Matchday 5: Saturday 23rd October

A difficult day, with three players laid low with Covid and a further two requiring a spell in the physio’s room. So, with only six fit and healthy ‘A’ Team bodies, we took on a very good Dacorum side at the Home of Football.

The next day, following an in-depth post-match analysis session, two and a bit hours interpreting the day’s Opta Stats and a post-meridian ‘pick-me-up’ session with an amateur psychologist from Fleming Close, her are the five things we’ve learned from the defeat against the Pride of Hertfordshire:

Leo Folley must only adopt the centre forward position again in a future national or, indeed, GPSFA emergency. It wasn’t a lack of effort – anything but, or even, necessarily, application, that’s made people arrive at this conclusion. It’s the fact that the coach, feeling completely confident in his half time prophecies, promised that if LF scored, he’d run around the ground singing Sweet Caroline at the top of his voice while demonstrating all the actions. And with three minutes remaining and a rare corner gained, the unthinkable almost happened. Thank goodness an alert defender was on hand to rescue the situation.

The people in the B Squad who stepped in to bolster our numbers each did themselves proud. Sadler was co-opted in midweek as a result of LF’s incapacitation following rugby last Sunday, while Kelly, Hodges and Middlecote all stepped in at three hours’ notice when their parents appeared at Longlevens around 7.30 to help set up the ground. Thanks to all four stalwarts for their efforts in not only allowing us to play the game, but to be competitive into the bargain, despite the scoreline.

Ben Hanlon is a womaniser. Everyone knows that he spends countless hours every day preening himself in any number of mirrors in Speedwell Close, the Dinglewell loos and the Longlevens pavilion, dotting the I’s and crossing the t’s of follicular arrangement, whitening his teeth with ‘Smile Time’ gel and applying Lynx ‘Africa’ at every available opportunity. But not everyone knew until post-match Saturday that the BH-expectancy of a female suitor works out at just 3.4 days. And that’s if they’re one of his ‘steadies’. There’s been Rachel and Harriet and Donna and Sophie. There’s been Isobel and Claire and Amy and Ethel and Doreen and Bertha……. And now there’s Angharad. And he’s only been back in school seven weeks.

The Groundsman is still in the land of the living, despite much speculation to the contrary. On Monday morning he apparently contracted a rare tropical illness with symptoms very similar to Swamp Fever, while Tuesday saw him laid low for an hour and a half with his fourteenth bout of Covid since the beginning of October. He couldn’t make it to GL2 on Wednesday due to his recurrent Shingles issues and a day later his weekly amnesia set in as it always does when there’s a car boot sale on down the Cattle Market or similar. Friday, he had the shakes, whatever that means, but despite decimating every page of his signed copy of ‘Ailments & Illnesses A-Z’ in five days flat, he racked up on Saturday morning, right as rain. As Winston Churchill once famously said: ‘Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated.’

Tommy Manning is an excellent salesperson. Taking over the programme box at the end of the game, he moved on more merchandise inside six minutes than we’ve managed to shift in the previous six months. Afterwards, there were no programmes left in the box, the raffle table lay empty and everyone was wearing a snood. The big question is: did he charge anyone?

Gloucester A: Sadler; McLarney, Hayes, Model; Hodges, Clifford, Bennett, Kelly; Brooks; Middlecote, Folley.