist immediately apologised, which was very civil of her. Increasingly, I find folk aren’t “owning” their mistakes these days, preferring to hide behind a smokescreen of deflections and excuses, so a Brownie point for that pharmacy for honesty.

Waitrose, meanwhile, are still on the naughty step , not only for not following up on the bird’s recent complaint but also for fiddling with his digital preferences . This has meant that Ossie, previously an unknown species in the store , can now be found more frequently in Aldi, which I conservatively estimate could save us at least £500 a year in food and household bills . And that’s Waitrose’s loss for being congenital turkeys. I am still getting to grips with the Aldi store layout, and have only just discovered where the tea bags and coffee jars have been hidden away (opposite the bread by the checkout, if you're looking). And then there is the Aldi checkout routine, where you have to load your unpacked purchases back into your trolley and wheel yourself out of the way of the next punter at the till to a shelf by the picture window where you can start filling your carriers. I’ll get used to it ……

Back to the visit to SiL. We were told that her eldest daughter, who lives locally, phoned her up and asked her to look out for a surprise delivery which she’d ordered for her . This turned out to be a home lateral flow testing kit!! It seems daughter (who has a slightly understandable paranoia over ongoing health problems) wants a negative result before she’ll go over! SiL’s comments to us about it all were priceless – she concluded by saying she and the D would be having “words” ……

Following our visit, we decided to be very brave and have our first meal out together for a year! We went here:
https://www.theoldparlourfarmshop.co.uk/

It’s a small country farm shop in a courtyard of farm buildings, more or less in the middle of nowhere. Nevertheless, it does do a decent trade in fresh fruit and vegetables, and local cuts of meats from the freezer, and the attached eatery is handy for folk who have brought their poochies along to the dog groomers next door, as well as for local cycling groups. As it happened, there was only one other table occupied, outside, so we went indoors for Ossie to feast on Full English – bacon, sausage, black puddin’, beans, fried egg, tomato, mushrooms and chunky rustic bread and butter – whilst Mrs O opted for the avocado and salad on sourdough or somesuch - Ossie’s mind was firmly elsewhere . Just under £20 with two mugs of coffee.

So to yesterday’s game, and an opportunity for Ossie to knock one of the Wessex League newcomers off his bucket-shop list. Today’s visitors to Bemerton Heath Harlequins were Ash United, from up Aldershot way, who were propelled into the Wessex at the start of the season under the FA’s “restructuring”. I don’t think they were anticipating that - they now have to play a game on the Isle of Wight - but anyway, they’ve put a brave face on it.

Setting off at 12:30, I quickly found Gillingham town traffic in total gridlock, because they are digging up the Shaftesbury Road, yet again, for the umpteenth time since we moved down here . Luckily I was able to perform a hasty U-turn by the station, and followed that with a perilous 5 mile detour down Dorsetshire’s network of rutted Hardy-esque country lanes, avoiding 2 ambling equines, 1 racing cyclist (who I managed to flag down before he collided head-on with the horses ) and countless frantic rat-runners going in the opposite direction (necessitating several emergency excursions into the bordering hedgerows ), before getting back on schedule.

Bemerton Heath’s Moon Park ground’s car-park was already full by the time I arrived at 1:30, but I managed to find a discrete spot on the approach drive. My only previous visit to this club, on one of the rougher edges of Salisbury, was back in 2017; the ground doesn’t seem to have changed much since then although a portacabin which I think may be the Club Shop resides in front of the clubhouse. I say ‘think’ because apart from a rucksack and an England flag, it was completely empty ! There seems to have been a de-foliaging of the very tall conifers around the perimeter at some point – behind the far goal, about 20-30 trees have been reduced to bare 15-foot stumps , and the firs along the touchline on the dug-outs side have been thinned out. Not only has it spoilt the rather attractive ambience of the ground, wayward shots can now disappear completely out of the ground .

Quite an eventful match ensued. Bemerton’s Bennett netted after 4m with a looping header but was judged offside. Then Beckley got through the defence only to shoot straight at the Ash keeper. Straight after that, the referee, Jade Wardle, suddenly collapsed in midfield - it looked quite serious at first but she recovered after treatment and was able to continue after a delay of around 8 minutes. She had been hit by a wayward ball about 5 minutes earlier; whether that contributed to the problem, I don’t know.

Both teams were battling hard but Bemerton slowly got the edge and on 39m, after Roach’s drive had been blocked on the line, the ball was played back in and Bennett was well-positioned to score with a downwards header. On 42m, Beckley’s angled shot across the face of the goal saw the ball going agonisingly wide; Ash went up the other end and an almost identical cross-shot beat the keeper and came back off the far post.

Ash’s 58th minute equaliser was a speculative lash from 15 yards by Hardy which caught everyone completely by surprise. On 73m, a frantic goalmouth scramble saw Ash clear off their line at least three times in the melee. Harlequins kept pressing and were rewarded when Clancy clipped home a superb cross pulled back from the byline. The game concluded with two bouts of handbags, one with added snarling , and three inevitable bookings. Entertaining stuff, with Bemerton just about deserving the three points on the day. A tricky drive back home in a prolonged deluge with the A30 starting to flood over in places.

07/08/21 – Wessex League Division 1 (Step 6)
Bemerton Heath Harlequins 2 Ash United 1
Admission: £3 concession (£6 otherwise, IIRC)
Programme: On-line only. Another club who have traditionally regarded producing a printed programme as a bit of a chore, so I wasn’t surprised.
Refreshments: the food hatch, which is buried deep in the bowels of the stand, was open, but when I enquired pre-kick-off about hot food, I was sold that “sausage rolls should arrive in around 5 to 10 minutes”. I was craving a pie – any pie - so I rather lost interest after that. So back home to Mr Lee’s for a large cod and chips to share with Mrs O, priced this week at £7.50!
Attendance: official sources give it as just 32; I have no idea where that figure came from, it was at least 50-60 by my reckoning ….