Facilities
56 hours, 3,360 minutes, 201,600 seconds – whichever way you look at it, it’s exciting. Living it up, letting your hair down, spending time with your mates – nothing could be better. They’ve looked forward to it for days, weeks even – and now it’s here. Yes, the parents couldn’t be more excited – 56 hours, 3,360 minutes, 201,600 seconds – whichever way you look at it - of freedom to get started on that bucket list of things they’ve been waiting an age to do, before the mini bus returns its contents to GL2 at around 4 o’clock on Saturday afternoon.
The adults gathered on the library forecourt wave superficially at their departing offspring before sprinting to their vehicles so as not to waste any of those precious seconds, while in the fun bus the singing’s already started and no-one’s bothering to look back anyway.
Chieveley Services and The Photographer’s got longer-than-usual arms today as he digs deep into cobwebbed pockets to buy the staff breakfast, High Definition queues diligently to sustain himself with a packet of overcooked and over-salted BK chips, Caple foregoes Gregg’s for once and plumps for a packet of ultra-nutritional Haribo’s instead, while Vye buys a big bacon butty then realises we’re on our way back to the bus before he’s had time to take his first bite.
First up is Newbury on the romantically signposted Love Lane; the surface of the pitch is excellent, even though there’s not too much of it, while the mobile coffee shop’s relocation from Speenhamland to Trinity doesn’t seem to have affected its popularity one bit.
WC extends both arms, Inspector Gadget-like, to hoist the drinks bottles from changing area to playing area then, six minutes in, extends his foot to connect with a fine early pass from Vye, but the ball strikes the near post and rebounds to safety.
Burgess connects with the woodwork too, direct from a free kick and via the keeper’s extended fingers, but it’s Obieri who finds the net with a close-range header after his initial effort is blocked to make it one-nil.
Someone’s forgotten the jaffa & jelly box so it’s a liquid-only interval, the lack of half- time sustenance probably resulting in the home side having the edge in the second period. May has an effort blocked by the keeper right on the line, but at the other end HD produces three fine stops to maintain our slender advantage. Caple, Wasp, Jones and Millward in the Gloucester backline also have their work cut out to deny Newbury a leveller, though with three minutes remaining, Vye’s shot is well saved, only for the ball to fall to the predatory Obieri who gleefully taps home the rebound.
There’s still time for Page to fire in a spot kick to make for a tense finish, but the post-match hot dogs are consumed with relish in more ways than one and the fun bus hits the A34 at a pretty respectable five minutes to one.
The journey’s a bit of a foxtrot in that it’s quick-quick-slow as latterly Southampton is gridlocked due to extensive road works, a yellow-signed diversion and a stationary lorry with ‘abnormal load’ emblazoned above its rear bumper. And we thought we were the only vehicle in town to answer to that description.
The two o’clock ferry is long since gone when most of its cargo arrives and the quayside café receives an impromptu upturn in its profit margin as the ice cream box is emptied at a hugely faster speed than we’ve experienced in the last forty minutes or so. Around the corner, the café’s ‘facilities’ are being painstakingly upgraded, which basically means there’s a bit of a queue outside the one remaining cubicle, as the thought of being on the water has a liquidising effect on the squad’s inordinately accelerating metabolism.
There are plenty of two o’clock cars on the three o’clock ship, but the vessel seems in little danger of sinking despite the extra load, and we dock at Cowes just as the little hand reaches four and arrive at the hotel barely thirty minutes later.
Rooms are allocated, clothes are changed and its back on the bus for the short hop to Sandown beach, where the tide’s thankfully out and the majority of the tourists left by the last Friday in August.
High Definition writes his name in big, bold letters in the sand; it takes him one go. Caple has three attempts and finally gets it right after a spelling mistake in each of the first two. A letter of complaint to Dinglewell Junior School is immediately inserted into the evening’s administrative pipeline.
Writing practice over, Myatt and Caple ignore the ongoing beach football and mine for water instead. Each wins a pound for discovering liquid somewhere near the earth’s core. Vye gets his shoes wet and spends the rest of the day wearing sliders. Obieri grabs a hat trick after fouling everyone in sight and adds three more scores to his ever-burgeoning total, as no-one is playing any more. Wasp gets through his second game of the day without being stung. Millward hears there’s money on offer and starts digging.
Back at the ranch, everyone remembers what they’ve ordered for dinner and cleans their plate, as all begin their quest for an eating prize with a Bo Derek. All apart from Myatt that is, who loses a mark for leaving half a chip. Fieldhouse demolishes everything, including the (contents of the) salad bowl and a new name is born. High Definition excels at calculation and makes the three-man (boy) maths final alongside Caple and Wasp, much to the obvious disappointment of Obieri, but Caple wins. Dinglewell is reprieved, for the time being at any rate.
Down the hill for the second time in three hours and Vye and Wasp battle out a thrilling 69-all draw on the Sandown Pier basketball thing. Lettuce sees off HD on the Aztec Ruins adventure golf, Molinari-like in his acceptance of greatness. Obieri, the reluctant gambler, wins a key ring and smiles contentedly, then discovers its 20p to use the facilities and reverses his lips. Myatt is dumbfounded that the coin machine works one way only and exits with a plastic dish containing several pounds’ worth of 2p pieces.
Diary writing, as is the norm on the first evening, when the shock of needing to use a pen whilst on tour causes an undercurrent of reaction that lies somewhere between acute bewilderment and utter horror, results in efforts that are categorised as somewhere between good and less so. You get the gist.
Room tidiness is assessed by TRI (The Room Inspector), who also doubles up as TDM (The Diary Marker) and TAP (The Attitude Person). In his third coming (TAP), Burgess loses an attitude point for eating on the bus and another for leaving the gold-wrapped evidence on the floor, while in his first coming (TRI), Room 14 loses nine of the ten available marks due to a miscellany of offences, details of which cannot, for legal reasons, be documented in what is essentially a family-friendly blog.
Friday
It’s 8am at the Sandhill and it’s the morning after the day before, a time when Angel Delight and Golden Wonder crisps appeared publicly in the western world for the first time since 1974.
Myatt’s up nice and early according to May, who’s in the room next door, while Slider tempts fate by giving Coach Wilson a friendly rat-tat reminder that it’s breakfast time. Burgess and Myatt have clearly made a special effort in the hair-do stakes, though Millward is the clear winner with a pair of heavily gelled, vertically inclined follicles that give him the appearance of a baby deer experiencing its first waking day in the big wild world.
Breakfast completed and a quick return to the rooms to stock up with whatever coinage remains from last night’s revelry, reveals Millward and Wasp seated on the edge of their beds in positions best described as somewhere between the Lotus and the Buddha, yet the reasons behind why this might be happening are far more difficult to determine.
Myatt launches into an explanation of something or other that offends Obieri greatly due to it being almost completely devoid of grammar of any description, but our expert in the correct usage of the Queen’s English has to stop halfway through recounting the list of errors, as the first theme park of the day closes at five.
Blackgang Chine - and High Definition (twice), Jones and Fieldhouse prove to be the best maze-finders in the two-match World Series of Hide & Seek - Fieldhouse, applying the knowledge gained from being one of the hunted in the first game, uses it brilliantly and turns out to be a terrific hunter in the second; WC, applying the knowledge gained from being one of the hunted in the first game, doesn’t.
Dinosaur Land, the Crooked House, Rumpus Mansion and Cowboy Land come and go prior to the water slides, where the ‘Plug Hole’ elicits high-pitched, Hallowe’en-like screams from at least two Gloucester players, who for the time being shall remain nameless.
The Chine gift shop gives people the opportunity to buy mementoes for loved ones at home, with the two main criteria when deciding what to purchase seemingly being: (1) is it cheap and (2) is it able to be shared (by both mum & dad and possibly a troupe of siblings as well)? A third consideration, favoured by legions of tourists past – ‘Can I eat it myself if I get hungry?’ isn’t taken into account by the Class of 2018, due more to the fact that pebbles with the island’s name on them are (1) cheap and (2) arguably shareable, even if (3) they’re only edible by normal human beings in a complete and utter crisis.
With seat belts fastened and gifts under seats, there’s a five-mile hop to Robin Hill Country Park and with the grey clouds threatening, it’s a packed lunch beneath the trees, where the overhead foliage ensures that Millward remains completely dry while consuming most of the packet of custard creams he’s sharing with everyone else. May, meanwhile, leads the way as several people seek out the pink-packeted prawn cocktail crisps from the big blue box, each consumer aiming no doubt to pollute the entire atmosphere within a ten-yard radius of their voice boxes whenever they speak.
The circumnavigation of the park begins with the wooden maze race, an activity that defeats Jones entirely, though he’s as relieved as everyone else to finally locate the exit gate shortly before nightfall. The tug-of-war, falconry display and toboggan run precede a charge around the treetops on wooden bridges and suspended rope-cubes that, at thirty feet above the forest floor, prove to be either a lasting cure for acute vertigo or a sight to turn your knees to jelly with immediate effect. The players, at least, don’t seem to have a problem.
There’s a mushroom amnesty called at dinner, which is good news for Slider and HD in particular, while there’s a frenzied search by half the group for the pasta in the Pasta Bolognese. It’s a bit like looking for the gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow, but with, realistically, slightly less chance of success.
It’s a ten-minute walk from the dining room to the pool room, where Obieri sports the swimwear that has just put Coach Wilson’s financial retirement plans into imminent jeopardy, while High Definition has a full-body covering that makes him look like a cross between Tom Daley and a nuclear submarine – Michael Phelps, then. The session ends with the group’s only four trustworthy people – Obieri, HD, Caple and Jones returning the locker coins entrusted to them an hour earlier with immediate effect, while a mental note is written to never trust either Burgess or Slider with your hard-earned ever again.
The second-night diaries are a notch up on the first, which brings a contented expression to TDM’s usually stern-looking external features. Burgess’s phone call home is timed and completed in seventy-three seconds flat, though Jones does a Captain Lawrence Titus Oates of Scott of the Antarctic fame and announces that he’s ‘Going out (of the diary room) and might be some time.’ He’s not gone for quite as long as our 1912 Antarctic hero, but in all fairness, he’s not too far away.
In the accommodation stakes, Room 10 (High Definition, Obieri & Slider) is good and scores eight, Room 16 (Caple & May) is very good and scores nine, but Room 9, thanks more to Millward’s diligence rather than any significant contribution from either Lettuce or Wasp, scores a perfect ten. Room 14 meanwhile (WC, Jones & Burgess) plummets the absolute depths and scores zero, making it the first tour abode in living memory to finish with a final average mark that has no whole ones whatsoever before the decimal point.
The evening’s attitude marks have WC as their focus in more ways than one. TRI’s report following the inspection of the bathroom in Room 16 is less than favourable, only for it to be revealed that Myatt, having been unable to use the facilities in his own den due to Jones being in situ, has slipped next door to take advantage of the lavatorial vacancy there. One mark off Myatt for being out of his room and another off both Caple and May for being naive enough to let him into theirs.
Saturday
It’s a 6.20am, early-morning call and by the look of the rising, it’s not a popular decision. Millward is completely comatose and steadfastly refuses to move even a single muscle until Wasp intervenes, an action that sees Millward suddenly levitate, Lazarus-like from the depths, seemingly sensing he’s in imminent danger of being stung.
Myatt is busy packing, but little is going in his bag and at breakfast ten minutes later, equally little is going into his mouth. Another (eating) point deducted. May is feeling a little under the weather and leaves most of his scrambled egg on toast, but there’s no room for sentiment in the dog-eat-dog world of the eating competition and he’s minus two, irrespective of the reasons.
The driver’s mislaid the mini bus keys while attending to matters in Room 14, but for once it’s not Myatt’s fault, so they reappear fairly quickly.
There’s only one abnormal load today on the way to the ferry and it’s moving fast enough to ensure a prompt arrival at East Cowes, much to the horror of the early-morning passengers aboard the Red Falcon, which moves seamlessly across the wave-less Solent in double-quick time.
It’s another excellent surface and another small-ish pitch at Milton Road where Portsmouth are the cordial hosts, but the team plays some good stuff, with Jones and Burgess dominating the central midfield area and Slider and Lettuce in the wider positions helping link everything together. Obieri grabs another brace, both from close range, and there are also first half goals for Burgess (penalty) and Slider, as the side’s momentum in the opening period belies the distance everyone ran and the energy they expended throughout yesterday’s daylight hours.
Caple completes his Iron Man tour that’s featured two phoneless evenings and two fine displays, but HD’s mortified to concede, even though no-one shorter than seven foot six could possibly have got anywhere near Evans’ stinging, 37th-minute drive. Burgess adds two more goals, the hat trick effort initiated by Slider’s exquisite pass, while Freeman, Millward, Myatt and the returning May, clearly fortified by a twenty-minute touchline nap, all play their part in an eventual 6-1 win.
The westbound Membury service station has only two things to properly commend it – in an eleven-year-old’s eyes at any rate – it’s the closest outlet to Gloucester and there’s a KFC at the top of the escalator. To anyone older than eleven, its location remains its one and only plus point. Irrespective, there’s a hush over the mid-afternoon eating which is probably more to do with acute fatigue, rather than being watched over throughout by a bespectacled, white-haired colonel on the side of a big red box.
It's a time for reflection though, a time to appraise the events of the last two-and-a-bit days and a time to consider that the season’s first tour has highlighted five extremely important things:
1. Some of the people in this team are tidier than others.
2. Fieldhouse eats more green salad in a single sitting than the 307 past GPSFA players that have visited the island from 1996 to the present day did in total.
3. WC and Ted will do anything for money.
4. Burgess is responsible for most of the mess in the mini bus.
5. And most importantly of all, do not, under any circumstances, ever let other people use the facilities in your room. However much they beg.
Gloucester: High Definition; Subway, Ted, Wasp, May; WC, Pathfinder, Jones, Lettuce, Slider; Obieri.
Postscript: Tuesday
It’s 11.00am and I’m heading back up the M4 after an overnighter in Harrow with The Chairman and Banksy (The Photographer) in tow. We shivered our way through Gloucester City’s miserable 0-2 defeat at Wealdstone last night, but apart from the bout of acute depression brought on by 92 shot-less minutes, it’s been nearly as much fun as the Isle of Wight, but for somewhat different reasons.
With the car transporting a combined age of well on the way to two hundred, it’s little surprise when The Chairman suggests we pull into Membury, so he can make use of the facilities on offer. ‘A very commendable toilet,’ he announces on entering the ground floor Starbucks to take his second seat in as many minutes. And for the record, the one and only adult plus point that this particular service station had to offer, has just become two.
Happy days
The adults gathered on the library forecourt wave superficially at their departing offspring before sprinting to their vehicles so as not to waste any of those precious seconds, while in the fun bus the singing’s already started and no-one’s bothering to look back anyway.
Chieveley Services and The Photographer’s got longer-than-usual arms today as he digs deep into cobwebbed pockets to buy the staff breakfast, High Definition queues diligently to sustain himself with a packet of overcooked and over-salted BK chips, Caple foregoes Gregg’s for once and plumps for a packet of ultra-nutritional Haribo’s instead, while Vye buys a big bacon butty then realises we’re on our way back to the bus before he’s had time to take his first bite.
First up is Newbury on the romantically signposted Love Lane; the surface of the pitch is excellent, even though there’s not too much of it, while the mobile coffee shop’s relocation from Speenhamland to Trinity doesn’t seem to have affected its popularity one bit.
WC extends both arms, Inspector Gadget-like, to hoist the drinks bottles from changing area to playing area then, six minutes in, extends his foot to connect with a fine early pass from Vye, but the ball strikes the near post and rebounds to safety.
Burgess connects with the woodwork too, direct from a free kick and via the keeper’s extended fingers, but it’s Obieri who finds the net with a close-range header after his initial effort is blocked to make it one-nil.
Someone’s forgotten the jaffa & jelly box so it’s a liquid-only interval, the lack of half- time sustenance probably resulting in the home side having the edge in the second period. May has an effort blocked by the keeper right on the line, but at the other end HD produces three fine stops to maintain our slender advantage. Caple, Wasp, Jones and Millward in the Gloucester backline also have their work cut out to deny Newbury a leveller, though with three minutes remaining, Vye’s shot is well saved, only for the ball to fall to the predatory Obieri who gleefully taps home the rebound.
There’s still time for Page to fire in a spot kick to make for a tense finish, but the post-match hot dogs are consumed with relish in more ways than one and the fun bus hits the A34 at a pretty respectable five minutes to one.
The journey’s a bit of a foxtrot in that it’s quick-quick-slow as latterly Southampton is gridlocked due to extensive road works, a yellow-signed diversion and a stationary lorry with ‘abnormal load’ emblazoned above its rear bumper. And we thought we were the only vehicle in town to answer to that description.
The two o’clock ferry is long since gone when most of its cargo arrives and the quayside café receives an impromptu upturn in its profit margin as the ice cream box is emptied at a hugely faster speed than we’ve experienced in the last forty minutes or so. Around the corner, the café’s ‘facilities’ are being painstakingly upgraded, which basically means there’s a bit of a queue outside the one remaining cubicle, as the thought of being on the water has a liquidising effect on the squad’s inordinately accelerating metabolism.
There are plenty of two o’clock cars on the three o’clock ship, but the vessel seems in little danger of sinking despite the extra load, and we dock at Cowes just as the little hand reaches four and arrive at the hotel barely thirty minutes later.
Rooms are allocated, clothes are changed and its back on the bus for the short hop to Sandown beach, where the tide’s thankfully out and the majority of the tourists left by the last Friday in August.
High Definition writes his name in big, bold letters in the sand; it takes him one go. Caple has three attempts and finally gets it right after a spelling mistake in each of the first two. A letter of complaint to Dinglewell Junior School is immediately inserted into the evening’s administrative pipeline.
Writing practice over, Myatt and Caple ignore the ongoing beach football and mine for water instead. Each wins a pound for discovering liquid somewhere near the earth’s core. Vye gets his shoes wet and spends the rest of the day wearing sliders. Obieri grabs a hat trick after fouling everyone in sight and adds three more scores to his ever-burgeoning total, as no-one is playing any more. Wasp gets through his second game of the day without being stung. Millward hears there’s money on offer and starts digging.
Back at the ranch, everyone remembers what they’ve ordered for dinner and cleans their plate, as all begin their quest for an eating prize with a Bo Derek. All apart from Myatt that is, who loses a mark for leaving half a chip. Fieldhouse demolishes everything, including the (contents of the) salad bowl and a new name is born. High Definition excels at calculation and makes the three-man (boy) maths final alongside Caple and Wasp, much to the obvious disappointment of Obieri, but Caple wins. Dinglewell is reprieved, for the time being at any rate.
Down the hill for the second time in three hours and Vye and Wasp battle out a thrilling 69-all draw on the Sandown Pier basketball thing. Lettuce sees off HD on the Aztec Ruins adventure golf, Molinari-like in his acceptance of greatness. Obieri, the reluctant gambler, wins a key ring and smiles contentedly, then discovers its 20p to use the facilities and reverses his lips. Myatt is dumbfounded that the coin machine works one way only and exits with a plastic dish containing several pounds’ worth of 2p pieces.
Diary writing, as is the norm on the first evening, when the shock of needing to use a pen whilst on tour causes an undercurrent of reaction that lies somewhere between acute bewilderment and utter horror, results in efforts that are categorised as somewhere between good and less so. You get the gist.
Room tidiness is assessed by TRI (The Room Inspector), who also doubles up as TDM (The Diary Marker) and TAP (The Attitude Person). In his third coming (TAP), Burgess loses an attitude point for eating on the bus and another for leaving the gold-wrapped evidence on the floor, while in his first coming (TRI), Room 14 loses nine of the ten available marks due to a miscellany of offences, details of which cannot, for legal reasons, be documented in what is essentially a family-friendly blog.
Friday
It’s 8am at the Sandhill and it’s the morning after the day before, a time when Angel Delight and Golden Wonder crisps appeared publicly in the western world for the first time since 1974.
Myatt’s up nice and early according to May, who’s in the room next door, while Slider tempts fate by giving Coach Wilson a friendly rat-tat reminder that it’s breakfast time. Burgess and Myatt have clearly made a special effort in the hair-do stakes, though Millward is the clear winner with a pair of heavily gelled, vertically inclined follicles that give him the appearance of a baby deer experiencing its first waking day in the big wild world.
Breakfast completed and a quick return to the rooms to stock up with whatever coinage remains from last night’s revelry, reveals Millward and Wasp seated on the edge of their beds in positions best described as somewhere between the Lotus and the Buddha, yet the reasons behind why this might be happening are far more difficult to determine.
Myatt launches into an explanation of something or other that offends Obieri greatly due to it being almost completely devoid of grammar of any description, but our expert in the correct usage of the Queen’s English has to stop halfway through recounting the list of errors, as the first theme park of the day closes at five.
Blackgang Chine - and High Definition (twice), Jones and Fieldhouse prove to be the best maze-finders in the two-match World Series of Hide & Seek - Fieldhouse, applying the knowledge gained from being one of the hunted in the first game, uses it brilliantly and turns out to be a terrific hunter in the second; WC, applying the knowledge gained from being one of the hunted in the first game, doesn’t.
Dinosaur Land, the Crooked House, Rumpus Mansion and Cowboy Land come and go prior to the water slides, where the ‘Plug Hole’ elicits high-pitched, Hallowe’en-like screams from at least two Gloucester players, who for the time being shall remain nameless.
The Chine gift shop gives people the opportunity to buy mementoes for loved ones at home, with the two main criteria when deciding what to purchase seemingly being: (1) is it cheap and (2) is it able to be shared (by both mum & dad and possibly a troupe of siblings as well)? A third consideration, favoured by legions of tourists past – ‘Can I eat it myself if I get hungry?’ isn’t taken into account by the Class of 2018, due more to the fact that pebbles with the island’s name on them are (1) cheap and (2) arguably shareable, even if (3) they’re only edible by normal human beings in a complete and utter crisis.
With seat belts fastened and gifts under seats, there’s a five-mile hop to Robin Hill Country Park and with the grey clouds threatening, it’s a packed lunch beneath the trees, where the overhead foliage ensures that Millward remains completely dry while consuming most of the packet of custard creams he’s sharing with everyone else. May, meanwhile, leads the way as several people seek out the pink-packeted prawn cocktail crisps from the big blue box, each consumer aiming no doubt to pollute the entire atmosphere within a ten-yard radius of their voice boxes whenever they speak.
The circumnavigation of the park begins with the wooden maze race, an activity that defeats Jones entirely, though he’s as relieved as everyone else to finally locate the exit gate shortly before nightfall. The tug-of-war, falconry display and toboggan run precede a charge around the treetops on wooden bridges and suspended rope-cubes that, at thirty feet above the forest floor, prove to be either a lasting cure for acute vertigo or a sight to turn your knees to jelly with immediate effect. The players, at least, don’t seem to have a problem.
There’s a mushroom amnesty called at dinner, which is good news for Slider and HD in particular, while there’s a frenzied search by half the group for the pasta in the Pasta Bolognese. It’s a bit like looking for the gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow, but with, realistically, slightly less chance of success.
It’s a ten-minute walk from the dining room to the pool room, where Obieri sports the swimwear that has just put Coach Wilson’s financial retirement plans into imminent jeopardy, while High Definition has a full-body covering that makes him look like a cross between Tom Daley and a nuclear submarine – Michael Phelps, then. The session ends with the group’s only four trustworthy people – Obieri, HD, Caple and Jones returning the locker coins entrusted to them an hour earlier with immediate effect, while a mental note is written to never trust either Burgess or Slider with your hard-earned ever again.
The second-night diaries are a notch up on the first, which brings a contented expression to TDM’s usually stern-looking external features. Burgess’s phone call home is timed and completed in seventy-three seconds flat, though Jones does a Captain Lawrence Titus Oates of Scott of the Antarctic fame and announces that he’s ‘Going out (of the diary room) and might be some time.’ He’s not gone for quite as long as our 1912 Antarctic hero, but in all fairness, he’s not too far away.
In the accommodation stakes, Room 10 (High Definition, Obieri & Slider) is good and scores eight, Room 16 (Caple & May) is very good and scores nine, but Room 9, thanks more to Millward’s diligence rather than any significant contribution from either Lettuce or Wasp, scores a perfect ten. Room 14 meanwhile (WC, Jones & Burgess) plummets the absolute depths and scores zero, making it the first tour abode in living memory to finish with a final average mark that has no whole ones whatsoever before the decimal point.
The evening’s attitude marks have WC as their focus in more ways than one. TRI’s report following the inspection of the bathroom in Room 16 is less than favourable, only for it to be revealed that Myatt, having been unable to use the facilities in his own den due to Jones being in situ, has slipped next door to take advantage of the lavatorial vacancy there. One mark off Myatt for being out of his room and another off both Caple and May for being naive enough to let him into theirs.
Saturday
It’s a 6.20am, early-morning call and by the look of the rising, it’s not a popular decision. Millward is completely comatose and steadfastly refuses to move even a single muscle until Wasp intervenes, an action that sees Millward suddenly levitate, Lazarus-like from the depths, seemingly sensing he’s in imminent danger of being stung.
Myatt is busy packing, but little is going in his bag and at breakfast ten minutes later, equally little is going into his mouth. Another (eating) point deducted. May is feeling a little under the weather and leaves most of his scrambled egg on toast, but there’s no room for sentiment in the dog-eat-dog world of the eating competition and he’s minus two, irrespective of the reasons.
The driver’s mislaid the mini bus keys while attending to matters in Room 14, but for once it’s not Myatt’s fault, so they reappear fairly quickly.
There’s only one abnormal load today on the way to the ferry and it’s moving fast enough to ensure a prompt arrival at East Cowes, much to the horror of the early-morning passengers aboard the Red Falcon, which moves seamlessly across the wave-less Solent in double-quick time.
It’s another excellent surface and another small-ish pitch at Milton Road where Portsmouth are the cordial hosts, but the team plays some good stuff, with Jones and Burgess dominating the central midfield area and Slider and Lettuce in the wider positions helping link everything together. Obieri grabs another brace, both from close range, and there are also first half goals for Burgess (penalty) and Slider, as the side’s momentum in the opening period belies the distance everyone ran and the energy they expended throughout yesterday’s daylight hours.
Caple completes his Iron Man tour that’s featured two phoneless evenings and two fine displays, but HD’s mortified to concede, even though no-one shorter than seven foot six could possibly have got anywhere near Evans’ stinging, 37th-minute drive. Burgess adds two more goals, the hat trick effort initiated by Slider’s exquisite pass, while Freeman, Millward, Myatt and the returning May, clearly fortified by a twenty-minute touchline nap, all play their part in an eventual 6-1 win.
The westbound Membury service station has only two things to properly commend it – in an eleven-year-old’s eyes at any rate – it’s the closest outlet to Gloucester and there’s a KFC at the top of the escalator. To anyone older than eleven, its location remains its one and only plus point. Irrespective, there’s a hush over the mid-afternoon eating which is probably more to do with acute fatigue, rather than being watched over throughout by a bespectacled, white-haired colonel on the side of a big red box.
It's a time for reflection though, a time to appraise the events of the last two-and-a-bit days and a time to consider that the season’s first tour has highlighted five extremely important things:
1. Some of the people in this team are tidier than others.
2. Fieldhouse eats more green salad in a single sitting than the 307 past GPSFA players that have visited the island from 1996 to the present day did in total.
3. WC and Ted will do anything for money.
4. Burgess is responsible for most of the mess in the mini bus.
5. And most importantly of all, do not, under any circumstances, ever let other people use the facilities in your room. However much they beg.
Gloucester: High Definition; Subway, Ted, Wasp, May; WC, Pathfinder, Jones, Lettuce, Slider; Obieri.
Postscript: Tuesday
It’s 11.00am and I’m heading back up the M4 after an overnighter in Harrow with The Chairman and Banksy (The Photographer) in tow. We shivered our way through Gloucester City’s miserable 0-2 defeat at Wealdstone last night, but apart from the bout of acute depression brought on by 92 shot-less minutes, it’s been nearly as much fun as the Isle of Wight, but for somewhat different reasons.
With the car transporting a combined age of well on the way to two hundred, it’s little surprise when The Chairman suggests we pull into Membury, so he can make use of the facilities on offer. ‘A very commendable toilet,’ he announces on entering the ground floor Starbucks to take his second seat in as many minutes. And for the record, the one and only adult plus point that this particular service station had to offer, has just become two.
Happy days
