A Week is a Long Time in Football
The week began with a refereeing workshop that was really informative and produced great debate. It was great to see the boys enjoying voicing their opinions even if it meant that whenever Luis Suarez was the victim, 90% of them thought he was in the wrong. 90% of them, therefore, must be very good judges of character. The workshop also showed that Mullers could be a future Clattenburg and that Fish would not.
The second instalment of the busy week at GPSFA was a staff Safeguarding course. The important messages and reminders were given and received as expected. Harris though was less than impressed when the tutor aged him by twenty to thirty years by stating “You are all in the same age category.” All others showed their unwavering support for him by laughing long and loud.
The Friday night excursion to Stevenage was very strange as the minibus did not have any erroneous smells and whiffs for the whole of the journey. On a completely unrelated subject, Jones was not on the minibus for this particular journey. At the services, JV and Bambi had a go at guessing the ages of the coaches. Both were immediately named as substitutes for the game, Harris now having an age bandwidth of some thirty years and becoming increasingly sensitive over it. To appease him some of the boys randomly bought him a very ageist birthday card and filled it with personal messages and insults, but the last thing he needed was to age yet another year within the week. Bambi amused the people on the next table by secretly moving popcorn chicken pieces from Bulley’s box into JV’s. Neither noticed.
The next morning DLM (Werner) was obviously fearing he was in the Twylight Zone when he knocked on Wixey’s door to ask, “There’s a newspaper outside my door, what does it mean?” Fish and Taylor kept up their near-perfect records for room cleanliness. Two Norwegian ladies were lucky enough to sit on the next table to us for breakfast. They tested the boys’ geography knowledge. Norway does indeed border Denmark and Thailand, Norway is in Mexico and has 27 different capitals, none of which are Oslo. The ladies left for their visit to the Harry Potter studios in good spirits, but very worried for our education system. The chef delighted everyone by producing a tray of doughnuts for the journey home.
The game itself was tough for the boys as they were unable to re-produce the physicality they had shown two weeks earlier. The strong Stevenage A Team was allowed to dominate this Shires Cup tie and it was no surprise when they took the lead, Carr scoring a fantastic individual goal. Controlling a cross field ball on the half way line and with one touch diverting it past our defender, his searing pace took him past another before unleashing a powerful strike into the far top corner from the edge of the area.
Ball, having one of his best games in a GPSFA shirt was responsible for halting numerous attacks through a mixture of good positioning and well-timed tackling, helping to keep the score down to a single goal deficit. Gloucester improved after the break and began to compete with their hosts. Werner deserved credit for working out how to stop the speedy Carr, again highlighting the natural defensive skills he possesses. The nearest The Yellows came to scoring was a Kennedy header that was cleared off the line following a corner. A few minutes later Stevenage put the game beyond the visitors when a free kick was headed in, Stevenage progressing to the next round of the cup with a two-nil victory. The recent good run had come to an abrupt end.
Many thanks are due to the travelling army of supporters who made the long trip to Hertfordshire to cheer on their team.
The journey home was memorable for the singsong that took place on the mini-bus; it was good to hear them in such great spirits after such a long trek, overnight stay and a tough match. Harris’ game of heads or tails went down well, causing Taylor to remark that it was like luck that he called correctly! Lord Fartquaard was luckiest of all and won three rounds. The arguments as to who was responsible for the erroneous smells on the mini-bus re-appeared.
A week really is a long time in football. Well, in the GPSFA at least.
Gloucester: Boakes; Mason, Ball, Werner; Kennedy, Jones, Taylor, Mulraney, Fisher. Sub: Villiers.
The second instalment of the busy week at GPSFA was a staff Safeguarding course. The important messages and reminders were given and received as expected. Harris though was less than impressed when the tutor aged him by twenty to thirty years by stating “You are all in the same age category.” All others showed their unwavering support for him by laughing long and loud.
The Friday night excursion to Stevenage was very strange as the minibus did not have any erroneous smells and whiffs for the whole of the journey. On a completely unrelated subject, Jones was not on the minibus for this particular journey. At the services, JV and Bambi had a go at guessing the ages of the coaches. Both were immediately named as substitutes for the game, Harris now having an age bandwidth of some thirty years and becoming increasingly sensitive over it. To appease him some of the boys randomly bought him a very ageist birthday card and filled it with personal messages and insults, but the last thing he needed was to age yet another year within the week. Bambi amused the people on the next table by secretly moving popcorn chicken pieces from Bulley’s box into JV’s. Neither noticed.
The next morning DLM (Werner) was obviously fearing he was in the Twylight Zone when he knocked on Wixey’s door to ask, “There’s a newspaper outside my door, what does it mean?” Fish and Taylor kept up their near-perfect records for room cleanliness. Two Norwegian ladies were lucky enough to sit on the next table to us for breakfast. They tested the boys’ geography knowledge. Norway does indeed border Denmark and Thailand, Norway is in Mexico and has 27 different capitals, none of which are Oslo. The ladies left for their visit to the Harry Potter studios in good spirits, but very worried for our education system. The chef delighted everyone by producing a tray of doughnuts for the journey home.
The game itself was tough for the boys as they were unable to re-produce the physicality they had shown two weeks earlier. The strong Stevenage A Team was allowed to dominate this Shires Cup tie and it was no surprise when they took the lead, Carr scoring a fantastic individual goal. Controlling a cross field ball on the half way line and with one touch diverting it past our defender, his searing pace took him past another before unleashing a powerful strike into the far top corner from the edge of the area.
Ball, having one of his best games in a GPSFA shirt was responsible for halting numerous attacks through a mixture of good positioning and well-timed tackling, helping to keep the score down to a single goal deficit. Gloucester improved after the break and began to compete with their hosts. Werner deserved credit for working out how to stop the speedy Carr, again highlighting the natural defensive skills he possesses. The nearest The Yellows came to scoring was a Kennedy header that was cleared off the line following a corner. A few minutes later Stevenage put the game beyond the visitors when a free kick was headed in, Stevenage progressing to the next round of the cup with a two-nil victory. The recent good run had come to an abrupt end.
Many thanks are due to the travelling army of supporters who made the long trip to Hertfordshire to cheer on their team.
The journey home was memorable for the singsong that took place on the mini-bus; it was good to hear them in such great spirits after such a long trek, overnight stay and a tough match. Harris’ game of heads or tails went down well, causing Taylor to remark that it was like luck that he called correctly! Lord Fartquaard was luckiest of all and won three rounds. The arguments as to who was responsible for the erroneous smells on the mini-bus re-appeared.
A week really is a long time in football. Well, in the GPSFA at least.
Gloucester: Boakes; Mason, Ball, Werner; Kennedy, Jones, Taylor, Mulraney, Fisher. Sub: Villiers.
