Thursday

The day of departure dawns bright and dry and despite an early-morning detour to Abbotswood Road to collect The Photographer, we’re still back at GL2 five minutes before Vaile continues his very impressive First-To-Arrive record. Buckland and McLarney also extend their own particular testimonials, as each now shares first place in the Not-Anywhere-Near-First-To-Arrive league table, leaving Bennett in third place with plenty of ground to make up as the season rolls on.

There’s a spare seat on the mini bus as Nice Jacob Hayes has tested positive for Covid and as such isn’t travelling to the capital, but the 9% reduction in personnel isn’t mirrored by a 9% reduction in decibel levels. Folley, though, in all fairness, has reduced his usual bellowing to simply talking very loudly and verbalises his new-found serenity by stating he’s feeling, ‘much More Calmer.’ Grammatically challenged he might be, but it’s a price well worth paying for even a slightly reduced amount of otalgia, or earache to the common man.

We circumnavigate the dreaming spires of Oxford with just a single hiatus, the local council having decided to close off three miles of inside lane so that a single verge-cutter can operate, thereby ticking all their H & S boxes with one continuous line of big red cones. ‘How far now?’ asks Clifford.

There’s a ‘wee break’ at Beaconsfield, which is a nice Caledonian play on words, before a proper lunch interval at South Mimms, one of the very few service stations in the south of England that we haven’t yet visited this season. Half the team are clearly healthy eaters (Bennett, Buckland, Folley, McLarney & Vaile) as they have each brought a packed lunch from home, while the nearly-healthy people (Brooks, Clifford, Manning & White) opt for a Subway six-incher instead. The Model, however, falls somewhere in between the two categories. Having brought a packed lunch from Speedwell that’s been lovingly prepared by Mother Hanlon, he decides to leave everything on the bus as he prefers to visit the Big ‘S’ instead. Poor NH – she’ll be utterly devastated when she reads this.

There’s a quick team meeting and a final visit to the loos in the Portakabin out the back, before heading off around the M25, arriving at Douglas Eyre Sports Centre shortly before 3.30. Our game versus Hackney is for the newly-introduced ‘Grisdale-Larter Trophy’, a cup in memory of two great stalwarts of the borough who were heavily involved in running the district side since the early 70s, but who both sadly passed away last year. A brace of family members is introduced to the teams, whose joint commitment in attempting to be the first winners of the glistening new silverware is evident from the outset.

Folley saves well from Herbert and McLarney clears an early Hackney effort off the line, while Clifford repeats the intervention with an even better defensive block in the fourth and final quarter. At the other end, Manning’s corner is deflected on to the bar before a fine move involving Bennett and Brooks and finished by Clifford is ruled out for offside. Which is a shame, as in addition to creating the excitement of a last-minute winner, it would have been a proper BBC goal.

So, the game ends scoreless and the inaugural trophy is shared, with medals being presented to both sets of combatants. There’s also a presentation to the two Players of the Match, one from each side, with our Reluctant Centre Back and Subway-fuelled Model receiving a £10 voucher for his sterling efforts, while back in Pope’s Mead, Highnam, NJH, the Real Centre Back, can be heard belting out Yvonne Fair’s, ‘It should have been me; You know, it should have been me,’ at the top of his voice, despite being locked in his room while recovering from his Covid infection.

It’s a race against time to get to Hollywood Bowl in Watford, with Folley’s 132 leading Team A to a resounding victory over Team B, Bennett and Brooks also breaking the three-figure barrier. On Alley Number Ten, Clifford top scores with 88, though his team eventually finishes a mammoth 122 pins behind the winners, who led from the very first bowl till the very last projectile was rolled.

The bus takes barely ten minutes to reach the Holiday Inn in Hemel, where diaries are written and phone calls are made, while the newly-appointed Room Inspector (The Photographer) goes about his murky business with notepad and pen poised at the ready. When the various crimes against tidiness are eventually relayed, it seems there’s little worse than TVs and lights left on, curtains left open and bags left on beds. The unflushed status of Room 233’s (Hanlon & White’s) toilet is a cause for some concern, but it’s 7s & 8s all round, which actually isn’t too much of a surprise if the impressive beginnings of Room Tidying on the Isle of Wight tour are anything to go by.

‘Be quiet,’ says Mother Hayes, a hundred miles west. ‘It’s 11 o’clock and they’re trying to get to sleep over in Hemel.’ ‘But is should have been me; Oh, it should have been me…’ belts out NJH in a Bonny Tyler-like baritone that can be heard even in the Stygian depths of urban Hertfordshire. ‘But it wasn’t,’ sighs The Model, seconds before drifting off into a deep and contented sleep that brings the curtain down on a very enjoyable Day One.

Friday

Morning has broken and Manning’s up and running with the new-dawn fairies. Why he feels he needs to wear his GPSFA waterproof to breakfast though, is another matter altogether. Maybe he thinks the conservatory roof hasn’t been fixed and the Hertfordshire dew is going to play havoc with his self-styled hairdo.

Breakfast at the HI is always an adventure, with the fruit juice, cereals, do-it-yourself toaster and cooked buffet all in slightly different locations, meaning finding what you want is a little bit like trying to navigate your way through the Crystal Maze. All is well though, until The Photographer senses an economic opportunity and decides to photograph various clutches of players at the fruit counter, meaning the bloke who’s just popped to the coffee machine while his bread is going through the toaster probably isn’t the happiest man in Hemel Hempstead at this moment in time.

None of this would make any difference to Manning, who doesn’t drink coffee and doesn’t butter toast, while other people who lose eating marks include White, who leaves half a pork sausage and a half-savaged slice of bread, Brooks, whose abandoned bowl contains a shoal of corn flakes swimming in a half litre of milk, Vaile, whose plate retains several pieces of discarded bacon and slivers of buttered toast and McLarney, whose flotsam, according to the little black book which records such trivia, includes several ‘bits’ of unidentified origin. Hanlon leaves nothing, apart from the memory of his oft-encountered model’s grin and despite the aforementioned remnants, all leave a remarkably good impression, which is the most important thing.

The traffic in Edmonton is, according to The Lens, ‘London-like’, and Folley attempts to energise the troops with a first round of ‘Everywhere we go’, a song that demands an increase in volume from the assembled choristers with each passing verse. It won’t be the last rendition of the well-known Gloucester anthem, but despite another bout of Otalgia, we rack up at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in pretty good spirits and access the off-the-road parking that the very helpful lady on Wednesday morning’s THFC ‘Helpdesk’ has pinpointed. ‘I’m a bit More Calmer now,’ announces the nearly-hoarse goalkeeper as he steps onto the concourse and surveys the monolith that is the new Tottenham Hotspur ground behind his equally monolithic frame.

The stadium itself looks and feels like a 10-star hotel, with numerous glass frontages, plush upholstery and not a scratch or stain or meandering cobweb in sight. Everything is high-tech and hugely impressive, but being whisked up the levels on the 2020 escalator gives a view to the opposite side of the High Road, which is inhabited by a terrace of 1960s shops selling everything from Tottenham Jerk Chicken to London’s Best Tattoos, while the frontage with the ‘Great Kebabs’ sign suggests this Turkish emporium has a very limited number of actual Delights. It’s the Old v the New, the Drab v the Flash, the Haves v the Have-Nots and it’s all very thought-provoking, if nothing else.

There’s the press room and executive lounges, the NFL changing areas with the bulked-out figures that people take great enjoyment from sticking their heads in, all arranged in a dutiful line, like oversized seaside mannequins on Blackpool’s pleasure beach. There’s the £10-a-time photo opportunity that The Lens shoos everyone away from, anxious to avoid anybody sabotaging his new ‘One for the Price of Three’ scam that’ll be in operation at next Saturday’s game against Stevenage; there’s the rather plush home changing room which pumps in air from the outside, so the half-time chat and Conte’s teacup throwing is conducted in exactly the same temperature as the even plusher pitch beyond the 10-foot high door. ‘No photos on the walls, though,’ observes someone, clearly making a less than complimentary comparison with the inner sanctum of GL2. There’s the famous Tottenham clock, a time capsule from which a Turkish kebab will no doubt be removed in fifty years’ time and some fine answers from Manning, who seems to know just about everything regarding Tottenham’s dim and distant past.

With the tour complete, we pull away and head for the northbound A10, taking care not to decimate the thousand-strong queue that’s winding its way along two full sides of the stadium, the last hundred or so non-moving people hoping to finally get up on the Skywalk and abseil down the outer wall before March arrives in this part of north London in a few days’ time.

Having never set foot in South Mimms services before yesterday, like London buses, we’re back there again less than 24 hours later and Subway shares will have ratcheted up another notch by the time we depart. ‘I like collecting shop receipts,’ announces The Photographer in a completely random moment as he pockets the docket which discloses his Waitrose pulled beef & mustard sandwich has just cost him £3.49, something he can no doubt look back on with a good degree of satisfaction in those nostalgic days to come. Clearly a GPSFA tour does some very strange things to a certain segment of the population.

Our captain, who entered the TH Stadium an Everton supporter and left a die-hard Spurs fan, wins the toss and we play up the infamous Colney Heath slope in the first half of our Friday afternoon encounter with St Albans. The hosts shell a couple of early chances before taking the lead when we fail to clear a left-wing cross, but within five minutes we’re level, Brooks being upended as he looks to break free and Manning’s free kick restores parity shortly before the interval.

Several people seek to disprove the age-old adage that eating green (jelly) babies at half time will make your hair fall out and, having both their energy levels and inner belief restored, the players set about trying to gain the upper hand with the slope now in their favour. Bennett and Clifford continue to work extremely hard in central midfield, while Hanlon, McLarney and Vaile again look solid in the city back line. Brooks is inches away from putting us ahead after being freed by Clifford, but with eight minutes remaining, the hosts grab what proves to be the winner when a right-wing cross is converted by Sanders at the far post.

The players drift over to applaud the Gloucester fans at the final whistle, but one person is noticeable by her premature absence. Mother Folley has shepherded her youngest (and quietest) son, Jude, on to a train to get back home in time for a Beatles party, only to find the keenly-awaited knees-up doesn’t take place until tomorrow afternoon. Mimicking Queen Vic (the person, not the pub), it’s rumoured Mother Folley remarked: ‘I really am not amused’ (or a colloquial expression to that effect) on discovering the time-lapse. As John Lennon, a man who The Photographer has been on about since the moment we pulled out of the LJS car park, due to his grandson having had his photo taken with JL’s sister a couple of weeks ago would definitely have said: ‘Hey, Jude, don’t make me cry; take a bad time and make it better. Na na, na, nananana…’

While there’s disappointment in the immediate aftermath of the game finishing, a fair gauge of the huge amount of effort put in to try to salvage something from the encounter, the dark cloud of despondency is quickly lifted as we pull in to the Woodside Leisure car park and the unmistakable scent of Ninja Warriors, better known as sweat, percolates into the cerebral membranes of the up-to-now moribund group. Three seconds later, they’re through the door, up the stairs and standing wide-eyed at the counter with a turn of pace that can hopefully be replicated in the game against Woking SFA tomorrow lunch time.

An hour and a bit of charging around an inflatable wonderland, followed by plastic tumblerfuls of coloured ice at £3.75 a time precedes a visit to Maccy D’s and a period of quiet contemplation, as talking loudly with your mouth full of double cheeseburger or twenty chicken Mcnuggets is not as easy as it might sound. ‘I think I’ve been much More Calmer,’ says Folley, wiping his mouth fastidiously on a recently pristine MD napkin, having just finished a Very Big Mac and we have to agree, for the last three and a bit minutes, he really has.

The attitude in regard to this evening’s diary-writing is again very good, with Bennett’s prose eloquent in the extreme, Clifford’s text as expressive as his IOW journal and Buckland’s offering – on his first tour of the season having being Covid-ed out of the previous Isle of Wight and Plymouth trips – being remarkably similar to both his eating and his football – calm, unassuming and often under the radar – but always very, very effective.

Saturday

In life there are some sights that you really don’t want to see, but have to, and the interior of Room 239 at 8 o’clock in the morning is one of them. McLarney and

Buckland emerge from beneath their respective duvets with hair and static electricity combining to give their heads the look of a pair of startled porcupines, while across the way in 238, Hanlon and Brooks sit up with jaws hanging loose and eyes virtually sealed, doing a passable impression of a brace of zombies in ‘Night of the Living Dead’.

Seeing a fearsome-looking man sipping his coffee next to the do-it-yourself toaster, The Photographer keeps well away from the fruit counter on this occasion and instead encourages people to pose on their table seats with various cuts of pig impaled on the end of their forks before snapping enthusiastically away. ‘These will sell,’ he says to no-one in particular as he tells Hanlon to sit up straight and show his teeth, a pose that The Model needs little coaxing to assume.

We depart the hotel car park at 10.15 on the dot, Vaile having distinguished himself by loading all the kit bags on to the back of the bus as he successfully attempts to reclaim an attitude point. Folley does his best to rally the troops with his sixth rendition in under 36 hours of ‘Everywhere We Go’, but though the spirit is willing, the collective flesh is weak and we merge on to the M1 with the fun bus in its Most Calmest state of the tour to date. The Lens fails to notice the ten minutes of slow-going around the M4 turn off, as he’s busy uploading yet more photos and a bit of indiscrete advertising on to the group Whatsapp, but we arrive at Brockwood Farm Sports Ground, the home of Woking SFA, after only an hour and a bit on the road.

As the match gets underway, Buckland sidefoots home Manning’s back-post cross to put us into an early lead in our third and final tour outing and Brooks is alert to a goalkeeping error to double our advantage just a few minutes later. Woking though reduce the arrears after a goalmouth scramble following a direct free kick seven minutes before the break, but we go into the interval still a goal to the good.

As the second half wears on, the exertions of the past 48 hours begin to catch up with the players, but Hanlon, Vaile and Mclarney in our defensive line stand firm and Folley doesn’t really look like being beaten. Buckland is introduced to central midfield to replace Clifford, whose non-stop effort against Hackney, St Albans and now Woking sees him running on empty and he’s almost happy to have a few minutes respite on the far touchline. Almost, but not quite. White, Bennett, Manning and Buckland do their best to stimulate attacks they hope will lead to a decisive third goal, but the home keeper makes up for his earlier error by pulling off a couple of fine saves to deny both Brooks and Buckland before the final whistle confirms the footballing part of the tour ends with a very satisfying ‘W’ in the results column.

Ninety minutes later, the plastic’s out and the Bureau de Change is in full swing as the KFC and BK ordering tablets are called into a bout of frenetic action, with Membury services receiving an unexpected bonus on what is a much quieter-than-usual Saturday afternoon. And with LF having headed off to Twickenham to watch the England v Wales games as soon as the Woking match had ended, it’s much More Calmer in other ways, too.

There’s lots of numbers to consider on the last leg of the trip from Membury to Longlevens, one set of which is how Gloucester City will ever score another goal – as we by-pass Swindon, they’re drawing 0-0 at Spennymoor, a scoreline which won’t change at all by the time the final whistle blows as we hurtle beyond Cirencester. Then there are the DREAM marks, where the three-day competitions for prizes for Diaries, Rooms, Eating, Attitude and Match have been as closely-contested as ever.

And finally, there’s the GPSFA tour personnel list to consider. Due to the ravages of Covid-19, we had 8 for the Isle of Wight, 9 for the Plymouth weekend and 10 for this last tour to London. 8, 9, 10, with Jersey still to come. Could it be? Could it really be? You do the maths….

Gloucester A: Folley; McLarney, Hanlon, Vaile; White, Buckland, Bennett, Clifford, Manning; Brooks. In spirit (and song): Hayes.