Friday

17.00. Friendship. Camaraderie. Affinity. Fellowship. Solidarity. Esprit de Corps, even – attributes that are the bedrock of The Freemasons, a brotherhood that encompasses the greatest virtues of this amazing thing called life. Never letting your fellow man down, always sticking by your mates, watching everyone else’s back and – even when times are at their hardest, never, ever giving your friends away.

So when, at 5 o’clock precisely, nice Mason Liddell’s nowhere to be seen and his bevy of so-say best friends all holler at once: ‘He’s having his hair cut when he should be here,’ it comes as not only a bit of a shock to the system, but also to the Brotherhood as a whole. ‘It’s not very nice trying to get your team mate in trouble,’ comes the admonishment. ‘We didn’t mean Mason,’ says the Hurricane. ‘We meant Coach Stalley.’

The session, minus The Freemason and the Real Coach, both of whom have very good reasons for not being present, is attacked with gusto by all the players in the same way that the bag of Smarties is set upon by the red team at the end. ‘The Bibs’, with Triple B to the fore, have won the sweet little candy discs due to being the best pressing team, though in all fairness, the ‘Non-Bibs’ improved dramatically as time went on and were very good for the final 43 seconds.

‘The pitch looks bootiful,’ said The Groundsman in his phone call earlier today, ‘and I’ll be there at 7.30 sharp in the morning.’ ‘I’ve got 32 loo rolls from Cash & Carry. Do you think that will be enough?’ was the gist of The Chef’s enquiry barely thirty seconds later. The timing was eerie, almost as if the contents of the second call had something to do with the essence of the first.

Saturday

07.30. We’ve had a fair bit of rain overnight and there are few signs that today will be any different. Arrive at the big green gates nice and early, only to find JK already in situ, which is pretty fortunate as someone’s put the padlock on backwards and a bit of expert help is needed to gain entry.

People have clearly heard how much fun putting up ropes and irons and boards and goals in the rain is, as today’s construction party has swelled to an Enid Blyton quintet, as the Greyfriars Three have been joined by Father Jones, who’s sporting a Guns of Navarone-style beanie and Father Eagle, who’s resplendent in similar headware, together with a pair of rather fetching, cut-off wellies. The Lens is next to arrive with plenty of ideas as to how he might slow everyone down, but the Famous Five, having sussed out that eye contact needs to be avoided at all times, keep their heads bowed and their eyes trained on the turf, meaning the stadium is virtually complete just fifty-six minutes after the first stone was laid.

The Chef’s here with his tissues and bacon and rolls and chocolate bars, but despite his Friday morning pledge, there’s no sign of The Groundsman, so the former goes into cold storage and the latter into the kitchen. The Lens meanwhile is pacing expectantly around the patio, camera poised, machine at the ready, waiting desperately for someone to look at him. Nobody does.

09.30. The first player to arrive is The Freemason, having come directly from Tuffley Tom’s hairdressers’ shop with a brand new cut and groom that would be an odds-on winner in any self-respecting topiary contest. Even The Chef does a double take. Monty Don’s clearly impressed too – if he can just get his Thuja Occidentalis up to Tuffley Tom’s before the end of the day, the possibilities of horticultural greatness are endless. Marvin isn’t too happy, though; after months of being ‘Number One Up Top’, someone else is getting all the accolades. ‘Hair?’ murmurs Rhodes. ‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about.’

Dropping their kit bags in a changing room they haven’t seen for months on end, ten sets of eyes pick out a photo montage in the corner, in which Father Rhodes is getting presented with the Southern Counties Inter-Association Cup. You can tell the picture was taken a while ago as it’s the only image in the room where the colours don’t go beyond black and white.

10.00. We play with the wind in the first half and are pretty much in control from the word go. Don is upended just outside the box with nine minutes on the clock and Rhodes drives home his tenth score of the season from the resulting free kick. Woking have a history of blooding some fine goalkeepers over the years, with Southampton’s Alex McCarthy a more than useful performer in their 1999/00 team and Robert Green who, after playing for the Surrey side in 1990/91, went on to star in over six hundred games for the likes of Norwich, West Ham and QPR, winning a dozen England caps along the way. The Woking custodian on this occasion is equally inspired; after doing well to keep out The Don who’s cut in neatly from the left only to be denied by the keeper’s legs, he wages a one-man war on Rhodes, his three fine saves from the city midfielder ensuring the hosts take only a single-goal lead into the half time interval.

The second period begins well, The Don driving spectacularly home eight minutes after the restart to double the advantage and soon after, The Freemason, who for some mysterious reason has celebrated his ‘Why, Why, Why, Delilah?’ hair-cut moment by opting to wear a pair of slinky black tights even though it’s the second week of May, turns and finishes well for number three. Captain Cooper is having probably his best game so far in central midfield, breaking up the visitors’ attacks and turning defence into offence by rarely giving the ball away. Rhodes, too, is spreading the ball well – particularly after dispensing with a pair of thermal gloves that were causing him to noticeably overheat, while Triple B, Freemason and latterly Two-Foot, are all causing constant problems for the Woking back line.

There’s a Match of the Day goal with twelve minutes remaining, Hurricane and Triple B combining well down the right to set Monty Don up for a great cross that’s well finished by The Freemason.

Woking threaten briefly, Marvin smuggling the ball past his right-hand post to keep the clean sheet intact. While not having opportunities to produce spectacular saves today, his concentration from first minute till last is excellent, which is an equally important, but much less obvious skill. In front of him, the Gloucester rearguard is both compact and composed. Black Boots Dix goes quietly but impressively about his business week in and week out and does exactly the same today, while on the other side, Hurricane looks assured and confident in all that he does. Between them, Man for All Seasons is solid and unphased; rarely troubled, always alert.

Don adds Gloucester’s fifth and immediately suffers a similar fate to that of Captain Cooper ten minutes earlier, in being temporarily withdrawn after doing something good. In CC’s case it’s happy to sad in five seconds flat after reaching the bench: happy at the prospect of getting to the contents of the Tupperware box first; sad to find the Smarties are still in the clubhouse.

11.20. The Development game v St Albans has already kicked off by the time we’ve finished, with the B Team’s encounter against the same opposition following on almost immediately afterwards. Halfway through the latter, The Groundsman rings Bruce The Chef with an erudite explanation of his absence earlier this morning: ‘I ‘ad issuez wi’ mi innards’ is the general gist of what he says, with the remaining details definitely falling into the ‘Too much information’ category. While The Groundsman’s Pinocchion proboscis is growing at a rate of around an inch a minute throughout the phone call, it seems The Chef, after all, wasn’t too far away with his counting during yesterday’s visit to the Cash & Carry.

13.30. St Albans Development have won 4-2, but the Mighty Yellows have triumphed 4-1 in the first leg of their Geoff Richards Cup fixture, a result that sees Coach Wixey grinning from ear to ear, while virtually beatifying each member of the team in turn. Far less happy is The Lens however, who, despite touting a team pic of the beaten Hertfordshire side around their supporters and shouting, ‘A fiver for one, two for twelve quid,’ fails to sell a single copy. ‘It’s St Albans, they can do the maths,’ says The Chef, much to the bemusement of the Brockworth market trader.

15.30. The rain seems to have become harder as the day’s gone on, but the girls have completed today’s Hertfordshire trilogy with a convincing win to seal a place in Round 3 of the National KO. The Lens, always a quick learner when there’s cash in the offing, has this time done his business before the goals have started going in, though amidst the excitement of cranial till ringing, doesn’t realise that two of the visiting mums have paid for their photos on the kitchen card machine. Nobody tells him.

Post-match, JK completes his weekly ‘Walk of Shame’, carefully circumnavigating both pitches in order to pick up any left-over bottles and net pegs – today he returns with two of the former and three of the latter – before completing his eight-hour matchday stint and returning to the leafy confines of the bush just outside the big green gates, where he’ll no doubt remain till the padlock’s removed at half seven next Saturday.

16.30. Fix the lock to the right side of the crossbar, then remove it immediately as the Real Groundsman, Rich from King’s, is coming in. With plenty of water still descending from the thick grey clouds, he’s about to apply the second measure of summertime fertiliser which, he says, in these conditions will dissolve as soon as it’s put down and start the grass growing again almost immediately. If Groundsman Graham’s internal issuez haven’t resolved themselves prior to next Friday’s cutting session, we may be playing next week’s game on a surface resembling The Freemason’s former barnet. And on this occasion, the answer to Delilah’s ‘Why, Why, Why?’ question will be plain and obvious for all to see.

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