Capital Gains
Thursday 21st February
It’s a quiet bus considering we’re off on tour, but there again, ‘Kirk’ Douglas May is not on board. As Einstein once famously stipulated, E = MC2 (Energy = Mass x the speed of light squared). Less well known is Einstein’s second equation: Q = DMA (Quiet = Douglas May absent). No shouting, barely an audible guffaw, limited tuneless singing and best of all, at least twelve ‘How far to the services?’ questions fewer than usual.
‘How far to the services?’ asks Fieldhouse, filling the void with that wry grin that rarely falters, but we’re already turning into Beaconsfield, much to the excitement of Iron Man, who detected a shoplifter in WHS last time out and has let no-one forget it since. Coach Wilson is aghast that Patisserie Valerie is in receivership and therefore out of action, meaning it’s a Starbucks three-cheese toastie instead of the usual, waitress-served scrambled egg, bacon and HP sauce on half-done white toast. Jones however is hugely happy as, following his difficulty reading the sign on our last visit here, he has far fewer problems enunciating KFC this time around.
The girls have arrived and Coach Bebber smiles her way through a Big Mac minus the scraped-out lettuce and large fries, while Coach Delaney queues outside El Mexicana for a good twenty minutes before returning with a foul-smelling Burrito that upsets everyone within a fifty metre radius.
Myatt’s happy too. He takes the healthy option with a bacon roll and Costa Coffee, while Iron Man’s bordering on ecstatic as there’s a power cut that plunges the service station into semi-darkness, meaning there may well be another shoplifter that nobody else sees lurking behind the WHS magazine rack. Being a staunchly upright, law-abiding citizen whose only aim in life is to contribute to the greater good, The Photographer trains his telephoto lens on the exit, aiming to capture the culprit on film and hand the evidence over to the authorities before realising the police are unlikely to pay a cent, so returns the camera to his shoulder bag without further ado and finishes off his Gregg’s sausage roll instead.
Despite a ‘volume of traffic’ delay on the M25, Douglas Eyre – an oasis of green and home to a UK record number of grey goose droppings - is reached in half-decent time, but the noise-ometer in the changing room notches up a level now that Kirk’s arrived, having just finished his M & S ham & tomato pre-match meal.
There’s great excitement down the right side in just the fifth minute as Mother Brown blasts his first goal of the season into the top corner to begin a celebratory run rivalled only by Wasp’s fly-past in Plymouth. At least Mother Brown’s counts. Three minutes later, Fieldhouse releases Obieri for two-nil, but with the Gloucester foot now having been well and truly removed from the accelerator pedal, the hosts reduce the arrears with a well struck free kick, much to HD’s chagrin.
Obieri restores the two-goal advantage, an event that is well received by his video-wielding uncle and our goalkeeper, whose first assist of the season suggests total football has taken a back seat, for the time being at any rate. Obieri then scuffs an abysmal free kick goalwards, only for the home keeper to drop the ball ay May’s feet, meaning both custodians have contributed an assist in the space of five very strange minutes. Vye, the newly-appointed tour manager nods appreciatively and mutters something like, ‘Game plan coming together,’ a statement that nobody seems to understand as we’ve never had one of those before.
There’s still time for Obieri to crash El Capitano’s corner off the crossbar, giving Father Hundred Per Cent Burgess the opportunity to bring his VAR technology to the fore. Unfortunately, despite the camera ‘proving’ Obieri’s header is 0.3 of a millimetre over the line, the operator is required by FA rules to be wearing the full referee’s attire while holding a whistle in one hand and pressing the vision buttons with the other, so the ‘goal’ cannot be awarded due to a ‘rules & regs’ technicality. Plus, no-one else thought it was anywhere near.
Vye, Myatt and Buzzer each come up with lame excuses as to why they don’t finish their post-match meal, meaning each is deducted either two or three eating points on the spot. Mother Brown though demonstrates an impressive sleight of hand by surreptitiously passing his sausage to Jones, who in turn makes the evidence disappear in one with an impressive sleight of mouth. Mother Brown is deducted a point, but he won’t find out till later on.
Back on the bus and the M25 and M1 are both thankfully lacking in traffic, meaning we have 29 minutes to check in to the Hemel Holiday Inn before getting back on the road again for the short trek to Hollywood Bowl in Watford.
Myatt and May are billeted together in a Category Two ‘Cause 4 Concern’ room (# 37), though not quite as much a C 4 C as Jones, Millward and Vye’s abode which is most definitely a Category One, with the tour manager given a real opportunity to display his new-found leadership skills by keeping order in #35. While M & M are in Room 37, B & B (Burgess & Buzzer) are in 32 and ‘Twins’ Obieri & Fieldhouse (think Schwarzenegger & Devito) are along the way in 38. Further down the corridor is Room 44, a paradise of calm and tranquillity in which Iron Man and High Definition will reside in a state closely resembling nirvana for the next forty eight hours or so.
The Hollywood Bowl ten-pin competition is room-based and there are a number of impressive performances, #44 eventually triumphing with an average of well over a hundred. The Twins are less successful, and while their hideaway is only a Category Five C 4 C (very low), their bowling is most definitely a Category One Cause 4 Concern.
Next door in Frankie & Benny’s, the girls have returned from their games against both Barking & Dagenham and are engrossed in ordering their three courses for £5.50 and joining the dots on the establishment-provided puzzle sheet with equal gusto. Coach Delaney chooses some sweet-smelling chicken concoction in a tomato-based sauce, while Coach Bebber disposes with frills of any description and gets stuck into a chiftea din carne de vacă, which is basically an Italian Big Mac minus salad items of any description.
Back at Hollywood Bowl, Burgess of Highnam is less than impressed with the halloumi sticks in the Californian Combo, though May of Painswick demolishes them unreservedly. Myatt feasts on a single chip then, fully refreshed, heads for the arcade which seems to possess oddly magnetic properties, as everyone else is magically attracted to the money-making machines within a matter of seconds.
While The Photographer makes a deal of positioning a duo of elderly ladies beside a vase of spring flowers that he’s suddenly conjured from the depths of his camera bag, before attempting his ‘go to’ ‘Buy one for a tenner, get one free’ scam, GPSFA is doing its best to extract a world record number of prize tickets from as many different glitzy machines as possible. ‘Time’ having been called, there’s a twenty-minute wait at the Winners Prizes counter, during which Vye, despite attending Upton St Leonards School, establishes that there’s an apostrophe missing from the signage and Caple, despite attending Dinglewell Junior, helps out by correctly positioning it.
The twenty-minute wait and estimated sixty quid’s worth of Glevum-based investment finally bears fruit when the bloke from the refreshment bar arrives to distribute the players’ winnings and twelve tiny pots of fluorescent yellow sludge find their way back to the mini bus, at which point they’re promptly confiscated before any sort of mess can be made.
First-night diaries are completed and DREAM marks apportioned, with #35 and #37 subsiding to the bottom of the room tidiness league following the inaugural inspection. #38 isn’t far ahead points-wise, despite occupying a mid-table position, though #32 (surprisingly) and #44 (unsurprisingly) occupy equal top spot. ‘Phone home’ offers are met with responses featuring both ends of the enthusiasm scale, from a big wide, ‘Yes please’ to a big-frowned, ‘No. Never’ and everything else in between. ‘No names revealed = No parental recriminations later,’ as Einstein once said.
Friday 22nd February
8.00am and it’s wake-up time on the ground floor at HP2. In #32, B & B are up and running and by the looks of it, they’ve been up and running for some considerable time. Unfortunately, they’re wearing the wrong clothes, so they immediately relocate to the open-air wardrobe to extract their GPSFA ties, jumpers and shoes and reappear looking like good people should.
In #35, Mother Brown is complaining that the sofa bed wasn’t comfy enough and has already brokered a swap deal for tonight with the hugely accommodating Jones. The tour manager rolls his eyes – one at a time - before returning to his bathroom duties. #37 is an absolute mess and M & M begin an 8.05am clear-up, resulting in approximately one square foot of floor becoming visible to the naked eye by 8.30’s breakfast call.
Next door in #38, Obieri is parading round in a navy blue bath robe, having spent twenty four of the last twenty five minutes working out how to turn on the shower and one minute actually standing under it. In #44 no-one’s moving, in case even the suggestion of activity results in the tiniest of fluctuations in the parallel and perpendicular orientation of every non-living thing within. When something does eventually stir it’s (Caple’s) hair, not body, numerous follicles of which decide to suddenly stand vertically on end as if Hollywood Bowl’s magnetic field has transferred itself to the Holiday Inn’s roof tiles over the past ten and a half hours.
The HI buffet-style breakfast is an adventure in itself, with appetisers, cooked items, cold drinks, hot drinks and toaster each located in a different part of the eating area, meaning you complete about 40% of your ten thousand steps a day before actually leaving the hotel.
While Vye consumes most of the venue’s and indeed the world’s Fair Trade fruit supplies, Myatt is photographed by The Lens reading the stocks & shares section of today’s Times; Miss Bussey will be beside herself with pride when she receives a copy of the evidence first thing on Monday morning. Obieri ingests a huge sandwich which contains who-knows-what, Fieldhouse searches desperately for a breakfast salad bowl with no tangible success whatsoever and Mother Brown makes three trips to the hot counter for yet another full English. Jones would do the same, but by the state of the front of his GPSFA jumper, he’s already carrying several helpings around with him.
An unscheduled chorus of ‘Football’s Coming Home; Gloucester’s Coming Home’ heralds the approach to the national stadium, though the vast new-build tower blocks and huge old-build trading estate mean only the arch comes into view until we get within fifty yards of the entrance.
‘I know where it is,’ stated an apparently offended Coach Delaney when offered the chance to follow our mini bus before leaving the hotel and promptly arrives at Wembley half an hour in arrears, proffering some cock-and-bull story about getting stuck behind a fork lift truck in the middle lane of the North Circular. While waiting on the platform overlooking Wembley Way, Burgess is trying to convince everyone that he had yet another relation in yet another county and this one played football for England about a hundred and fifty years ago. A few people feign a modicum of interest, but that’s as good as it gets. Millward challenges anyone and everyone to a ten metre race along the concourse and much to his repeated disgust is lapped every time.
There’s a slight delay at reception while bags are searched; The Photographer’s seems to be holding an inordinate number of ten-pound notes and Coach Bebber’s an inordinate number of fast-food wrappings, but both are eventually admitted and the tour begins.
The changing rooms as ever attract much interest as GPSFA ogle their favourite players’ shirts, while a fella called Pickford wanders in and sits in front of a yellow jersey belonging to someone called Daniels.
The guide, a Kingstonian supporter who once ventured to Meadow Park to watch an FA Trophy tie v Gloucester City (3-1, and the manager played in goal for GCFC) says ‘Okay’ for the 112th time before we reach the Press Room where Mother Brown, shattered after his utterly futile shuttle runs, manages to appear twice as much as anyone else in the souvenir group photos.
Pictures are taken of the blokes mowing the Wembley pitch by hand and immediately forwarded to the Longlevens groundsman ‘for consideration’, before Guide Andrew announces that the stadium contains a world record 2741 toilets – and Matthew Jones has used all bar 65 of them.
London Gateway service station has the dubious honour of staging today’s pre-match meal; Iron Man, High Definition, Vespula Vulgaris and WC make their way to Costa, clearly the outlet that the group’s middle class fraternity prefer to frequent (okay, the exception proves the rule); at the other end of the social spectrum Devito and Schwarzenegger visit Burger King; Jones sees his Krispy Crème doughnut placed in a Big Yellow Storage Box by Coach Wilson ‘for later’ before visiting Subway with Burgess, both of whom strangely eat something that’s on the positive side of the sensible-ometer. Also in the ‘Design Your Own Sandwich’ bar is Mother Brown, who orders a foot-long Italian, fills it with as much as the counter can offer and swallows every last crumb. Kirk and Slider each choose the Subway meal deal: crisps, a drink and a 6” ‘Meat Feast’ that contains two slices of plastic ham, three discs of two-year-old pepperoni and a duo of frightening looking meatballs of indeterminate content. Across the way in BK, Coach Bebber is tucking into a Double Angus with bacon and cheese and a sizeable splash of ketchup that’s accompanied by an uncannily large portion of sweet potato fries.
St Albans is a city of two Nicholas’s. There’s Nicholas Breakspear (1100-1159 AD), who remains the one and only British pope – a small, quiet, genial, god-fearing man, whose mantra, ‘Don’t worry if you miss the first tackle as another opportunity will soon present itself,’ made him hugely popular with the common people of the time, and Nicholas Sanders, the twenty first century St Albans district team manager, who has none of the aforementioned attributes, but is still young enough to pop along to St Peter’s and ascend to the Papacy at some point in the foreseeable future. Well, Rodrigo de Borja was a pope at one point, so Saint Nicholas must stand some sort of a chance too.
Our carefully choreographed corner routine sees Jones head home Burgess’s pinpoint delivery and elicit a flurry of defensive questions from St Nick, but the remainder of the half is extremely even and Iron Man, Mother Brown and Vespula Vulgaris have to be on their mettle to keep us ahead.
With two minutes to go to half time though, Obieri forces home another Burgess corner and almost immediately WC’s right wing run and shot results in the ball breaking for Kirk to fire home with some aplomb and give both Lettuce and Slider the opportunity to indulge in a timely spot of touchline celebration.
St Nick is not best pleased and after eight midpoint minutes spent dissecting the two that went just before, is unhappy again when he misses the home team’s almost immediate reply due to having turned round to check out what’s happening in the B Team encounter on the adjoining pitch. ‘Unimpressed’ is not the word he uses.
Burgess is absolutely dominant throughout the second period and for good measure drives an unstoppable free kick in off the back post before jinking through the Saints’ defence and in-offing a trailing foot. Son of the Godfather lives not too far from here and should he have been present would no doubt have ruled that the goal must be credited to the unfortunate defender who applied the final touch. Unfortunately, SOTG is still recovering in Hemel General (Ward 12), following his last appearance on the Dubious Goals Panel some six weeks previously and according to his personal consultant it MBST (‘Might be some time’) before he appears on it again.
Next stop Harpenden Leisure Centre, where the wi-fi’s down and the coffee machine doesn’t work, but at least there’s water in the pool, which is all that matters really. The Golden Fryer’s our favourite fish & chip shop in affluent Hertfordshire and the announcement that the evening meal is to be consumed sitting on a wall meets with seemingly universal approval. Norton are the fish & chip merchants, Dinglewell gets tipsy on steak & ale pie, while King’s live it up with battered sausage. The Twins munch away with concentration etched on their faces, Upton drinks Vimto in true 70s fashion, with Haresfield & Elmbridge quite simply eating lots. Highnam deposits his polystyrene container in the roadside bin before announcing plaintively that he thinks, ‘I’ve got a chip stuck in my back.’ At least it’s not another relative.
Player power means that Slider’s managerial performance, despite today’s exhibition being a considerable improvement on yesterday’s somewhat tepid display, is rated as only five and a half out of ten, down from seven point five twenty four hours previously, which just goes to show how little football players really know. At least he’s unanimously voted as better than Maurizio Sarri - by the Spurs supporter(s) in the team at any rate.
Diary Marks reveal that High Definition leads the way in the writing stakes, while Room Marks reveal that M & M are not leading the tidiness table. A list of atrocities that takes The Room Inspector over two whole minutes to read out results in a Friday evening score of zero, much to their bewilderment, but everyone else’s glee. Mother Brown loses half his attitude marks for a whole variety of reasons, the details of which cannot be recounted here due to a potentially mixed audience and the absence of the legally-binding nine o’clock watershed.
Saturday 23rd February
Vespula is out of his billet on the stroke of eight, no doubt intent on mischief of some description and is fined two attitude points prior to buzzing morosely back into #32. In #37, Kirk is also fined attitude points, though the only circumstantial evidence available is that he’s sporting bedwear which bears a remarkable resemblance to a QPR home kit, which is ample reason in itself for a severe points deduction. No-one loses attitude points in #35, due basically to an item of Mother Brown’s underwear moving eerily across the bathroom floor despite no-one being either in it or near it. The room is designated a no-go area, meaning the inhabitants’ attitude points tally is safe for the time being, as no-one is brave enough to enter. Back in the mid-80s, Chernobyl had a similar effect on potential visitors, Room Inspectors or otherwise.
In the refectory, High Definition feasts on hash browns and chocolate spread on toast, a Burmese delicacy invented years ago in downtown Mandalay. Mother Brown makes a third trip to the baked beans counter for the second morning running and the mystery surrounding the self-moving underwear begins to unravel. Obieri is clearly quite hungry, but consumes only hash browns and eggs - he’s decided to forego his early-morning Holiday Inn sustenance in favour of eating a few Woking defenders later on instead.
9.45am is the perfect departure time and all’s going swimmingly as we zoom south down the M1 until the navigators forget to navigate and we jolly past the M25 without anyone seeing it. There’s a bit of a detour through north west Watford, but as the bus is reverberating to the sounds of some very strange songs, no-one notices. There’s a jingle about Louis Suarez’s teeth being offside, another ditty featuring boxer shorts (that don’t belong to Millward) and the dulcet tones of: ‘A-weema-weh, a-weema-weh, a-weema-weh, a-weema-weh; In the jungle, the mighty jungle, The Myatt sleeps tonight; In the jungle, the quiet jungle, The Myatt sleeps tonight. Or a tune to that effect, anyway.
Brockwood Farm Drive, the home of Woking PSFA is bathed in sunlight and registering a balmy sixteen degrees on The Photographer’s mobile phone display as we pull on to the pavement only ten minutes in arrears. Despite the sub-tropical temperatures, Father Captain Scott Daniels has turned up in full polar gear minus his skis, ‘Just in case the weather turns.’ At least it makes Private Lawrence Titus Oates, aka Matthew Jones feel more at home; last night’s forty-five minute, ‘I’m just going out to make a phone call and might be some time,’ discourse adding yet another record to the season’s ever-increasing tally.
It’s one-way traffic for much of the game, a fine individual effort from Burgess preceding a second goal of the tour from the predatory Millward and a first from WC, whose drinks carrying technique and renewed enthusiasm for the job have both improved no end over the past forty eight hours or so.
Jones exits the fray after the Woking centre back steps on his phone-holding hand and Obieri finds his scoring touch by rattling in four second half efforts to complete the victory; the three points are wrapped and packed neatly and tidily on the mini bus between the self-deflating footballs and the spare clean kit that no-one wore.
Last stop Membury services, where Iron Man’s heartbeat notches up a tad as his laces catch in the escalator; good - it may motivate him to tie them up in future. HD has clearly been chatting nutrition to Jones as he’s last seen devouring an entire box of Krispy Krème’s, meaning High Definition is no more and Hundredth Doughnut is born. Coach Bebber isn’t here, but if she was, she’d be at Burger King right now, ordering a Whopper with all the accoutrements. Mother Brown says little to anyone or anything as he’s completely engrossed in his favourite pastime - eating. It was the French general, Napoleon Bonaparte, who first coined the idea that an army marches on its stomach and it seems to ring true with most of this crowd.
The charabanc pulls in at GL2 barely fifty six hours after chugging off in the opposite direction and it’s fair to say that a fair bit’s been packed into those 3360 minutes. While people might initially remember the games and the trio of wins, as ever the real successes are achieved well away from the pitch. We’ve been to London and left it there, but the real Capital Gains will be with us for many years to come.
Gloucester: HD; Kirk Douglas, Mother Brown, Iron Man, Vespula Vulgaris; WC, El Capitano, Titus Oates, Lettuce, The Determinator, Slider.
It’s a quiet bus considering we’re off on tour, but there again, ‘Kirk’ Douglas May is not on board. As Einstein once famously stipulated, E = MC2 (Energy = Mass x the speed of light squared). Less well known is Einstein’s second equation: Q = DMA (Quiet = Douglas May absent). No shouting, barely an audible guffaw, limited tuneless singing and best of all, at least twelve ‘How far to the services?’ questions fewer than usual.
‘How far to the services?’ asks Fieldhouse, filling the void with that wry grin that rarely falters, but we’re already turning into Beaconsfield, much to the excitement of Iron Man, who detected a shoplifter in WHS last time out and has let no-one forget it since. Coach Wilson is aghast that Patisserie Valerie is in receivership and therefore out of action, meaning it’s a Starbucks three-cheese toastie instead of the usual, waitress-served scrambled egg, bacon and HP sauce on half-done white toast. Jones however is hugely happy as, following his difficulty reading the sign on our last visit here, he has far fewer problems enunciating KFC this time around.
The girls have arrived and Coach Bebber smiles her way through a Big Mac minus the scraped-out lettuce and large fries, while Coach Delaney queues outside El Mexicana for a good twenty minutes before returning with a foul-smelling Burrito that upsets everyone within a fifty metre radius.
Myatt’s happy too. He takes the healthy option with a bacon roll and Costa Coffee, while Iron Man’s bordering on ecstatic as there’s a power cut that plunges the service station into semi-darkness, meaning there may well be another shoplifter that nobody else sees lurking behind the WHS magazine rack. Being a staunchly upright, law-abiding citizen whose only aim in life is to contribute to the greater good, The Photographer trains his telephoto lens on the exit, aiming to capture the culprit on film and hand the evidence over to the authorities before realising the police are unlikely to pay a cent, so returns the camera to his shoulder bag without further ado and finishes off his Gregg’s sausage roll instead.
Despite a ‘volume of traffic’ delay on the M25, Douglas Eyre – an oasis of green and home to a UK record number of grey goose droppings - is reached in half-decent time, but the noise-ometer in the changing room notches up a level now that Kirk’s arrived, having just finished his M & S ham & tomato pre-match meal.
There’s great excitement down the right side in just the fifth minute as Mother Brown blasts his first goal of the season into the top corner to begin a celebratory run rivalled only by Wasp’s fly-past in Plymouth. At least Mother Brown’s counts. Three minutes later, Fieldhouse releases Obieri for two-nil, but with the Gloucester foot now having been well and truly removed from the accelerator pedal, the hosts reduce the arrears with a well struck free kick, much to HD’s chagrin.
Obieri restores the two-goal advantage, an event that is well received by his video-wielding uncle and our goalkeeper, whose first assist of the season suggests total football has taken a back seat, for the time being at any rate. Obieri then scuffs an abysmal free kick goalwards, only for the home keeper to drop the ball ay May’s feet, meaning both custodians have contributed an assist in the space of five very strange minutes. Vye, the newly-appointed tour manager nods appreciatively and mutters something like, ‘Game plan coming together,’ a statement that nobody seems to understand as we’ve never had one of those before.
There’s still time for Obieri to crash El Capitano’s corner off the crossbar, giving Father Hundred Per Cent Burgess the opportunity to bring his VAR technology to the fore. Unfortunately, despite the camera ‘proving’ Obieri’s header is 0.3 of a millimetre over the line, the operator is required by FA rules to be wearing the full referee’s attire while holding a whistle in one hand and pressing the vision buttons with the other, so the ‘goal’ cannot be awarded due to a ‘rules & regs’ technicality. Plus, no-one else thought it was anywhere near.
Vye, Myatt and Buzzer each come up with lame excuses as to why they don’t finish their post-match meal, meaning each is deducted either two or three eating points on the spot. Mother Brown though demonstrates an impressive sleight of hand by surreptitiously passing his sausage to Jones, who in turn makes the evidence disappear in one with an impressive sleight of mouth. Mother Brown is deducted a point, but he won’t find out till later on.
Back on the bus and the M25 and M1 are both thankfully lacking in traffic, meaning we have 29 minutes to check in to the Hemel Holiday Inn before getting back on the road again for the short trek to Hollywood Bowl in Watford.
Myatt and May are billeted together in a Category Two ‘Cause 4 Concern’ room (# 37), though not quite as much a C 4 C as Jones, Millward and Vye’s abode which is most definitely a Category One, with the tour manager given a real opportunity to display his new-found leadership skills by keeping order in #35. While M & M are in Room 37, B & B (Burgess & Buzzer) are in 32 and ‘Twins’ Obieri & Fieldhouse (think Schwarzenegger & Devito) are along the way in 38. Further down the corridor is Room 44, a paradise of calm and tranquillity in which Iron Man and High Definition will reside in a state closely resembling nirvana for the next forty eight hours or so.
The Hollywood Bowl ten-pin competition is room-based and there are a number of impressive performances, #44 eventually triumphing with an average of well over a hundred. The Twins are less successful, and while their hideaway is only a Category Five C 4 C (very low), their bowling is most definitely a Category One Cause 4 Concern.
Next door in Frankie & Benny’s, the girls have returned from their games against both Barking & Dagenham and are engrossed in ordering their three courses for £5.50 and joining the dots on the establishment-provided puzzle sheet with equal gusto. Coach Delaney chooses some sweet-smelling chicken concoction in a tomato-based sauce, while Coach Bebber disposes with frills of any description and gets stuck into a chiftea din carne de vacă, which is basically an Italian Big Mac minus salad items of any description.
Back at Hollywood Bowl, Burgess of Highnam is less than impressed with the halloumi sticks in the Californian Combo, though May of Painswick demolishes them unreservedly. Myatt feasts on a single chip then, fully refreshed, heads for the arcade which seems to possess oddly magnetic properties, as everyone else is magically attracted to the money-making machines within a matter of seconds.
While The Photographer makes a deal of positioning a duo of elderly ladies beside a vase of spring flowers that he’s suddenly conjured from the depths of his camera bag, before attempting his ‘go to’ ‘Buy one for a tenner, get one free’ scam, GPSFA is doing its best to extract a world record number of prize tickets from as many different glitzy machines as possible. ‘Time’ having been called, there’s a twenty-minute wait at the Winners Prizes counter, during which Vye, despite attending Upton St Leonards School, establishes that there’s an apostrophe missing from the signage and Caple, despite attending Dinglewell Junior, helps out by correctly positioning it.
The twenty-minute wait and estimated sixty quid’s worth of Glevum-based investment finally bears fruit when the bloke from the refreshment bar arrives to distribute the players’ winnings and twelve tiny pots of fluorescent yellow sludge find their way back to the mini bus, at which point they’re promptly confiscated before any sort of mess can be made.
First-night diaries are completed and DREAM marks apportioned, with #35 and #37 subsiding to the bottom of the room tidiness league following the inaugural inspection. #38 isn’t far ahead points-wise, despite occupying a mid-table position, though #32 (surprisingly) and #44 (unsurprisingly) occupy equal top spot. ‘Phone home’ offers are met with responses featuring both ends of the enthusiasm scale, from a big wide, ‘Yes please’ to a big-frowned, ‘No. Never’ and everything else in between. ‘No names revealed = No parental recriminations later,’ as Einstein once said.
Friday 22nd February
8.00am and it’s wake-up time on the ground floor at HP2. In #32, B & B are up and running and by the looks of it, they’ve been up and running for some considerable time. Unfortunately, they’re wearing the wrong clothes, so they immediately relocate to the open-air wardrobe to extract their GPSFA ties, jumpers and shoes and reappear looking like good people should.
In #35, Mother Brown is complaining that the sofa bed wasn’t comfy enough and has already brokered a swap deal for tonight with the hugely accommodating Jones. The tour manager rolls his eyes – one at a time - before returning to his bathroom duties. #37 is an absolute mess and M & M begin an 8.05am clear-up, resulting in approximately one square foot of floor becoming visible to the naked eye by 8.30’s breakfast call.
Next door in #38, Obieri is parading round in a navy blue bath robe, having spent twenty four of the last twenty five minutes working out how to turn on the shower and one minute actually standing under it. In #44 no-one’s moving, in case even the suggestion of activity results in the tiniest of fluctuations in the parallel and perpendicular orientation of every non-living thing within. When something does eventually stir it’s (Caple’s) hair, not body, numerous follicles of which decide to suddenly stand vertically on end as if Hollywood Bowl’s magnetic field has transferred itself to the Holiday Inn’s roof tiles over the past ten and a half hours.
The HI buffet-style breakfast is an adventure in itself, with appetisers, cooked items, cold drinks, hot drinks and toaster each located in a different part of the eating area, meaning you complete about 40% of your ten thousand steps a day before actually leaving the hotel.
While Vye consumes most of the venue’s and indeed the world’s Fair Trade fruit supplies, Myatt is photographed by The Lens reading the stocks & shares section of today’s Times; Miss Bussey will be beside herself with pride when she receives a copy of the evidence first thing on Monday morning. Obieri ingests a huge sandwich which contains who-knows-what, Fieldhouse searches desperately for a breakfast salad bowl with no tangible success whatsoever and Mother Brown makes three trips to the hot counter for yet another full English. Jones would do the same, but by the state of the front of his GPSFA jumper, he’s already carrying several helpings around with him.
An unscheduled chorus of ‘Football’s Coming Home; Gloucester’s Coming Home’ heralds the approach to the national stadium, though the vast new-build tower blocks and huge old-build trading estate mean only the arch comes into view until we get within fifty yards of the entrance.
‘I know where it is,’ stated an apparently offended Coach Delaney when offered the chance to follow our mini bus before leaving the hotel and promptly arrives at Wembley half an hour in arrears, proffering some cock-and-bull story about getting stuck behind a fork lift truck in the middle lane of the North Circular. While waiting on the platform overlooking Wembley Way, Burgess is trying to convince everyone that he had yet another relation in yet another county and this one played football for England about a hundred and fifty years ago. A few people feign a modicum of interest, but that’s as good as it gets. Millward challenges anyone and everyone to a ten metre race along the concourse and much to his repeated disgust is lapped every time.
There’s a slight delay at reception while bags are searched; The Photographer’s seems to be holding an inordinate number of ten-pound notes and Coach Bebber’s an inordinate number of fast-food wrappings, but both are eventually admitted and the tour begins.
The changing rooms as ever attract much interest as GPSFA ogle their favourite players’ shirts, while a fella called Pickford wanders in and sits in front of a yellow jersey belonging to someone called Daniels.
The guide, a Kingstonian supporter who once ventured to Meadow Park to watch an FA Trophy tie v Gloucester City (3-1, and the manager played in goal for GCFC) says ‘Okay’ for the 112th time before we reach the Press Room where Mother Brown, shattered after his utterly futile shuttle runs, manages to appear twice as much as anyone else in the souvenir group photos.
Pictures are taken of the blokes mowing the Wembley pitch by hand and immediately forwarded to the Longlevens groundsman ‘for consideration’, before Guide Andrew announces that the stadium contains a world record 2741 toilets – and Matthew Jones has used all bar 65 of them.
London Gateway service station has the dubious honour of staging today’s pre-match meal; Iron Man, High Definition, Vespula Vulgaris and WC make their way to Costa, clearly the outlet that the group’s middle class fraternity prefer to frequent (okay, the exception proves the rule); at the other end of the social spectrum Devito and Schwarzenegger visit Burger King; Jones sees his Krispy Crème doughnut placed in a Big Yellow Storage Box by Coach Wilson ‘for later’ before visiting Subway with Burgess, both of whom strangely eat something that’s on the positive side of the sensible-ometer. Also in the ‘Design Your Own Sandwich’ bar is Mother Brown, who orders a foot-long Italian, fills it with as much as the counter can offer and swallows every last crumb. Kirk and Slider each choose the Subway meal deal: crisps, a drink and a 6” ‘Meat Feast’ that contains two slices of plastic ham, three discs of two-year-old pepperoni and a duo of frightening looking meatballs of indeterminate content. Across the way in BK, Coach Bebber is tucking into a Double Angus with bacon and cheese and a sizeable splash of ketchup that’s accompanied by an uncannily large portion of sweet potato fries.
St Albans is a city of two Nicholas’s. There’s Nicholas Breakspear (1100-1159 AD), who remains the one and only British pope – a small, quiet, genial, god-fearing man, whose mantra, ‘Don’t worry if you miss the first tackle as another opportunity will soon present itself,’ made him hugely popular with the common people of the time, and Nicholas Sanders, the twenty first century St Albans district team manager, who has none of the aforementioned attributes, but is still young enough to pop along to St Peter’s and ascend to the Papacy at some point in the foreseeable future. Well, Rodrigo de Borja was a pope at one point, so Saint Nicholas must stand some sort of a chance too.
Our carefully choreographed corner routine sees Jones head home Burgess’s pinpoint delivery and elicit a flurry of defensive questions from St Nick, but the remainder of the half is extremely even and Iron Man, Mother Brown and Vespula Vulgaris have to be on their mettle to keep us ahead.
With two minutes to go to half time though, Obieri forces home another Burgess corner and almost immediately WC’s right wing run and shot results in the ball breaking for Kirk to fire home with some aplomb and give both Lettuce and Slider the opportunity to indulge in a timely spot of touchline celebration.
St Nick is not best pleased and after eight midpoint minutes spent dissecting the two that went just before, is unhappy again when he misses the home team’s almost immediate reply due to having turned round to check out what’s happening in the B Team encounter on the adjoining pitch. ‘Unimpressed’ is not the word he uses.
Burgess is absolutely dominant throughout the second period and for good measure drives an unstoppable free kick in off the back post before jinking through the Saints’ defence and in-offing a trailing foot. Son of the Godfather lives not too far from here and should he have been present would no doubt have ruled that the goal must be credited to the unfortunate defender who applied the final touch. Unfortunately, SOTG is still recovering in Hemel General (Ward 12), following his last appearance on the Dubious Goals Panel some six weeks previously and according to his personal consultant it MBST (‘Might be some time’) before he appears on it again.
Next stop Harpenden Leisure Centre, where the wi-fi’s down and the coffee machine doesn’t work, but at least there’s water in the pool, which is all that matters really. The Golden Fryer’s our favourite fish & chip shop in affluent Hertfordshire and the announcement that the evening meal is to be consumed sitting on a wall meets with seemingly universal approval. Norton are the fish & chip merchants, Dinglewell gets tipsy on steak & ale pie, while King’s live it up with battered sausage. The Twins munch away with concentration etched on their faces, Upton drinks Vimto in true 70s fashion, with Haresfield & Elmbridge quite simply eating lots. Highnam deposits his polystyrene container in the roadside bin before announcing plaintively that he thinks, ‘I’ve got a chip stuck in my back.’ At least it’s not another relative.
Player power means that Slider’s managerial performance, despite today’s exhibition being a considerable improvement on yesterday’s somewhat tepid display, is rated as only five and a half out of ten, down from seven point five twenty four hours previously, which just goes to show how little football players really know. At least he’s unanimously voted as better than Maurizio Sarri - by the Spurs supporter(s) in the team at any rate.
Diary Marks reveal that High Definition leads the way in the writing stakes, while Room Marks reveal that M & M are not leading the tidiness table. A list of atrocities that takes The Room Inspector over two whole minutes to read out results in a Friday evening score of zero, much to their bewilderment, but everyone else’s glee. Mother Brown loses half his attitude marks for a whole variety of reasons, the details of which cannot be recounted here due to a potentially mixed audience and the absence of the legally-binding nine o’clock watershed.
Saturday 23rd February
Vespula is out of his billet on the stroke of eight, no doubt intent on mischief of some description and is fined two attitude points prior to buzzing morosely back into #32. In #37, Kirk is also fined attitude points, though the only circumstantial evidence available is that he’s sporting bedwear which bears a remarkable resemblance to a QPR home kit, which is ample reason in itself for a severe points deduction. No-one loses attitude points in #35, due basically to an item of Mother Brown’s underwear moving eerily across the bathroom floor despite no-one being either in it or near it. The room is designated a no-go area, meaning the inhabitants’ attitude points tally is safe for the time being, as no-one is brave enough to enter. Back in the mid-80s, Chernobyl had a similar effect on potential visitors, Room Inspectors or otherwise.
In the refectory, High Definition feasts on hash browns and chocolate spread on toast, a Burmese delicacy invented years ago in downtown Mandalay. Mother Brown makes a third trip to the baked beans counter for the second morning running and the mystery surrounding the self-moving underwear begins to unravel. Obieri is clearly quite hungry, but consumes only hash browns and eggs - he’s decided to forego his early-morning Holiday Inn sustenance in favour of eating a few Woking defenders later on instead.
9.45am is the perfect departure time and all’s going swimmingly as we zoom south down the M1 until the navigators forget to navigate and we jolly past the M25 without anyone seeing it. There’s a bit of a detour through north west Watford, but as the bus is reverberating to the sounds of some very strange songs, no-one notices. There’s a jingle about Louis Suarez’s teeth being offside, another ditty featuring boxer shorts (that don’t belong to Millward) and the dulcet tones of: ‘A-weema-weh, a-weema-weh, a-weema-weh, a-weema-weh; In the jungle, the mighty jungle, The Myatt sleeps tonight; In the jungle, the quiet jungle, The Myatt sleeps tonight. Or a tune to that effect, anyway.
Brockwood Farm Drive, the home of Woking PSFA is bathed in sunlight and registering a balmy sixteen degrees on The Photographer’s mobile phone display as we pull on to the pavement only ten minutes in arrears. Despite the sub-tropical temperatures, Father Captain Scott Daniels has turned up in full polar gear minus his skis, ‘Just in case the weather turns.’ At least it makes Private Lawrence Titus Oates, aka Matthew Jones feel more at home; last night’s forty-five minute, ‘I’m just going out to make a phone call and might be some time,’ discourse adding yet another record to the season’s ever-increasing tally.
It’s one-way traffic for much of the game, a fine individual effort from Burgess preceding a second goal of the tour from the predatory Millward and a first from WC, whose drinks carrying technique and renewed enthusiasm for the job have both improved no end over the past forty eight hours or so.
Jones exits the fray after the Woking centre back steps on his phone-holding hand and Obieri finds his scoring touch by rattling in four second half efforts to complete the victory; the three points are wrapped and packed neatly and tidily on the mini bus between the self-deflating footballs and the spare clean kit that no-one wore.
Last stop Membury services, where Iron Man’s heartbeat notches up a tad as his laces catch in the escalator; good - it may motivate him to tie them up in future. HD has clearly been chatting nutrition to Jones as he’s last seen devouring an entire box of Krispy Krème’s, meaning High Definition is no more and Hundredth Doughnut is born. Coach Bebber isn’t here, but if she was, she’d be at Burger King right now, ordering a Whopper with all the accoutrements. Mother Brown says little to anyone or anything as he’s completely engrossed in his favourite pastime - eating. It was the French general, Napoleon Bonaparte, who first coined the idea that an army marches on its stomach and it seems to ring true with most of this crowd.
The charabanc pulls in at GL2 barely fifty six hours after chugging off in the opposite direction and it’s fair to say that a fair bit’s been packed into those 3360 minutes. While people might initially remember the games and the trio of wins, as ever the real successes are achieved well away from the pitch. We’ve been to London and left it there, but the real Capital Gains will be with us for many years to come.
Gloucester: HD; Kirk Douglas, Mother Brown, Iron Man, Vespula Vulgaris; WC, El Capitano, Titus Oates, Lettuce, The Determinator, Slider.
