Saturday 12th March

She’s a good old girl, is Sheila. Robust, reliable and still pretty decent-looking, despite being well into middle age. She’s popular with the players, too, which is always a bonus in relationships such as these.

Today, we’re off to play Sutton Coldfield minus Clifford (cross country) and The Model (make-up morning). We’re using three motorways, the M5, the M6 and the linking M42 and we pass the knight in shining plastic that marks the entrance to Castle Vale and the onset of any number of side roads commemorating aeroplanes of the twentieth century in pretty good time. There’s Blenheim Way, Wellington Avenue, Lancaster Drive and Lockheed Lane to cite but a few, though it’s the much more prosaic Farnborough Road which gets us straight to our destination, the car park outside the CV Stadium, home to Romulus FC, Birmingham Schools’ FA and the best burger van this side of the Great North Road.

Sheila’s not too happy at the thought of the players having to change in their seats, but all’s well that ends well and the good lady exhales an audible sigh of relief as everyone makes their way across to the second of the area’s twin grass pitches, the one adjacent to the ground that saw us draw 2-2 with Harborne just a few weeks previously.

There’s an interesting crater lurking midway between the penalty area and halfway line of the goal we defend in the first half, but both teams play around it with some aplomb and no-one disappears into its mysterious depths. Well, no-one that we’re aware of, anyway.

Manning strikes the bar and Buckland shins the rebound wide with ten minutes gone, but at the other end, Folley twice blames the crater as Sutton strike first his left post and then his right in pretty quick succession. Sheila, watching on from the tarmac expanse behind the home goal, shakes her head in profound disbelief, though she’s soon conjuring a half smile as Bennett plays in Brooks to give us an interval lead.

The team has performed decently in the first half, no-one more so than Father Vaile, who, with just six minutes on the clock embarked on an excellent, weaving run down the left wing in pursuit of the polystyrene tray that previously housed his sausage, bacon, egg, black pudding, mushroom, tomato & hash brown breakfast roll. He caught it just before the halfway line, ten minutes after setting off and spends the remainder of the game seemingly nailed to the spot in a vain attempt to get his breath back. Sheila emits a wry smile, but nothing more as the City Ultras reset their positions ready for part two.

The second period is a disappointing affair from our perspective as the hosts dominate possession and, after two more flirtations with the woodwork, level matters with ten minutes remaining after a left-wing corner isn’t cleared.

Manning almost wins it in the final minute, but his well struck effort is saved and we have to be content with another draw in this footballing corner of England’s green and pleasant land. Well, Birmingham, anyway.

Sheila remains in the car park while the throng descend on the stadium burger van for their post-match sausage & chips, good manners and rumbling stomachs leading the way, with White and Folley just behind. Brooks is noticeable by his absence, though, his reward for scoring barely an hour ago is being strapped in the passenger seat of his dad’s car and being subjected to a three-hour drive to Bournemouth for an overnight stay with the folks, a revelation that has Sheila grinning from ear to ear as the noise levels on the fun bus are likely to be considerably reduced on the journey back to Glorious Gloucester.

It’s nice Harry McLarney’s twenty-ninth birthday today and he can’t wait to celebrate it in Strensham’s Maccy D’s, his nuggets and fries appearing within five minutes of the Bureau de Change at the ordering boards clicking into action for the forty-seventh time this season. ‘It only takes cards,’ whines Bennett, in a tone that’s been practised nearly fifty times to date and which, sadly, has proved to have been pretty financially successful over the past seven months or so.

Folley and Nice Jacob Hayes play no part in the fast-food run, however; they’re safely ensconced in Costa, talking tactics with Coach Wilson. ‘Any tips for us?’ asks Folley, desperate to access a hundred years of real-life wisdom. ‘Always stand your round,’ replies CW, bringing the conversation to an abrupt and premature end by taking a very long slurp of Vanilla Latte and refusing to make any eye contact at all with the gruesome twosome.

After a 4-2 afternoon victory for Gateshead at New Meadow Park, it’s off to Brickhampton for our annual Race Night. The newly-refurbished, open-plan setting is a fine venue for the ninety or so people who support the event, gambling enthusiastically, winning some and losing more as the serious punters warm up for Gold Cup week and everyone else just enjoys the atmosphere. With a very nice man from Cheltenham Road donating his three-figure auction winnings back into the pot, the takings move past £1,500, a new record for these events and testimony to everyone who continues to lend their tremendously unflinching support.

Saturday 19th March

While Sheila couldn’t be present at BGC last week ‘for personal reasons’, she’s keeping an eye on the goings-on at GL2 seven days on, nodding contentedly as The 1903 Order of Benedictines, Father Hayes, Father Manning, Father Bennett, Father Brooks and Father Folley descend on a field at 7.35am and exit a stadium barely fifty-five minutes later. And to think, it took the FA three and a half years to build Wembley….

After receiving a reprimand from The Abbot for short-wearing in March, Fathers Hayes and Father Manning, along with everyone else, are back at the Field of Dreams for a 10am kick-off against Swindon. Vaile stretches his lead at the top of the First-to-Arrive table by getting in at 8.58, while Mclarney widens the gap at the top of the Last-to-Arrive League by bursting through the door at 9.24. Clifford and Folley, sliders to the fore, are second and third at the ranch respectively, despite the fact that Folley’s grown another half-inch overnight and is now struggling to fit himself in his bed without bending his knees.

The Photographer’s in a state of heightened ecstasy as the first Swindon parents enter the big, green gates: ‘Three new teams; we’ve got three new teams,’ he repeats constantly to no-one in particular. ‘At a fiver a time,’ he adds at regular intervals, the iris and pupil of both left and right eyes being replaced by a pound sign every time he blinks. ‘Vitamin F,’ says The Chef, explaining to Sharon, who’s the VC’s temporary replacement in the kitchen today, ‘is one of the many nutritional benefits of deep-fried food. A recent survey….’

The first half of the game of our only ‘local derby’ (well, it’s only 35 miles away) is a classic stalemate, though the visitors defend well against half-a-dozen Manning flag kicks, while McLarney, Hayes and Vaile deal well with Swindon’s forays into the Gloucester half. Swindon coach SB (Gloucester A doesn’t use coaches’ initials for pretty obvious reasons) will have a far fuller recollection of events, so those requiring further details and a minute-by-minute account of this morning’s happenings, should check out the Swindon match report on www.swindonpsfa.org/representative.

The second period begins well from a home perspective. McLarney finds Buckland, who skips down the right and delivers an excellent cross that is headed home by a jubilant Clifford. The Lens’s celebration photo says it all. Fifty yards away, Sheila’s look as she peers over the Community Centre fence has pride and contentment etched into its watery eyes, as she begins, in a voice that’s little more than a whisper: ‘Samuel Clifford; he’s one of our own.’

Swindon press for an equaliser, but the hard-working midfield of Bennett, Hanlon, Clifford, Manning and Buckland (not all at the same time, just in case anyone from Wiltshire reads this) work hard to nullify the visitors’ attacking intentions, while White and Brooks are constantly on the lookout for a swift counter-attack.

Coach Wilson is kept busy with his linesman’s flag, attempting to extricate any number of footballs from the bushes at the Windermere Road end that, like Folley, are experiencing an early-spring growth surge, in a recovery operation that threatens to discover both Lord Lucan and Shergar long before it comes up with any yellow and blue Size 4 spheres.

When play resumes, Folley does well to tip over a dipping effort from Adams before a fine run from Brooks nearly extends the city team’s lead in the dying moments. Coach Stalley enters into the spirit of things by belting out: ‘1-0 to the Arsenal,’ but thankfully no-one at Longlevens can hear him as he’s two miles away at the golf club, organising a charity day.

‘Three new teams; we’ve got three new teams,’ enunciates The Lens while wiping the sweat from his furrowed brow as the queue at his Big, Red, Money-Making Machine grows longer and longer as the Carmarthen hordes arrive en masse, bringing both a Llanelli twang and a sackload of cash to proceedings in the eating room. ‘Vitamin F…’ says The Chef to Stacey Gore, who’s racked up at the hatch with a cheque book and pen and an appetite to match, ‘…it’s the most underrated health supplement going…’

The Bs hit Carmarthen for six, thus effecting a remarkable thirteen-goal swing compared to their previous meeting in West Wales barely two months previously. The Girls battle like Trojans against both Barking and Dagenham, going down by just a single goal against a team that had scored seven against them on their half term tour to London just twenty-three days ago. And The Mayor of Gloucester, the lovely Collette Finnegan, is here to watch it all while chaperoned by Tour Guide Steadman, who completes the Grand Expedition in a little under two and a half hours, a timespan that includes four meal breaks and half a packet of flapjacks.

The sun is definitely shining in more ways than one on GL2 today. Sheila returns to her spot in The Commie Centre car park, a contented look on her shiny front and settles down for a seven-day break. We won’t see her again until around 7am next Saturday morning, when we’ll put fifty quids’ worth of diesel in her tank, fill her up with children and drive her to Chalfont St Peter for a game against Chiltern & South Bucks. She’s a good old girl, is Sheila. Robust, reliable and still pretty decent-looking, despite being well into middle age. And just like Samuel Clifford, she really is one of our own.

Gloucester A: Folley; McLarney, Hayes, Vaile, White, Bennett, Buckland, Manning, Brooks, Hanlon, Clifford.