Mad Birds and Cornishmen

[Kaz]

Blimey Ossie, do take care! xxxx

[TheOstrich]

It seems strange writing up a match report not involving Camberley Town or Shaftesbury . For the record, the upshot of the midweek replay at Camberley, their third meeting, was a victory for the Krooners 2-1, after Shaftesbury had taken a first half lead. So that ended Shaftesbury’s involvement in the FA Cup and Camberley went forward to the next round, where they met (of all people, such are the vagaries of drawing little balls out of a hat) Wincanton Town yesterday. And that match ended in a 1-1 draw, so now Camberley have to re-acquaint themselves with the A303 and travel back down to these 'ere parts for a replay next Wednesday!

I had contemplated going to that, but it transpires Wincanton’s remedial ground drainage works are still not completed and the game has been shifted to Sherborne Town’s Raleigh Grove stadium, so I don’t think I’ll bother. Wincanton are in a bit of a fix – neither the first team nor the reserves can play at home until at least October, and that’s assuming all goes well. The reserves are playing everything away from home; the first team, I note, are scheduled to ground share at Gillingham Town’s ground in September – but in a further twist, Gillingham’s pitch has been condemned as well now as huge cracks have opened up in it, thanks to the drought. It’s not clear how this is going to be resolved, but I’ll be interested to see what happens this Saturday as Gillingham’s home game is still “on” according to the FA Website.

One useful by-product of the drought has been a glut of home-grown tomatoes . A couple of years back, I propagated about 30 seedlings, planted them out, and we got over 200 tomatoes, 198 of which remained green , and we made a mountain of chutney. This year, I bought 9 assorted tomato plants from local garden centres, planted them out in patio tubs – and again we’ve got well over 100 tomatoes, most of which have fully ripened in the last couple of weeks. We have tomatoes coming out of our ears, and more on the way. Pride of place has been the beef tomato plant I bought – never tried nurturing one before, and we’ve already had three huge red ones from it, all duly baked in the oven ! The rest of the plants are cherry or plum, and they have been hugely prolific. I wonder if this is the shape of things to come with climate change ….

So to Saturday’s soccer, and time for something a bit different - a trip across the county to Verwood for only my second visit to Potterne Park for the footie, the previous game being a dour 0-0 draw with Newport (Isle of Wight) back in 2016. Dorset Dockers RFC used to play at Potterne Park as well as Verwood Town FC, and I did see one a rugby game there backalong, but they’ve since decamped to a plusher location in Christchurch .

After a brief “refresh” using Google Maps, I set out at High Noon allowing myself 3 hours to get there, (Verwood always seems to me to be well in the back of beyond) - and I was parked up by 12:57 with two hours to kill before kick-off ! The only traffic problem had been some sort of motorcycle rally / protest / event which, with over 100 machines doing a “circuit” of Shaftesbury completely clogged up the roads there . Boy racers, old stagers, some wearing German Army helmets, even a couple of three-wheelers in the convoy! Having escaped the mayhem, it was out via Zig-Zag Hill, Tollard Royal, Sixpenny Handley (20 mph limit through the village, Crommers ) and the long straight road passing various Neolithic mounds and barrows to Cranborne.

Potterne Park is a large outdoor leisure complex on the southern outskirts of the town, but only with pretty basic facilities such as hardcourt tennis, 3G mini-soccer pitches, a skate park, and kiddies play area. The old Dorset Dockers rugby pitch has disappeared; a cricket match was in progress today covering part of that area. I was tempted to go and watch a bit of it, but nobody was operating the scoreboard. Parking appears plentiful at first sight, but it was full this afternoon; a large number of visitors were on site. The main hub building in the middle of the park hosts changing facilities for team sports, including the soccer club, and also incorporates a Café, so I wandered in for a choc ice as it was coming out quite hot. When I proffered cash, I was bruskly told it was “card only” , so I promptly put the ice-cream back and walked out. If they won’t take the Queen’s Shilling as legal tender, then sorry, I won’t buy anything there; I have a basic principle of not using a card for a purchase of less than £10, and certainly not in a location where I’m not a regular . Safety first!

The football ground itself is self-contained and located just behind the main building. It’s a pleasant location with an out-of-town feel, but the view is dominated by a National Grid electricity pylon and cables, which give the appearance of being much closer to the ground than they actually are. A strange optical illusion, you keep expecting high balls to hit the wires ! The pitch is railed on all 4 sides and looked in reasonable nick, given the drought (they confessed they’d been out with the hosepipe and sprinklers ). All the club’s “furniture” is down one side of the pitch – hospitality suite cum refreshment hut with an outside hatch, a small stand with seating, the dugouts, and finally a covered standing area. If you’re heading for the cramped bucket seats, take a tip from Ossie – remember to take a cushion and be prepared to man-spread . Or should that be bird-spread. My back’s still aching and I might send them my chiropractor’s bill …..

League newcomers Fleetlands came into the game with three defeats and nul points, the hosts with a single win from their three games. Fleetlands play at the prosaic Powder Monkey Park which is off the A32 Fareham to Gosport Road, and next door to the MOD’s Royal Naval Air Yard, a long-standing helicopter maintenance facility.

Fleetlands fielded an extremely tall centre-half in Stan Hopkins, a least 6ft 5 I reckon; Verwood, however, were content to raid down the wings and play the ball along the ground. Little to choose between the teams in the first half but Verwood got the breakthrough on 17m with a very neatly-worked move down the right, decisively finished by Storey from 10 yards out.

Two Verwood goals straight after the interval settled the match. McWilliams headed home a corner at the far post (48m) despite the away keeper getting a hand to the ball, and McMonagle directed a venomous direct free kick past the wall giving the keeper no chance 4 minutes later . Fleetlands had no answer to any of that; they even put Hopkins up front in the closing stages, but the Verwood keeper was rarely troubled. A multitude of substitutions (at least 8 - new rules this season) and an injury to a home player marred the second half, but the referee thankfully only added on 4 minutes stoppage time. Anyway, a deserved win for the home side.

20/08/22: Wessex League Division 1
Verwood Town 4 Fleetlands 0
Admission: £3 (concession, £6 regular)
Programme: £2 28pp effort, majoring on history and statistics, although there was one interesting article – a match report on SG-Oberliederbach 3 FC Eddersheim 2nds 0 . Appears to have been the first fixture of their 2022/23 season; what league or division, I have no idea, except it’s presumably German ! It seems Verwood are twinned with Liederbach am Taunus which is where SG-Oberliederbach play. They are also twinned with Champtoceaux in France, so possibly they’ll feature them in a later edition.
Refreshments: They were short-staffed today, and the person wot knows how to turn on the gas in the kitchen wasn’t available. Nobody else would touch it ! So cold food only – I had 2 chocolate bars @ 80p each. For the connoisseurs amongst us, a Cadbury's Brunch Bar and a Peppermint Aero.
Attendance: 64

[Kaz]

Another good read Ossie! Pretty daft to go cash only IMO, but their loss At least you got some choccy

[miasmum]

Never had a brunch bar, not sure I like the sound of chocolate wrapped egg and bacon but I do love an Aero

[cromwell]

"Sixpenny Handley (20 mph limit through the village, Crommers ) and the long straight road passing various Neolithic mounds and barrows to Cranborne."

It was really lovely around there, we had such a good holiday. My word, that wasn't yesterday.

Good report Os, the game seems to have gone with the form.

MM, I used to love Aeros too!

[TheOstrich]

First, a sporting question! Taken from yesterday’s Corsham Town programme’s “Half Time Teaser” quiz ….

Q. Which two of the 92 league teams have three letter “O”s in their name?

The answer will be revealed shortly!

A quiet week at the Nest until Friday, when a pair of harassed scaffolders arrived to put up poles, planks and ladders along the back of the house in preparation for the upcoming Solar PV installation (they had been given an incorrect house number on their work sheet and probably frightened the life out of poor J. in the far corner of the cul-de-sac ). The Solar thingy was supposed to start this Tuesday but has now been put back a couple of days, as business is booming and they are running behind. After an hour or so of frantic banging, hammering and drilling, the scaffolders shot off to their next job – they had warned us we’d not be able to open the patio doors – no problem – but we didn’t realise until they’d gone that they’d trapped the food recycling bucket in the potting shed!

Yesterday saw my second-ever visit to Corsham’s Southbank stadium, my first visit being in April 2017 for a 3-3 Western League Division 1 draw against Bishops Lydeard . It’s a straightforward journey up through Wiltshire, with the dubious exception of navigating your way through the maelstrom which is Melksham . They have put in place a traffic management scheme and revamped the A350 road layout in the centre so that it sucks you in and then spits you out into either (a) the road you want, (b) a road you don’t want, or (c) the ASDA car-park. It’s all a bit of a lottery ….

I couldn’t remember a lot about the ground to be honest, and when I drove in, I thought for a moment they’d installed an artificial 3G surface, the pitch was so green - but no, it’s amazing what a drop of rain can do to revitalise drought-stricken grass! The clubhouse has just been refurbished and the interior is both attractive and spacious; lots of widescreens and those graphic-style plaques on the wall highlighting the achievements of current individual players. There’s a separate small covered stand with bucket seats on the half-way line; the dugouts are on the far side of the pitch.

I got the impression Corsham’s new dynamic committee are gearing themselves up off the field for a stab at the next level up, the Southern League; early days but they haven’t made the best of starts to this current Hellenic Premier season – mid-table with one win and three draws. Their lower-ranking Step 6 opponents, Cove, from the Combined Counties Division 1, are also currently mid-table. Cove is a Hampshire “village” which has been subsumed by development into the western suburbs of Farnborough, and as it happens, isn’t a million miles away from Camberley …..

The game got off to a rollicking start with Corsham attempting a long-range goal right from the kick-off ; the ball dipped tantalisingly just over the bar. Then a particularly clumsy challenge by a Cove defender after 2m drew the wrath of the oldies in the crowd around me, who then spent the next 15 minutes or so berating the hapless referee and linesman . And on 4m, Cove went ahead with the home keeper spectacularly diving in completely the wrong direction to stop Lynam’s shot after the defence had failed to cut out a cross. Corsham plugged stolidly away in search of an equaliser and deservedly got one just before the interval from the penalty spot, scored by Matt Morris - the referee adjudging a defender handled in the area although it looked fairly innocuous to me, one of those contentious “incidents” where he couldn’t easily get out of the way of the ball.

The second half turned out to be a much scrappier affair . One might have thought Corsham would have been going all out for the winner, but it was all rather subdued. Anyhow, the home team’s quest for a second goal was rewarded when Ryan Bath netted decisively from an immaculately-placed Matt Groves pullback into the area on 58m, and Cove never looked like recovering from that. The third goal, scored with virtually the last kick of the match, came from Jamal Chevelleau, opportunistically poaching a rebound off the bar. 2-1 would have been a fairer reflection of the game, though, and I don’t think it’ll be a contender for one of my Top Ten Matches of the Season, somehow.

27/08/22 - FA Vase 1st Round Qualifying
Corsham Town 3 Cove 1
Admission: £5 (concession)
Programme: £1 for a colourful 40pp glossy production. Very good value, a tad heavy on statistics perhaps, but it also contains on page 17 an Organizational Chart for the Tea Hut , and 2 pages of action photos from Corsham’s 2014/15 home game with Cheddar …...
Refreshments: The hatch (and also the bar) are card payment only . Ossie managed to put on his “confused, vulnerable OAP” look (not difficult these days ) and wangle a burger and Coke from the hatch by proffering the right change (£5.50), otherwise, well, they wouldn’t have had a sale. The juicy burger was excellent, but the American Mustard squeezy was watery ……
Attendance: 80 (officially; but I counted well over 100 on the day)

And the answer to the quiz question, according to the programme?
A. Brighton and Hove Albion, and Leyton Orient.

Think about it!

[cromwell]

Great read Os.
Ah, the old under counted crowd! There's a few quid saved from the taxman.
I don't get the joke, it's too subtle for my brain.

[TheOstrich]

Great read Os.
Ah, the old under counted crowd! There's a few quid saved from the taxman.
I don't get the joke, it's too subtle for my brain.

Brighton yes, but how many "O"'s in Leyton Orient?

And Master O quickly came up with two further correct answers (not one) after I put the question to him - Stockport County and Northampton Town .....

[miasmum]

Should have got Northampton Town, thats my local team and I did spot there was only 2 o's in Leyton Orient but I thought it was a clever deep and meaningful answer that had gone over my head

[cromwell]

Same here MM!