Thursday

Thursday morning and the sporting lockdown is finally over. We have a two-hour ‘reunion’ session at a sun-drenched New Meadow Park with the Bs and GCFC U12s for a couple of warm-up games and thirty minutes focusing on pressing the opposition in pairs, all courtesy of Gloucester City FC. But far more importantly, it’s a chance for everyone to meet up and swap scary stories of home schooling and Chinese takeaways, crowd-less televised matches and weekday afternoon television – though the latter refers primarily to the parents who are chatting as enthusiastically as the players on the side-lines.

Smiling Jim, the Gloucester City coach, has a lockdown hairstyle that wouldn’t look out of place in a Daniel Defoe novel and a Glaswegian accent that, for those people who were around in the late 80s and early 90s, makes him sound like a poor man’s Mark McManus in Taggart. The Freemason is doing his best to match the hairstyle, but falls well short when trying to reproduce the dialect of Upper Buchanan Street and getting the correct ‘Zzz’ when endeavouring to pronounce ‘Glaz-go’ in the way that only the local residents and Smiling Jim seem able to do.

Some things appear to have changed slightly over lockdown. Triple B offers a hint of a smile which worries a few people who see it as a premonition that something bad is likely to happen, while Rhodes suggests that he might be quite enjoying his recent return to the classroom. ‘It’s okay,’ he offers, which, like the moon landing, is one huge step in the right direction.

And some things haven’t. The Lens has assumed the directive relating to ‘Moulded footwear only on the 3G’ doesn’t apply to professional photographers and is immediately hustled to the perimeter fence by the nice lady who’s just brought the tea over. As usual though, when faced with a situation where he might lose a fiver in sales a bit further down the line, he finds a way out and returns to the fray, ‘AP’ proudly emblazoned on each of the heels of the Gloucester City chairman’s boots which are now under new ownership, and a grin the size of a giant saucer embedded on his salivating lips.

Saturday

Arriving at Longlevens at just before eight is a Saturday morning luxury not enjoyed since the early 90s, when advertising boards were in short supply and pavilion-sorting jobs didn’t exist – primarily because we didn’t have a pavilion. I’m sure I told John Kelly the new starting time, but putting together the strained look on his face and the results of a hastily conducted survey of the neighbouring houses, it turns out he’s been waiting at the gate from somewhere between Thursday morning and Friday lunch time, depending on who you decide to believe.

Gates open, the first new year’s working party comprising Father Smith, Father Jones, Father Still and Father Eagle (named in turning-up order) are hard at it by 8.20 and the stadium is completed barely an hour later. They don’t get a coffee for their efforts as Bruce ‘Nice to see you, to see you nice’ Foran hasn’t yet arrived with the milk before they depart for the local Greasy Spoon and a well-deserved bacon sarnie.

Wokingham arrive nice and early with the first opposition car sighting the hallowed turf at just after a quarter to ten and their team is warming up by the time the first of the GPSFA brethren (which isn’t Monty Don) passes through the big green gates. The respective managers swap war stories before limping over to get a cuppa, the thirty-yard trek to the tea bar taking a good five minutes due to the pair having no more than two working legs between them.

Monty Don finally racks up thirty seconds before his team’s warm-up begins, offering a succinct explanation as to why he’s last on parade. ‘I’ve been having real problems with my fuchsias,’ he offers, but this really is a case of too much information and he’s rightly ignored by all concerned.

The visitors start the game much the better side and early hesitation in the home defence gifts Wokingham the lead inside the first 120 seconds. Thankfully they contrive not to double their advantage as the homesters are second best in most areas of the pitch, but on eighteen minutes, The Gardener plays the ball across the box and Triple B, relishing his new-found freedom to get forward, arrives to side-foot home his first goal of the season. The smile that began at NMP forty-eight hours earlier becomes a little wider as he jogs back to his mark, though he swiftly repairs the damage to his hard-earned reputation by re-instating the serious look that helped make his name the moment he thinks that someone else may have noticed.

Two-Foot Smith, bolstered by Triple B’s unlikely bonanza, tries his luck from the edge of the box, but the keeper saves comfortably, before Wokingham reassert themselves for the final ten minutes of the half without managing to make a second breakthrough. The Tesco food bill has doubled this week and the interval’s jaffas and jellies disappear in double-quick time as Coach Wilson prowls ominously around the group, three months’ plus thirty minutes’ worth of utter frustration seeping out of every pore. Thankfully, he doesn’t share what he really thinks, feeling instead that adopting the look of a steaming kettle that doesn’t quite come to the boil is a more prudent course of action, given that this is the first game back.

The second half display is better, with the city team showing a greater desire to compete, though Wokingham twice pull good chances wide, while Boris is forced into two fine, close-range saves. Twice too, the visitors are denied by some brave, last-ditch defending, while at the other end, Captain Cooper goes perilously close to matching Triple B by notching his first goal of the season, good movement and a decent connection diverting Rhodes’ well-delivered corner just wide of the back stick.

With ten minutes remaining however, Rhodes works a bit of space on the edge of the away side’s box before driving home his sixth score of the campaign to give us the lead and the Freemason almost makes it three, but his drive comes back off the crossbar.

Man for All Seasons, Hurricane and Black Boots Dix dig in for the final eight minutes to squeeze their team over the line as they begin Operation Restart #3 with an extremely welcome victory. After encouraging and committed performances at both Sutton and Bath in the lead up to Christmas resulted in narrow reversals, it’s good to finish on the right side of a game where the margins, once again, have been extremely fine.

Captain Cooper’s thrilled that Wokingham have declined the post-match Smarties provided, while Hurricane gives thanks to the emperor that Penguins too are seemingly out of fashion in central Berkshire. Both are giving it the Cheshire Cat impression to good effect, which isn’t as easy as it sounds with your mouth super-full.

But over at the sponsor board that advertises Dee & Griffin as the backers of today’s event, Triple and Father B are having their picture taken by a beaming Lens. And the smile that began at New Meadow Park on Thursday morning and showed clear signs of growth at 11.18 today, finally reaches its zenith at just shy of a quarter to one. As the advert says, ‘Good things come to those who wait,’ and now, at long last, for Black Boots Barnard at any rate, the waiting is well and truly over.

Gloucester: Boris; Hurricane, Man for All Seasons, Black Boots Dix; Triple B, Captain Cooper, Jonty Rhodes, Two-Foot; Monty Don; The Freemason.