Saturday 23rd November: Slough 0 Gloucester A 9.    Monday 25th November: Forest Green v Gloucester BD. Friday 29th November: Gloucester BD v Gloucester City.    Saturday 30th November: Poole & East Dorset v Gloucester A (A); Carmarthen v Gloucester B (A); Bridgend v Gloucester Girls (A).

Potters Bar 4-0 Gloucester by Jacques Cousteau

As the celebrated French oceanographer, Jacques Cousteau once said, “The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” The players of both Potters Bar and Gloucester will be hoping that this is not the case however and after celebrating the onset of 2016 by surviving drowning in the Sea of Oakmere, will be looking to play out the remainder of the season on something that slightly more resembles terra firma.

Well done however to Potters Bar for ensuring the game was played at all and on completing a comprehensive victory to move into the semi finals of the Southern Counties Cup and well done too to both sets of players for their wholehearted attempts to compete from the first whistle to the last.

Gloucester defended gamely throughout the first half, limiting the hosts to a single Liam Hummel strike, Potters Bar being denied further goals by several fine saves from Troke, a remarkable goal line clearance from Hylton and the inside of the left hand upright.

‘You’re always in the game at 0-1,” said The Bard, but four minutes after the interval the ball landed and stuck when the Gloucester defenders expected it to either sink or float and Quesada-Thorn duly netted number two. Hummel and Roberts completed the scoring, Troke produced several more fine saves, while he and Gore, who never stopped competing in the Sargasso area of the pitch, were largely unrecognisable at the end of the contest.

They say a drowning man sees his entire life flash before him. What they don’t say is that once one has survived the storm, his perception of the future changes indelibly. So for over half the group that racked up at the very nicely appointed Oxford Motorway Services, KFC was replaced by Subway, popcorn chicken by ham salad rolls and a new year’s resolution that a healthy diet and a healthy lifestyle are the best ways forward for the remainder of 2016. No doubt it’ll be quinoa and lentils next week.

Gloucester: Troke; Weir-Roberts, Richards, Hylton; Coldridge, Gore, Townsend, Pledger; Jenner.