Following the intensity of the previous seven days, it’s been (amongst other things) a week of waiting for the wheels of government in the Channel Islands to finally declare that, after their bombshell of a fortnight ago, the Easter Festival in Jersey can now go full steam ahead as originally planned.

The decision was communicated at 16:10 on Thursday afternoon and by lunch time on Friday, the main organiser, a remarkable man called Pat Cullinane, who initiated the first such event way back in 1974 and has continued in the same vein ever since, had already sorted the first four mini buses that the visiting teams will use to travel the island during their week-long stay. At the same time, Margaret Devoy, the industrious travel agent who has served our myriad of needs so well over the past decade or so, was busy booking flights from various airports around the south of the country, while the e-lines were buzzing with a mixture of all-consuming glee and scarcely-disguised elation. Over at Norton C of E Primary however, Henry ‘Bobby’ Brooks was busy bashing his head on the school playground, completely unaware that this would mean him having to miss the Portsmouth match the following morning.

Game Day, and the first event back at the Home of Football after several weeks on the road sees both John Kelly and the born-again pitch looking in remarkably good condition for 7.20 on a Saturday morning. The helpers today are a fine-looking group of Benedictines – Father Vaile, Father Hayes, Father Brooks, Father Bennett and Father Buckland and the boards are up and the goals are out in exactly 48 minutes and 27 seconds flat. It might well have been a record-breaking effort, but the stadium construction is delayed by The Photographer, who orders everyone to down tools and walk towards him for what he claims is a take-off of the opening scene from ‘The Dirty Dozen’ (albeit seven people light), but what he’s really considering is that, economically at least, this little cameo has every possibility of producing a fiscally positive result.

‘Make them tea and grill them toast,’ he says, as the last peg is pronged deep into the hallowed turf. ‘We’ve got no bread,’ explains The Chef. ‘Then make the tea extra hot,’ pleads The Lens, desperate to keep everyone here as long as possible so that he in turn has as long as possible to complete a sale or five before the visiting teams get here. Father Vaile eventually relents and buys a stash and a half of pics then runs, aiming to get back to the monastery with most of his life savings still intact, while one or two others look on, considering rather ruefully that it’s alright for him, he gets away relatively lightly, but when you have to go to New Meadow Park every other week to watch Gloucester City ‘perform’, it takes the best part of two hours before you’re able to escape.

Folley is the first to emerge from the big white car at 9.37am, with Archie ‘The Druid’ White, sporting a rather fetching pair of sliders, in tow, while Clifford rolls in soon after and indulges immediately in his usual raft of anti-meridian weekend conversation: ‘Morning, Samuel.’ ‘Yes.’ He’ll spend the next thirty minutes attempting to locate any number of drinks containers left on the premises between September and February and today he’s a tad happier than usual, having found his red, metal Liverpool flask that he’ll no doubt have lost by the time the clock edges past midday. The Model, Manning and Bennett all turn up wearing the type of smile that Clifford thinks has gone out of fashion, while Brooks arrives wearing a Tom Daley-style swimming hat which he clearly feels will prevent his possible concussion from escaping his head.

The Highnam Two enter as one, regaling enthusiastic tales of the week’s non-chronological reports being suitably enhanced by the (correct) application of the transitive verb, ‘usurp’ in their pages. ‘Idiosyncratic’ is next, but whether or not Macbeth really lends itself to this type of oddity is another story altogether. McLarney enters the building, wondering why his fringe never grows any longer in the four weeks between hairdressing appointments and why it never gets any shorter even after the barber has finished hacking away at everything else. Vaile Junior is last to arrive, partly because Vaile Senior has been desperately trying to avoid returning until the very last minute as he doesn’t get paid till the end of the month and partly because Junior’s been staring at his picture on the front of the programme and wondering why no-one seems overly keen on buying a copy.

It’s a Harborne-style wind that we play into in the first half, but despite the zephyr-like disadvantage, we more than hold our own against a slick-passing Portsmouth side that are a delight to watch, partly because of their impressive movement off the ball and partly because they don’t threaten our goal too much.

We take the lead on twelve minutes, Manning’s in-swinging free kick landing perfectly in the middle of the circle that Gary Neville will etch on to the Sky Sports interactive screen to show the perfect place to drop a dead ball a few hours down the line and Buckers usurps the Pompey defence to prod us into the lead.

Two minutes later, The Model, playing up front in place of Tom Daley Brooks, limps off after falling awkwardly following a challenge and spends the next quarter of an hour swathed in warm-up tops and, along with TDB, eating Tesco jelly babies two at a time.

Folley does very well to tip Wain’s drive over the bar and makes a solid save at his near post to deny Johnson, but with the midfield working hard to plug the gap between themselves and the backline, we reach half time still a goal to the good. Despite the recent NSPCC protocols relating to decapitation practices involving children under the age of six, the jelly baby box is emptied in record time, partly due to general hunger pangs and partly due to the fact that all the orange ones have already been consumed.

The initial part of the second period is a mirror image of the first half, with our midfield and defence combining effectively to restrict the visitors’ pass & move space. Hayes, McLarney and Vaile in the city rearguard give little away, while Buckland, Bennett, Clifford and Manning work non-stop to hassle and harry to really good effect. Up front, White is beginning to display his penchant for strong running and it is he who provides Manning with the opportunity to lob the keeper, though his fine effort drops just the wrong side of the crossbar.

White, Clifford, Manning and Buckland drive just wide as gaps begin to appear in the visitors’ defence as their team frantically seeks an equaliser, while White and Buckland are both denied by the Pompey keeper as the clock ticks down to complete an excellent win against a side that’s unsurprisingly enjoyed a fair amount of success in the earlier part of the season.

There are chicken dippers and fries to follow and even though The Druid has to depart early, Buckers honours us with his presence, while mulling over the possibilities of getting ‘deigns’ into an upcoming sentence involving three witches and a cooking pot. Over in the corner, meanwhile, The Lens is doing a roaring trade with the Portsmouth parents as his overworked big, red, money-making machine throws out both five-quid-a-time photos and plumes of smoke at an alarming rate. ‘They haven’t been before,’ he explains with an excitement that knows few bounds and to no-one in particular. ‘And nor have Cardiff,’ (who the girls are playing next) he adds, his eyeballs visibly vibrating with the anticipation of a second hour of economic upturn.

Late afternoon and after epochs of saying that ‘watching’ Gloucester City play on twitter is far worse than watching them ‘live’, after the last few games I’ve completely reversed this view. Now, though, they trail 0-1 at the bottom team’s wonderfully, yet completely incongruously-named ‘Citadel’ stadium and according to the Farsley Celtic feed, have just missed a glorious chance to equalise. Gloom, gloom and even more gloom. But suddenly, out of the slough of despond, the unthinkable happens. Kinger (GPSFA 2010/11) gets in an 87th-minute cross for a back post, toe-poke finish and it’s all square. And then, even more unbelievably, another Kinger cross and another back post toe-poke and it’s 92 minutes gone and it’s 2-1 and there are absolute scenes in the away end and there are absolute scenes in Longlevens and isn’t this one absolutely brilliant Saturday? Portsmouth and Farsley Celtic, both on the very same day. Weekends don’t come much bigger than this.

And when the excitement finally dies down because it hasn’t quite done yet, we’ll stop, reflect and study the Opta Stats from the two biggest games played anywhere in the world on Saturday 12th February 2022 and they’ll provide us with trends and figures and graphs and percentages that will make even the most amateur of analysts purr with delight. But there’s one very important thing they won’t tell us, and it’s this: You can’t beat a good toe poke. Just ask Charlie Buckland.

Gloucester A: Folley; McLarney, Hayes, Vaile; Buckland, Clifford, Bennett, Manning; Hanlon; White.