The sun is shining, the sky is blue and there’s a convivial atmosphere in the Royal County of (West) Berkshire. Mind you, (Royal) Wootton Bassett also has a regal antecedent, which tells you all you need to know about this sort of thing.

There are more lines on The Chef’s face than there are on the pitch. Daisies and buttercups are both in vogue today, though. And they’re all ‘Royal’ ones, too.

A nice finish from Triple B gives us a half-time lead. Apparently, a couple of good things happened leading up to this, but the phone reception fades as the description begins and the detail is sadly lost.

A thumping header from Rhodes’ corner by Man for All Seasons makes it two-nil just after the break. His celebration is suitably chilled, though the Hillview Hurricane’s is probably not (out of photo).

Newbury hit back and net twice to equalise. No information is provided.

We worry the woodwork on four occasions and miss several other good opportunities. Miserable Monty Don is still full of gloom as three of the post-strikes are his.

There are no half-time refreshments. Clearly accountants’ salaries aren’t as big as most people think they are. And shopping at Ocado doesn’t help, either.

Smiling Sam and Scowling Smith probably both do. I don’t know, as I’m not there, but this is what usually happens.

The Lens takes 14 lots of £5 from the Newbury people, promising faithfully: ‘I’ll put the photos in the post tonight,’ before adding: ‘Cross my heart and hope to get rich.’

The ex-Chairman wears a smile the size of a dinner plate, thinking there’ll be no blog this week. Ensuring the hospital invited the author in for a Covid test just 24 hours before kick-off should do the trick.

Between them, The Benedictines are modelling this year’s entire summer stock of M & S shorts and most of their T-shirts. All designs, all colours and all sizes. The abbot will be suitably horrified.

Coach Wilson must have washed his GPSFA polo shirt in ‘Vanish Oxi Action Super-Whitener’ this week as it’s never been this bright before.

The Freemason’s had another haircut. Or maybe he’s just bought a brush. For the sake of Tuffley Tom’s turnover, let’s hope it’s the former.

There’s plenty of noise coming down Coach Harris’s phone in the B Team mini bus after they clinch a place at Oxford City next Saturday following their aggregate Geoff Richards Cup victory over St Albans. On the other hand, Coach Delaney sounds utterly dejected after the Girls’ semi final defeat at Woking. Just sixteen words spoken between Burford and Crickley Hill tells its own extremely sad story.

The final whistle proves it’s an awful lot easier watching a game in person than trying to follow the action via a phone line. Both visually and emotionally. Thank goodness it’s finished.

Gloucester: Marvin; Hurricane, Man for All Seasons, Black Boots Dix; Triple B, Cooperman, Rhodes, Two-Foot; Monty Don; Freemason.

Hospital View – Two Days Later

Physio Number One measures me up for the walking frame. ‘We’ll need to adjust the height,’ she says, the same as every other person with a tape measure or trundle wheel who’s ever looked me up and down over the years. And for the first time in my whole miserable existence, she makes something taller for me. What. A. Girl. What a great start to the day.

I’m lying in the anaesthetist’s room and the surgeon comes in for a confidence-building, pre-op chat. Huge fella, shock of black hair, great big teeth with lots of silver bits embedded in them. Think ‘Jaws’ from ‘The Spy Who Loved Me.’ He’s holding a circular saw in one hand and a drill which makes Father Jones’s sign-mending bit seem slightly inadequate in the other. ‘Don’t worry,’ he hisses, ‘I know what I’m doing.’ OMG.

The very nice lady in recovery tells me that, despite my earlier misgivings, the saw was at its sharpest as I was the first one in. Like a French Revolution guillotine queue, heaven help the last one. I should have a drink though, she says. ‘Where is it?’ I ask. ‘On the table next to you,’ she says. I apologise profusely for my oversight, but she explains it’s only natural for people to miss the most obvious things in situations like these. ‘Sounds just like Saturday,’ I groan and leave the glass untouched.

Meet Physio Number Two, who, it turns out, played for the GPSFA B Side 20 years ago. ‘I know you from football,’ he says pointedly, but initially fails to explain whether this is a good or a bad thing. The ensuing attack on my ‘new’ right leg answers the question perfectly. Oh, dear.

Midnight Monday. Have just discovered that gravity works just as well internally as it does externally. Go from nothing to three quarters of a litre just by standing. We’ve even got a measuring jug rather than a bottle with no markings. Terrific. ‘748.6 ml actually,’ Smiffy would no doubt whisper if he were here, his ongoing efforts to make a point now becoming a little wearing, even though he always turns out to be spot-on right.

I’m using a litter grabber to try to keep my right leg straight while typing this article. Great idea, but it falls off every thirty seconds, so there are at least two big toe grabs needed for every sentence written. Slow going.

The Lens told me recently that when he went into hospital for his op, he (unsurprisingly) talked incessantly afterwards. What he didn’t tell me is that most of the chat was him trying to flog photos of patients trussed up in their beds which he’d taken from his hidden camera. ‘I’ll have the lot,’ shouts a bloke from The Forest, clearly misinterpreting The Lens’s ‘Buy three, get none free’ as a bargain. ‘Rhymes,’ smiles Trotter, gleeful as ever. ‘They always work in Ciner-ford.’

Halfway through one of the Freemason’s stretching exercises which the physio has unashamedly plagiarised, the fire alarm goes off. You need good, solid, robust plans at times like this, just in case it’s not a false whirring. If the porters haven’t already legged it to safety, they probably won’t have time to wheel the bed out via the lift. The Zimmer frame’s going to be far too slow, so for Plan C I check the window. A thirty-foot drop with the lap top in one hand and the litter collector / leg straightener in the other probably won’t do the new prosthetic hip any favours, so it looks as if this blog, should the worst occur, may well be the last – and only if I can email it to Lee before the inferno strikes. Then suddenly the alarm stops and through the window I glimpse him out of the far corner of my Cyclopean eye – the ex-Chairman, moving with a stealth rarely seen since the early 80s but fully befitting of a former spy, heading back to his car, realising yet again that his painstakingly-planned mission has failed to achieve its goal. Is there nothing this man will do to stop this missive being published?

Author’s Note

‘Points of View’ is dedicated to KMS who, despite his continued failed espionage attempts to terminate the works of Enid B, has played a massive part in getting GPSFA to where it is today and to supporter extraordinaire John Kelly, who physically, financially and emotionally is playing an equally massive part in keeping it there.