Saturday

It’s half term week and Bath are in town. Cooperman has been hunting down his missing t-shirt, but as he’s such a super-pleasant man, he’s forgiven (on this occasion) for being late. Freemason has put the Wolverhampton disappointment, when he said we hadn’t lost since he’s been doing the warm-up, well and truly behind him and today embarks on a new sequence of contortions and stretches. Also warming up is The Photographer, who’s well aware that the second game of the day features a team (and therefore supporters) who are making their first (and only) visit of the season to The Shire. Just like the players, the Big Red Money-Making Machine starts slowly, with the intent of accelerating into action at exactly the right moment.

Gloucester start the game well, with some genuine intent about their play and take the lead on twelve minutes following a bit of six-yard box ping-pong, Sixty Centimetres doing what he does best, converting from the distance after which he’s named. Sixty five minutes later, his post-match interview in front of the sponsor board behind The Photographer’s market stall reveals all. ’It was actually 61.2,’ he tells the microphone, before swiftly nipping off for a post-match chip.

Monty Don adds two more, his second and the team’s third, a header at the back post from Rhodes’s excellent cross following a neat ball from Black Boots Dix, being a really well-worked team effort. Cooperman, invigorated by his fine strike against Wolves nine days ago steers home a fine finish, then emphatically tells Coach Wilson at the interval, ‘I don’t put them wide.’ Monty Don sets up Freemason for another quality finish and it’s all smiles at Cadbury’s Chocolate Finger-eating time.

The second half is understandably much more even and Kiely finishes well to give the visitors a glimmer of hope, though in all fairness, the city back three of Hurricane, Man for All Seasons and BB Dix don’t look like giving much away. All three are instrumental too in conceiving a good number of the hosts’ attacking endeavours, feeding midfielders Triple B, Smiffy, Rhodes, Freemason and Cooperman as defence is turned into offence at regular intervals.

Monty Don crashes in another of his specials to extend the lead yet further, before Marvin, having made a couple of decent saves to deny Bath a second, gets in on the act with his first assist of the season, his long clearance being steered home by Rhodes for number seven. Heaven help us; he’ll be wanting to come up for corners next.

Monday

A convivial atmosphere on the GL2 patio as Barking & Dagenham Girls edge home 1-0 in the Southern Counties Cup semi-final with four things being apparent:

1. If you wanted to make a promotional video for girls’ football, this, and the corresponding encounter nine days’ ago which Gloucester won 2-0, would make for a great 120 minutes. Despite the defeat, terrific stuff from both teams from first whistle till last.

2. The contribution that Bruce the Chef Forsyth makes to the whole operation is huge. Buys, prepares, cooks and serves the food, sorts the money, cleans the place and will celebrate Saturday and Monday doing this by coming on the mini bus to Bath tomorrow. Top man on so many fronts.

3. How much more prosperous people are when they get back home when The Lens isn’t here. He’s over in Cheltenham today with his BRMM Machine, offering elderly grandparents ‘deals’ that equate to pretty much half their pensions. The mantlepiece will be full of memories, even though the fridge is bare and the electricity will be cut off around mid-November.

4. The ex-Chairman really doesn’t like this column. After last week’s attack, there’s another post-match broadside. Let’s tell it like it is – it’s scathing, it’s stinging and at times it’s downright savage. And he finishes his verbal assault with those three little words that bring a lump to the throat of even the hardest-nosed blogger. ‘Enid ****** Blyton,’ he says, then leaves. Devastated.

Tuesday

After nine months of waiting, it’s finally mini bus time! The early-morning draw to determine who sits where and by whom is made, the last-but-one seat being decided by Captain Cooperman, who is not the first to arrive for the second game running. Monty Don emits a glimmer of a smile as he finally sees a way of getting off the bottom of the ‘Time of Arrival’ league table, while Sixty Centimetres somewhat reluctantly selects the last name, knowing full well it’s his.

Three of the Benedictines (Father Jones, Father Barnard and Father Eagle) are on their way to Lansdown via the Seymour Café, where you can get a very full English of about a hundred items for a fiver, give or take. Solicitors’ fees are clearly not the same as they were 20-odd years ago.

For the first time in living memory, the BWB Fields are dry and wind-less. A wide-bladed tractor-mower is improving the surface but eradicating the lines at exactly the same time as we trek to our base between the pitches, the chocolate-based refreshments in the Tupperware containers clearly already on their last legs as we set up base camp for the day.

St Albans coach, Colonel Sanders, perched atop his bright orange Bielsa Bucket, is so verbose in the opening exchanges of Game One that Triple B moves twenty yards up the touchline to prevent ear drum perforation. It’s not long before Monty Don converts Rhodes’s corner, then sets up Freemason to rifle home number two, a twin salvo that sees the Colonel’s instructions replaced by a prolonged head-in-the-hands moment and an exponential reduction of pitch-side decibels.

Two fine pieces of defending from Black Boots Dix ensures a clean sheet and there’s another to follow as a nine-minute, five-goal burst accounts for Newbury. Sixty Centimetres taps in from well within his shooting range after Monty Don’s effort has been parried, then contributes three assists in not far off as many minutes, the third a weaving run and unselfish pass to provide The Gardener with the opportunity to complete a well-taken treble. In between, Cooperman lashes home a spectacular effort from twenty five yards, before departing the fray with a bloody nose. Rhodes comes on to take the ensuing free kick in an American Football-style substitution and isn’t far away from scoring.

The lunch break sees Two-Foot munch on a few Doritos, Freemason imbibe a smelly Tesco salad, and everyone else consume an amount somewhere in between the two.

Plymouth are much the better side in game number three and net twice in the opening seven minutes, but the energy displayed by the city team in the previous two games isn’t there, which is more disappointing than the score. There’s an upsurge in the final five minutes when Rhodes slots neatly home, but it’s too little too late.

Rhodes strikes the crossbar early on in the last game against Bath, but it’s the hosts that take the lead half way through. Back come Gloucester, Freemason levelling matters before racing back to the centre spot with the ball, before Man for All Seasons heads home Rhodes’s corner at the back post for a 2-1 lead and a great celebration from The Hurricane.

Bath though are good value for their equaliser just before the end and in the final seconds, a fine take from Marvin ensures the game finishes with honours even. Miserable Monty Don puts on his upturned saucer of a mouth at the end, while Smiffy considers a smile before filing it away for later. Captain Cooper inspects his hooter, concluding there’s no lasting damage, while Hurricane ums and ahs about whether to leave his jersey or his boot bag behind before forgetting both. Bruce The Chef nobly decides to collect and deposit all the rubbish in the bin by the café, not realising the two plastic containers are also in the Tesco carrier, meaning we’ll have to eat out of the packet in future.

Gyles Brandreth once tweeted, ‘Who is this Michael Wood that the Thornbury services are named after – and who cares?’ Well, we don’t, but what is really pleasing that now that the rickety old pedestrian bridge has been dismantled, is that there are now food outlets on the northbound side of the motorway.

We split into a KFC group and a Burger King group, with five people in each. Colonel Sanders stares knowingly out from the side of the red and white takeaway boxes, a far quieter version than the one who scared Triple B a few hours earlier. Over at BK, the same Triple B orders something as sizeable as his name, clearly in an attempt to bulk out the ribs he was displaying while changing into his GPSFA polo shirt a few hours earlier, but despite a noble effort, doesn’t quite manage to finish it. Miserable Monty Don, despite his horticultural tendencies, drags everything green out of his Whopper before attacking what’s left with an eagerness that suggests Bovidae may soon be faced with the threat of extinction.

We arrive back at Longlevens fifteen minutes late, which goes down well with The Benedictines who get an extra quarter of an hour in the Teddy as a result. Let’s hope the abbot doesn’t find out.

Return the bus to the Community Centre, fill in the forms and head for home. We’ve played football under a cloudless sky and scored some cracking goals in the process. We left GL2 with two white Nike footballs and returned with three, had our first mini bus outing, service station stop and fast-food fix. We clearly have no vegetarians in the squad but do have ten very nice people. Well done everyone and thanks for a great day.

Gloucester: Marvin; Hurricane, Man for All Seasons, Black Boots Dix; Triple B, Cooperman, Rhodes, Sixty Centimetres, Freemason; Miserable Monty Don.