Wokingham 1 Gloucester 0 by Compo, Clegg & Foggy
The Technical Navigator was away and the Intuitive Navigator had taken over. The last time that intuition was called upon to replace technology, we went straight to the ground in Luton, only to discover it was the wrong one and seven miles away from the correct venue. The omens thus were not good, but a combination of I & T amazingly landed us at The Piggott School with remarkable precision at exactly 9.45am. Not so precise had been the arrival of Last Man Liggett a couple of hours earlier, whose fellow Heronian Last Man Lawson now has a(nother) new challenger at the wrong end of the Vanarama On-time National League table.
Breakfast at Reading Services; not quite Tiffany’s, but perfectly adequate for our purposes - Gregg’s bacon rolls (most), chicken & ham bake (Boris), M & Ms (Ronseal) and traditional fruit medley (Pain au Chocolat) put energy in the limbs and stirred the digestive juices of the travelling horde. Some were stirred more than others with most people blaming Lawson, despite knowing that Moroney was probably to blame. The quiet ones as the saying goes....
The RP school was founded by the philanthropist of the same name to cater for the area’s poor and needy of World War Two and the home dugout bore out that very image during a keenly contested Southern Counties League encounter.
With Blackburn confined to the bench – actually a trio of very comfortable folding canvas chairs from Asda – due to walking into an opening changing room door, the visitors’ defence of Lawson, Mclean and Desmond restricted the high-flying hosts to zero shots on target prior to the break.
In midfield, wide men Chamberlain and Wilkes prompted and probed, Liggett challenged and threatened in equal measure, while Pain au Chocolat maintained his fine form of the London tour, winning the ball and distributing to great effect. He also executed three big headers – all of which went forward.
Up front, Dennis was involved in the two main talking points of the first period, his well struck effort following Liggett’s pass drawing a fine save from Hitchings before the striker was caught offside by a distance of exactly 26.8 metres which, according to Opta Stats, makes it officially the biggest offside of the 2016/17 season to date. In any division.
Following a half time break during which coffee was served in the best traditions of Royal Berkshire, the second period began as the first had ended, Wokingham playing a neat brand of pass and move football, Gloucester resilient and competitive, while looking dangerous on the break. The Wokingham management team, which bore a striking resemblance to the cast of Last of the Summer Wine fifty years prior to its first-airing on the BBC paced the touchline tentatively, Foggy and Clegg sharing the stat-collecting role while Compo challenged the boundaries of the technical area in much the same way a Mexican might question the legality of Trump’s Central American wall.
But respite for the hosts arrived on forty one minutes – Captain Smith’s effort taking a big deflection to loop over Moroney and into the far corner. This opened the game up somewhat – a Blackburn free kick was touched round the post by Hitchings and the same player’s ensuing corner was scrambled off the line, while at the other end Moroney saved well from Scurr and Mclean’s brave block pushed Bevan’s effort on to the post.
Gloucester’s half-time substitutes each displayed their value during the second thirty – Clifford’s eight-out-of-ten hairstyle a selfless presence on the left, Blackburn’s defensive prowess and set piece delivery on the right and Blacker’s powerful running up front all contributing to the visitors’ resolute display.
Indeed Blacker, following a fine pass from Liggett was denied only by an excellent last-ditch challenge from Smith, leaving the striker frustrated not only by the perfect timing of the tackle, but more so from the referee’s total resistance to calling him over and asking him where he gets his hair permed.
The city team’s last chance came and went when Chamberlain’s drive flew over the crossbar leaving Wokingham elated, Gloucester disappointed and the eighteen home supporters in a crowd of twenty two busy scrutinising the league table.
The post-match buffet had something for everyone, with grapes and carrot for Pain au Chocolat, ham for Dennis and chicken nuggets for everyone else. The glossy match programme was excellent, the grammatical error in the first four words of the first match report notwithstanding, while the pitch was top-notch and the referee (according to everyone but Blacker), really good.
And from a Gloucester perspective, this was another really good performance by all concerned. As Captain Robert Falcon Scott said (amongst other things), when addressing his motley crew on reaching the South Pole on a freezing cold morning in January 1912, “This team has come a long way.” And come a long way it has. But unlike Scott’s expedition all those years ago, our team has gone even further – Gloucester managed to get all the way home.
Gloucester A: Moroney; Lynam, Mclean, Lawson; Chamberlain, Jones, Liggett, Wilkes; Smith. Subs: Blackburn, Blacker, Clifford.
Breakfast at Reading Services; not quite Tiffany’s, but perfectly adequate for our purposes - Gregg’s bacon rolls (most), chicken & ham bake (Boris), M & Ms (Ronseal) and traditional fruit medley (Pain au Chocolat) put energy in the limbs and stirred the digestive juices of the travelling horde. Some were stirred more than others with most people blaming Lawson, despite knowing that Moroney was probably to blame. The quiet ones as the saying goes....
The RP school was founded by the philanthropist of the same name to cater for the area’s poor and needy of World War Two and the home dugout bore out that very image during a keenly contested Southern Counties League encounter.
With Blackburn confined to the bench – actually a trio of very comfortable folding canvas chairs from Asda – due to walking into an opening changing room door, the visitors’ defence of Lawson, Mclean and Desmond restricted the high-flying hosts to zero shots on target prior to the break.
In midfield, wide men Chamberlain and Wilkes prompted and probed, Liggett challenged and threatened in equal measure, while Pain au Chocolat maintained his fine form of the London tour, winning the ball and distributing to great effect. He also executed three big headers – all of which went forward.
Up front, Dennis was involved in the two main talking points of the first period, his well struck effort following Liggett’s pass drawing a fine save from Hitchings before the striker was caught offside by a distance of exactly 26.8 metres which, according to Opta Stats, makes it officially the biggest offside of the 2016/17 season to date. In any division.
Following a half time break during which coffee was served in the best traditions of Royal Berkshire, the second period began as the first had ended, Wokingham playing a neat brand of pass and move football, Gloucester resilient and competitive, while looking dangerous on the break. The Wokingham management team, which bore a striking resemblance to the cast of Last of the Summer Wine fifty years prior to its first-airing on the BBC paced the touchline tentatively, Foggy and Clegg sharing the stat-collecting role while Compo challenged the boundaries of the technical area in much the same way a Mexican might question the legality of Trump’s Central American wall.
But respite for the hosts arrived on forty one minutes – Captain Smith’s effort taking a big deflection to loop over Moroney and into the far corner. This opened the game up somewhat – a Blackburn free kick was touched round the post by Hitchings and the same player’s ensuing corner was scrambled off the line, while at the other end Moroney saved well from Scurr and Mclean’s brave block pushed Bevan’s effort on to the post.
Gloucester’s half-time substitutes each displayed their value during the second thirty – Clifford’s eight-out-of-ten hairstyle a selfless presence on the left, Blackburn’s defensive prowess and set piece delivery on the right and Blacker’s powerful running up front all contributing to the visitors’ resolute display.
Indeed Blacker, following a fine pass from Liggett was denied only by an excellent last-ditch challenge from Smith, leaving the striker frustrated not only by the perfect timing of the tackle, but more so from the referee’s total resistance to calling him over and asking him where he gets his hair permed.
The city team’s last chance came and went when Chamberlain’s drive flew over the crossbar leaving Wokingham elated, Gloucester disappointed and the eighteen home supporters in a crowd of twenty two busy scrutinising the league table.
The post-match buffet had something for everyone, with grapes and carrot for Pain au Chocolat, ham for Dennis and chicken nuggets for everyone else. The glossy match programme was excellent, the grammatical error in the first four words of the first match report notwithstanding, while the pitch was top-notch and the referee (according to everyone but Blacker), really good.
And from a Gloucester perspective, this was another really good performance by all concerned. As Captain Robert Falcon Scott said (amongst other things), when addressing his motley crew on reaching the South Pole on a freezing cold morning in January 1912, “This team has come a long way.” And come a long way it has. But unlike Scott’s expedition all those years ago, our team has gone even further – Gloucester managed to get all the way home.
Gloucester A: Moroney; Lynam, Mclean, Lawson; Chamberlain, Jones, Liggett, Wilkes; Smith. Subs: Blackburn, Blacker, Clifford.
