Awayday One: Chieveley, Newbury & Membury
The Outward Journey
Due to the Psychological, Emotional, Nutritional & Sociological (PENS) needs of most of the players and officials and an unerring display of navigational prowess along both the A417 and M4, we arrive at Chieveley Services in good time for breakfast. With this being the season’s first service station sojourn, which is three consecutive S’s, the majority of the players are decisively indecisive regarding where they might eat and drink. After twenty minutes of to-ing and fro-ing however, Gregg’s eventually wins the day with about half the team joining their never-ending queue. The biggest loser is Costa, as everyone congregates in there afterwards, but buys nothing.
The Games
Eight 9-a-side games of eight minutes duration is an interesting format.
Group 1 (played on a very big pitch): Swindon 1-0 (Croose); St Albans 0-1; Wokingham 0-0; South Bucks 1-0 (Croose).
Highlight: St Albans manager Nick (Colonel) Sanders’ pitchside thoughts are marvelled at by anyone and everyone who’s positioned within a 50-mile radius of Trinity School Playing Fields. At this rate, he’ll put Megaphone.com out of business by Christmas. Let’s hope the neighbours at Longlevens have had double glazing installed before Saturday.
Group A (played on a much smaller pitch): St Albans 1-0 (Croose); Wokingham 0-0; Newbury 0-0; Sutton 1-0 (Bevan).
Highlight: The jellies & jaffas, housed in a brand new half-and-half, top of the range, £1.19 Tupperware container last until 2 o’clock, at which point the remaining green jelly is decapitated and the final, half-melted jaffa swallowed. The considerable amount of chocolate smeared on the inside of the once transparent plastic doesn’t tempt anyone, though JC does have a couple of surreptitious glances in its general direction when he thinks no-one else is looking.
Match Thoughts
Play some neat stuff against Swindon in game one, but are outplayed in all areas of the pitch against St Albans in match two. Games three and four versus Wokingham and South Bucks are much better as the shape of the team starts to evolve and we become far more competitive across the board.
Finishing second in our section means we play the latter part of the day in Group A. An opening victory against St Albans is an indication of the side’s improvement and this is followed by a second draw against a decent Wokingham team. Good goalkeeping means we have to settle for a share of the spoils against Newbury, but Theo Bevan’s penalty after Charlie Croose has been upended in the box earns us a 1-0 win against south Londoners Sutton and first place in the event.
Apart from a couple of saves in the initial game v Wokingham and the Saints’ goal in the day’s second encounter, BA is largely untroubled, apart from the stress caused by the mid-morning arrival of his mum’s sun cream spray. SB, AA, LS and JC all perform increasingly well as they alternate along the back line and start to close the gaps.
FM, NB, TB, WH, OB and AA become more ‘up & back’ midfielders as the day progresses, rather than just the ‘up and look back’ players they seemed to be earlier in the month. WH models a knee bandage that makes him look a bit like a WW1 trenches’ veteran, following a studding incident prior to the weekend. That’ll teach him to upset his teacher.
CC looks dangerous up front and pressurises opposition defenders throughout. With a bit more lateral movement, he could prove to be quite a handful (on the pitch as well as off it).
Well done all.
The Homeward Journey
The somewhat prolonged KFC victory stop at Membury Services means we are 20 minutes late returning to GL2. The Photographer spends much of his time at the service station trying to convert people into chips & gravy aficionados, though only NB seems genuinely interested. OB meanwhile sticks religiously to his self-imposed fitness regime by eating only his mum’s ham sarnies and steadfastly refusing to go anywhere near the other Colonel Sanders. Thankfully, this team seems to be far quieter when they’re on terra firma than when they’re on the bus. ‘Champianos’ appears to be quite a popular rendition on the journey home; it’s an interesting song, with twenty verses but, apart from random shouts of ‘Oh ley,’ only one word.
General Thoughts
To complete a great day, Gloucester City win 5-0 at Kidlington in the FA Cup second round. Okay, second qualifying round. Only about 40 more wins before they walk out at Wembley.
Gloucester A: Ansermoz; Ali, Brockbank, Simpson, Curtis; Milton, Bennett, Bevan, Beaumont, Hine; Croose.
Due to the Psychological, Emotional, Nutritional & Sociological (PENS) needs of most of the players and officials and an unerring display of navigational prowess along both the A417 and M4, we arrive at Chieveley Services in good time for breakfast. With this being the season’s first service station sojourn, which is three consecutive S’s, the majority of the players are decisively indecisive regarding where they might eat and drink. After twenty minutes of to-ing and fro-ing however, Gregg’s eventually wins the day with about half the team joining their never-ending queue. The biggest loser is Costa, as everyone congregates in there afterwards, but buys nothing.
The Games
Eight 9-a-side games of eight minutes duration is an interesting format.
Group 1 (played on a very big pitch): Swindon 1-0 (Croose); St Albans 0-1; Wokingham 0-0; South Bucks 1-0 (Croose).
Highlight: St Albans manager Nick (Colonel) Sanders’ pitchside thoughts are marvelled at by anyone and everyone who’s positioned within a 50-mile radius of Trinity School Playing Fields. At this rate, he’ll put Megaphone.com out of business by Christmas. Let’s hope the neighbours at Longlevens have had double glazing installed before Saturday.
Group A (played on a much smaller pitch): St Albans 1-0 (Croose); Wokingham 0-0; Newbury 0-0; Sutton 1-0 (Bevan).
Highlight: The jellies & jaffas, housed in a brand new half-and-half, top of the range, £1.19 Tupperware container last until 2 o’clock, at which point the remaining green jelly is decapitated and the final, half-melted jaffa swallowed. The considerable amount of chocolate smeared on the inside of the once transparent plastic doesn’t tempt anyone, though JC does have a couple of surreptitious glances in its general direction when he thinks no-one else is looking.
Match Thoughts
Play some neat stuff against Swindon in game one, but are outplayed in all areas of the pitch against St Albans in match two. Games three and four versus Wokingham and South Bucks are much better as the shape of the team starts to evolve and we become far more competitive across the board.
Finishing second in our section means we play the latter part of the day in Group A. An opening victory against St Albans is an indication of the side’s improvement and this is followed by a second draw against a decent Wokingham team. Good goalkeeping means we have to settle for a share of the spoils against Newbury, but Theo Bevan’s penalty after Charlie Croose has been upended in the box earns us a 1-0 win against south Londoners Sutton and first place in the event.
Apart from a couple of saves in the initial game v Wokingham and the Saints’ goal in the day’s second encounter, BA is largely untroubled, apart from the stress caused by the mid-morning arrival of his mum’s sun cream spray. SB, AA, LS and JC all perform increasingly well as they alternate along the back line and start to close the gaps.
FM, NB, TB, WH, OB and AA become more ‘up & back’ midfielders as the day progresses, rather than just the ‘up and look back’ players they seemed to be earlier in the month. WH models a knee bandage that makes him look a bit like a WW1 trenches’ veteran, following a studding incident prior to the weekend. That’ll teach him to upset his teacher.
CC looks dangerous up front and pressurises opposition defenders throughout. With a bit more lateral movement, he could prove to be quite a handful (on the pitch as well as off it).
Well done all.
The Homeward Journey
The somewhat prolonged KFC victory stop at Membury Services means we are 20 minutes late returning to GL2. The Photographer spends much of his time at the service station trying to convert people into chips & gravy aficionados, though only NB seems genuinely interested. OB meanwhile sticks religiously to his self-imposed fitness regime by eating only his mum’s ham sarnies and steadfastly refusing to go anywhere near the other Colonel Sanders. Thankfully, this team seems to be far quieter when they’re on terra firma than when they’re on the bus. ‘Champianos’ appears to be quite a popular rendition on the journey home; it’s an interesting song, with twenty verses but, apart from random shouts of ‘Oh ley,’ only one word.
General Thoughts
To complete a great day, Gloucester City win 5-0 at Kidlington in the FA Cup second round. Okay, second qualifying round. Only about 40 more wins before they walk out at Wembley.
Gloucester A: Ansermoz; Ali, Brockbank, Simpson, Curtis; Milton, Bennett, Bevan, Beaumont, Hine; Croose.
