Fringe Benefits
Friday Evening
There’s a game featuring a cache of young people and a group of more mature beings going on in the background at OSP as the London prizes are finally being disseminated, with Croose looking on in the rather vain hope that someone, somewhere, has put in a good word for him and he’ll lift one of the evening’s main awards. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, they haven’t and he doesn’t.
Hine picks up the best diary prize with Croose languishing just behind in eleventh place, while Hine also picks up the attitude prize with Croose languishing in, er, well, you get the gist. Nice Ollie Beaumont is horrified at finishing second, a position the erstwhile Croose can only dream about. ’You wait till Jersey,’ says CC defiantly, ‘you all just wait.’
Saturday Morning
Father Badham reports to GL2 on his way to Twickenham sporting a discernible limp, having overstretched himself somewhat in yesterday’s A v B parents’ encounter, the result of which remains a bone of contention between several of the evening’s protagonists.
Another bone of contention concerns both Croose and Beaumont, who both look slightly miffed and clearly want an explanation or three. ‘You know when you wrote about the Bag Pack in the blog last month?’ offers Croose. ‘Well, I didn’t really break any eggs; I think you made that up.’
‘You know when you wrote about the London Tour in the blog last month,’ Beaumont follows on, ‘and you said I used half the toilets in Wembley Stadium? Well, I think you made that up. I actually went to far more of them than that.’
Talking of London, Simmo’s been reunited with his rather posh wash bag, an item that looks a bit like an MCC blazer without the yellow bits, and he’s so delighted to welcome it back into the fold, he’s about to leave his waterproof behind so he can organise another homecoming celebration next Friday evening or thereabouts.
Mother Simpson’s far from happy about her offspring’s forgetful traits however and threatens to make him wear a palmful of hair gel if he doesn’t mend his ways. In the changing room, Simmo takes a leaf out of Hine’s very neatly written book, folds his shirt impeccably, places it on the cold stone floor and proceeds to keep his feet warm by standing on it. At least Mother Simpson’s not privy to this second atrocity and we’ve all promised not to tell her, so at least he should get away with this one without any form of follicular retribution.
Ansermoz is his usual cheery self on arrival, Father Stavrou having made him sit through that film again before allowing him to eat any of his early-morning muesli, but our custodian’s in full voice the moment he steps through the changing room door where, alongside Bevan, Ali and Croose, he offers early signs of the decibels that fellow participants in future sporting events are likely to experience, ten years or so from now. It’s a prospect most people don’t wish to even consider. Milton turns up pretty much incognito, doing his level best to disguise himself by wearing a stick-on fringe that he bought from the wig shop in King’s Square on Thursday afternoon. ‘Tou-pay,’ says The Lens, trying to be clever. ‘That would be nice,’ says The Chef, ‘cos you still owe for last week as well.’
The Chairman’s brought a stash of flapjacks along to help boost the refreshment take, but when the Assistant Cook eventually removes the lid, the tin’s half empty. ‘I….I….I….,’ stammers The Chairman, unsure of what to say in response. ‘Gave them to the food bank?’ asks the AC. ‘Precisely,’ says The Chairman, before turning to Milton and asking, ‘Can I borrow that wig? I need to make myself pretty scarce for a while.’
First up, the Yellows are playing Newbury and battle their way to a highly creditable draw, courtesy of Joseph Young’s excellent last-minute leveller, while the signs in the Black & Yellows’ warm-up are that focus has been added to attitude and effort as kick-off time draws ever nearer.
A decent crowd has gathered and the home end is gleeful ten minutes in when Curtis’s left wing cross is headed home at the back post by Croose. ‘Get in,’ yells Croose in the celebratory hug-in. ‘Yeah,’ extols Bevan. ‘It’s Laura, guys,’ reminds Curtis, eyeing a rare opportunity to get his point across.
Twice more Croose goes close, the keeper on each occasion pushing the ball away as Bennett and Bevan in central midfield and Hine and Milton on the flanks work hard to keep up the offensive pressure. Wokingham though are a good side and force a number of well-delivered corners from which they look ever dangerous. First Hine and then Bevan however, bravely head away the dead ball threat, while Brockbank, Simmo and Curtis each have to be on their mettle to keep the visitors at arm’s length and a bit. Beaumont comes on and makes a key block almost immediately and there’s a fair bit of huffing and puffing at half time as all of the jaffas and most of the jelly babies meet an untimely and pretty immediate end as energy levels are quickly restored.
Substitute Triple A-plus-Two almost makes an immediate impact as his pull-back four minutes after the restart finds Hine, but his effort is too high, before Bennett almost plays in the same player only to find the keeper is quickly off his line and the chance is gone.
Midway through the second period, Wokingham equalise through Cary’s well struck free kick and, spurred on by their leveller, the Berkshire association up the ante.
Ansermoz makes a fine one-on-one block and Beaumont produces his second big tackle of the game to deny Theobald, but with just three minutes remaining, Mpofu looks to have won the day for the visitors with a great strike into the top corner to send the Wokingham contingent into raptures.
Back come Gloucester however, and with sixty seconds left on the referee’s cuckoo clock, Bennett, that scorer of several ‘big’ goals already this season, wriggles free of the visitors’ back line and finds the bottom corner, meaning the raptures now belong to the other end of the three-figure gathering and the first line of ‘Sweet Caroline’ blasts out from just to the left of the main (and only) stand. Benchers Milton and Curtis celebrate almost as much as the players on the pitch, Milton swishing his head back and for to keep his fine fringe moving, while Curtis launches into some long-lost Ray Peterson number, as if to back up the point he made earlier. Coach Wilson, meanwhile, is also photographed wearing the type of smile not seen since last Friday evening’s happy hour at the Nepalese Chef, while he cleverly hides the linesman’s flag behind his back as if to say ‘Completely neutral official’ to anyone who might be watching.
With the Southern Counties League title (just) in the bag, extra time is a cagey affair, but with barely two minutes remaining before penalties come into play, the ball breaks to Okemwa ten yards out and he steers what turns out to be the winner into the bottom corner to give Wokingham the lead. There’s still time for Ali to find a yard of space in the visitors’ box, but his pull-back can’t quite find a city player and it’s Wokingham who have their place in the Shires Cup Final.
It’s been an extraordinary game in many ways, played out in a great atmosphere generated by both sets of supporters. There’s agony and ecstasy in pretty equal measure; we’ve won a league, but lost a cup and all in the space of eleven madcap minutes. It’s been one of those games where every player can feel proud of their application and commitment to the cause and for the part they’ve played in what’s been a great advert for district football.
The girls go down 4-1 against a strong Woking side in the third game of the day and as this is a Grace Cup 2nd leg tie, there’s a presentation to be held afterwards. The prospect of a queue of Surrey-based parents lining up to purchase their nicely framed trophy-winning mementoes makes The Photographer’s eyes pop, cartoon-like out of his head and sends his big red money-making machine into financial overdrive.
It’s three o’clock and Stonemason Cian turns up with the first batch of bricks for the new commemorative wall and enters through the big white door, while The Chairman, reliving past glories of 1970s’ covert operations on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall, sneaks out of the small black exit with the last three flapjacks cunningly concealed about his person. The sweeping-up’s finally completed and the dirty kit packed into the swish yellow Aldi bag once the two inside-out shirts have had their sleeves retrieved and their numerals brought back to the outside. They’re identified as #9 and #11 and it’s no surprise that both protagonists are students at Elmbridge Primary School. It’s nearly four o’clock before we drive out of the big green gates, safe in the knowledge that we have to be down at the Gala Club in just under two hours’ time.
Saturday Evening
Buoyed by the news that the mighty GCFC have secured a 1-1 draw at Kettering Town to stretch their amazing unbeaten run to a staggering six weeks (a 2-1 grind-out at bottom club Bradford Park Avenue and four consecutive postponements), we rack up at Fairmile Gardens and rack straight back out again as Coach Stalley reports that none of his numerous lap tops seem to be compatible with the GC’s dodgy overhead projector and we need to try a fifth different machine.
The Photographer, buoyed by his girls’ presentation earnings, gets in the chair and offers everyone half a coke but no lemon slice, take it or leave it. The Chef turns up with enough food to feed a nation, but thankfully departs before finding out that no-one eats any of it. The Chairman’s in good form and announces he’s consulted his road atlas during the afternoon and there are eight potential service stops on the M5 & M6 North, so he’s coming to Curzon Ashton a week on Monday evening. The Photographer’s also agreed to travel, but has put off booking a hotel room, just in case a 1% discount offer comes up during the intervening period. Telford Trev’s signed up too, so apart from the football the trip promises to be, as Enid Blyton would once have written, jolly good fun.
There’s a great atmosphere in the Gala Club paddock, with Father Fortey in particularly good voice and Compere Lee doing a pretty decent job of holding the cable connection in to keep the runners & riders in full view of the assembled throng. The girls’ parents win 125 smackaroos on the auction for the last race and donate it straight back to the kitty, a gesture which is symptomatic of the generosity of so many people, not just tonight, but over the course of the season as a whole.
At home, in houses around the city, the entertainment is just as great. Simmo is wandering relentlessly around his bedroom, looking to see what he can bring to training on both Monday and Friday and leave behind at Oxstalls. The Croatian is watching a re-run of Grand Designs on Catch-Up, unable to quite believe how a million-dollar house can only have twelve inside toilets plus an outside closet, when his own slightly scaled-down version has double that number on the first floor alone. Croose meanwhile is surfing the net in an attempt to discover how to win a GPSFA tour prize without finishing in the top ten of an eleven-horse race, while Curtis has riffled through his dad’s box set of ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ and suddenly realises why everyone laughed when they found out his girlfriend’s name is Nora.
And over in Honeysuckle Drive, Milton is standing in front of his full-length mirror, practising his wig flick non-stop from seven thirty onwards, an exercise that’s only curtailed when he ricks his neck shortly after nine and is forced to spend the rest of the evening lying on the sofa, waiting for Cheltenham Town to feature on tonight’s showing of Match of the Day. ‘It’s a fringe benefit,’ Milton explains later. ‘Tou-pay or not tou-pay,’ interjects The Photographer, thinking he’s quoting Shakespeare. ‘Let’s hope so,’ says The Chef, with remarkably little conviction. ‘It’s Laura, guys,’ says Curtis. ‘It is, it really is.’
Gloucester: Stavrou Junior; Orange Boots, Black Boots, Nora; Born Again, One of Our Own, Lazarus, Sweet Caroline Junior; Kojak; Croatia Testudine, Triple A-plus-Two.
There’s a game featuring a cache of young people and a group of more mature beings going on in the background at OSP as the London prizes are finally being disseminated, with Croose looking on in the rather vain hope that someone, somewhere, has put in a good word for him and he’ll lift one of the evening’s main awards. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, they haven’t and he doesn’t.
Hine picks up the best diary prize with Croose languishing just behind in eleventh place, while Hine also picks up the attitude prize with Croose languishing in, er, well, you get the gist. Nice Ollie Beaumont is horrified at finishing second, a position the erstwhile Croose can only dream about. ’You wait till Jersey,’ says CC defiantly, ‘you all just wait.’
Saturday Morning
Father Badham reports to GL2 on his way to Twickenham sporting a discernible limp, having overstretched himself somewhat in yesterday’s A v B parents’ encounter, the result of which remains a bone of contention between several of the evening’s protagonists.
Another bone of contention concerns both Croose and Beaumont, who both look slightly miffed and clearly want an explanation or three. ‘You know when you wrote about the Bag Pack in the blog last month?’ offers Croose. ‘Well, I didn’t really break any eggs; I think you made that up.’
‘You know when you wrote about the London Tour in the blog last month,’ Beaumont follows on, ‘and you said I used half the toilets in Wembley Stadium? Well, I think you made that up. I actually went to far more of them than that.’
Talking of London, Simmo’s been reunited with his rather posh wash bag, an item that looks a bit like an MCC blazer without the yellow bits, and he’s so delighted to welcome it back into the fold, he’s about to leave his waterproof behind so he can organise another homecoming celebration next Friday evening or thereabouts.
Mother Simpson’s far from happy about her offspring’s forgetful traits however and threatens to make him wear a palmful of hair gel if he doesn’t mend his ways. In the changing room, Simmo takes a leaf out of Hine’s very neatly written book, folds his shirt impeccably, places it on the cold stone floor and proceeds to keep his feet warm by standing on it. At least Mother Simpson’s not privy to this second atrocity and we’ve all promised not to tell her, so at least he should get away with this one without any form of follicular retribution.
Ansermoz is his usual cheery self on arrival, Father Stavrou having made him sit through that film again before allowing him to eat any of his early-morning muesli, but our custodian’s in full voice the moment he steps through the changing room door where, alongside Bevan, Ali and Croose, he offers early signs of the decibels that fellow participants in future sporting events are likely to experience, ten years or so from now. It’s a prospect most people don’t wish to even consider. Milton turns up pretty much incognito, doing his level best to disguise himself by wearing a stick-on fringe that he bought from the wig shop in King’s Square on Thursday afternoon. ‘Tou-pay,’ says The Lens, trying to be clever. ‘That would be nice,’ says The Chef, ‘cos you still owe for last week as well.’
The Chairman’s brought a stash of flapjacks along to help boost the refreshment take, but when the Assistant Cook eventually removes the lid, the tin’s half empty. ‘I….I….I….,’ stammers The Chairman, unsure of what to say in response. ‘Gave them to the food bank?’ asks the AC. ‘Precisely,’ says The Chairman, before turning to Milton and asking, ‘Can I borrow that wig? I need to make myself pretty scarce for a while.’
First up, the Yellows are playing Newbury and battle their way to a highly creditable draw, courtesy of Joseph Young’s excellent last-minute leveller, while the signs in the Black & Yellows’ warm-up are that focus has been added to attitude and effort as kick-off time draws ever nearer.
A decent crowd has gathered and the home end is gleeful ten minutes in when Curtis’s left wing cross is headed home at the back post by Croose. ‘Get in,’ yells Croose in the celebratory hug-in. ‘Yeah,’ extols Bevan. ‘It’s Laura, guys,’ reminds Curtis, eyeing a rare opportunity to get his point across.
Twice more Croose goes close, the keeper on each occasion pushing the ball away as Bennett and Bevan in central midfield and Hine and Milton on the flanks work hard to keep up the offensive pressure. Wokingham though are a good side and force a number of well-delivered corners from which they look ever dangerous. First Hine and then Bevan however, bravely head away the dead ball threat, while Brockbank, Simmo and Curtis each have to be on their mettle to keep the visitors at arm’s length and a bit. Beaumont comes on and makes a key block almost immediately and there’s a fair bit of huffing and puffing at half time as all of the jaffas and most of the jelly babies meet an untimely and pretty immediate end as energy levels are quickly restored.
Substitute Triple A-plus-Two almost makes an immediate impact as his pull-back four minutes after the restart finds Hine, but his effort is too high, before Bennett almost plays in the same player only to find the keeper is quickly off his line and the chance is gone.
Midway through the second period, Wokingham equalise through Cary’s well struck free kick and, spurred on by their leveller, the Berkshire association up the ante.
Ansermoz makes a fine one-on-one block and Beaumont produces his second big tackle of the game to deny Theobald, but with just three minutes remaining, Mpofu looks to have won the day for the visitors with a great strike into the top corner to send the Wokingham contingent into raptures.
Back come Gloucester however, and with sixty seconds left on the referee’s cuckoo clock, Bennett, that scorer of several ‘big’ goals already this season, wriggles free of the visitors’ back line and finds the bottom corner, meaning the raptures now belong to the other end of the three-figure gathering and the first line of ‘Sweet Caroline’ blasts out from just to the left of the main (and only) stand. Benchers Milton and Curtis celebrate almost as much as the players on the pitch, Milton swishing his head back and for to keep his fine fringe moving, while Curtis launches into some long-lost Ray Peterson number, as if to back up the point he made earlier. Coach Wilson, meanwhile, is also photographed wearing the type of smile not seen since last Friday evening’s happy hour at the Nepalese Chef, while he cleverly hides the linesman’s flag behind his back as if to say ‘Completely neutral official’ to anyone who might be watching.
With the Southern Counties League title (just) in the bag, extra time is a cagey affair, but with barely two minutes remaining before penalties come into play, the ball breaks to Okemwa ten yards out and he steers what turns out to be the winner into the bottom corner to give Wokingham the lead. There’s still time for Ali to find a yard of space in the visitors’ box, but his pull-back can’t quite find a city player and it’s Wokingham who have their place in the Shires Cup Final.
It’s been an extraordinary game in many ways, played out in a great atmosphere generated by both sets of supporters. There’s agony and ecstasy in pretty equal measure; we’ve won a league, but lost a cup and all in the space of eleven madcap minutes. It’s been one of those games where every player can feel proud of their application and commitment to the cause and for the part they’ve played in what’s been a great advert for district football.
The girls go down 4-1 against a strong Woking side in the third game of the day and as this is a Grace Cup 2nd leg tie, there’s a presentation to be held afterwards. The prospect of a queue of Surrey-based parents lining up to purchase their nicely framed trophy-winning mementoes makes The Photographer’s eyes pop, cartoon-like out of his head and sends his big red money-making machine into financial overdrive.
It’s three o’clock and Stonemason Cian turns up with the first batch of bricks for the new commemorative wall and enters through the big white door, while The Chairman, reliving past glories of 1970s’ covert operations on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall, sneaks out of the small black exit with the last three flapjacks cunningly concealed about his person. The sweeping-up’s finally completed and the dirty kit packed into the swish yellow Aldi bag once the two inside-out shirts have had their sleeves retrieved and their numerals brought back to the outside. They’re identified as #9 and #11 and it’s no surprise that both protagonists are students at Elmbridge Primary School. It’s nearly four o’clock before we drive out of the big green gates, safe in the knowledge that we have to be down at the Gala Club in just under two hours’ time.
Saturday Evening
Buoyed by the news that the mighty GCFC have secured a 1-1 draw at Kettering Town to stretch their amazing unbeaten run to a staggering six weeks (a 2-1 grind-out at bottom club Bradford Park Avenue and four consecutive postponements), we rack up at Fairmile Gardens and rack straight back out again as Coach Stalley reports that none of his numerous lap tops seem to be compatible with the GC’s dodgy overhead projector and we need to try a fifth different machine.
The Photographer, buoyed by his girls’ presentation earnings, gets in the chair and offers everyone half a coke but no lemon slice, take it or leave it. The Chef turns up with enough food to feed a nation, but thankfully departs before finding out that no-one eats any of it. The Chairman’s in good form and announces he’s consulted his road atlas during the afternoon and there are eight potential service stops on the M5 & M6 North, so he’s coming to Curzon Ashton a week on Monday evening. The Photographer’s also agreed to travel, but has put off booking a hotel room, just in case a 1% discount offer comes up during the intervening period. Telford Trev’s signed up too, so apart from the football the trip promises to be, as Enid Blyton would once have written, jolly good fun.
There’s a great atmosphere in the Gala Club paddock, with Father Fortey in particularly good voice and Compere Lee doing a pretty decent job of holding the cable connection in to keep the runners & riders in full view of the assembled throng. The girls’ parents win 125 smackaroos on the auction for the last race and donate it straight back to the kitty, a gesture which is symptomatic of the generosity of so many people, not just tonight, but over the course of the season as a whole.
At home, in houses around the city, the entertainment is just as great. Simmo is wandering relentlessly around his bedroom, looking to see what he can bring to training on both Monday and Friday and leave behind at Oxstalls. The Croatian is watching a re-run of Grand Designs on Catch-Up, unable to quite believe how a million-dollar house can only have twelve inside toilets plus an outside closet, when his own slightly scaled-down version has double that number on the first floor alone. Croose meanwhile is surfing the net in an attempt to discover how to win a GPSFA tour prize without finishing in the top ten of an eleven-horse race, while Curtis has riffled through his dad’s box set of ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ and suddenly realises why everyone laughed when they found out his girlfriend’s name is Nora.
And over in Honeysuckle Drive, Milton is standing in front of his full-length mirror, practising his wig flick non-stop from seven thirty onwards, an exercise that’s only curtailed when he ricks his neck shortly after nine and is forced to spend the rest of the evening lying on the sofa, waiting for Cheltenham Town to feature on tonight’s showing of Match of the Day. ‘It’s a fringe benefit,’ Milton explains later. ‘Tou-pay or not tou-pay,’ interjects The Photographer, thinking he’s quoting Shakespeare. ‘Let’s hope so,’ says The Chef, with remarkably little conviction. ‘It’s Laura, guys,’ says Curtis. ‘It is, it really is.’
Gloucester: Stavrou Junior; Orange Boots, Black Boots, Nora; Born Again, One of Our Own, Lazarus, Sweet Caroline Junior; Kojak; Croatia Testudine, Triple A-plus-Two.
