St Albans – 10.10.20

Saturday

6.35. Rack up at GL2 to find the second of the big green gates has been weighted down and fitted with a Covid-style gazebo. Squeeze in through Gate No 1, with only the wing mirrors suffering from the appendages of Gate No 2. Coach Stalley follows suit, his concentration levels focussed not on the narrowness of the opening, but on his FA ‘Warm-ups for U11s’ manual which took a bit of a battering in the West Berkshire rain last week. The royal county’s monsoon has resulted in the first 14 activities being reduced to a sodden pulp and the pages, if not the content, being labelled ‘unfit for purpose’.

7.15 and socialism threatens to run rife as the majority of the volunteer labour party’s arrived at the Stadium of Light. Or Dawn, as the case may be. The Father Dix, Jones, Steadman and Liddell quartet is a five-boards-at-a-time workforce and two thirds of the pitch perimeter is assembled in double quick time, at which point Father Smith arrives on the scene. ‘I couldn’t get my car through the gate,’ he protests, but the plea falls on deaf ears as Gate No 2 doesn’t seem to have moved too much in the recent past and everyone else has got in. No-one mentions they left their cars outside, though.

Father Smith’s plywood squares are top quality however and the ‘Please queue sensibly’ stickers are far less likely to meet the untimely end that befell those used at the first home game a fortnight ago. Coach Wixey is here bright and early too and thus completes yet another victory in his latest ‘First to 20’ challenge with Coach Harris to see who can get to GL2 first on a Saturday morning. He’s slightly disappointed however, as this time the victory margin’s only 19.

8.15 and the labour party disappears in search of a pre-match bacon & egg sandwich, pausing only to coax the second gate open before heading for Eastern Avenue and the artery-shrinking delights that help make every weekend so enjoyable.

In the foyer, The Photographer’s setting up his big, red, money-making machine, secretly hoping that one of the St Albans teams will complete its usual early-season win at Longlevens and the visiting parents will fill his pockets with troves of silver in celebration of their team’s success.

The Saints coach, ‘Colonel’ Nicholas Sanders, arrives nice and early, distributing items of newly sponsored kit from the boot of his car, like a nomadic tinker peddling his ill-gotten wares. Moments later, the dulcet tones of early-morning hubbub on the GL2 patio suddenly cease however, as The Colonel issues a set of forthright instructions to one of his players in a voice that resonates far beyond the sleepy confines of our little

patch of green and momentarily halts the weekend chit-chat of Gloucestershire and Hertfordshire citizens alike. At the same time in the far corner, Coach Stalley is slightly more reserved as he talks the players through FA Warm-up No 15, an activity which involves a measure of jogging, sprinting, bending, turning and skipping. ‘Don’t fancy any of that,’ mutters Boris, thinking he’s out of earshot, before deciding that taking twice as long as usual to Velcro his gloves up will save his participation in the first few warm-up ‘runs’. It doesn’t.

The game kicks off and the hosts are the more threatening side early on, but Boris soon takes a blow to the head while effecting a clearance and temporarily departs the fray, meaning a goalkeeping debut for Harrison ‘A Man for all Seasons’ Eagle. ‘Brilliant,’ he says, while Velcro-ing Boris’s gloves together in five seconds flat. ‘I’ve now played in 66.66%’ of the available positions and it’s only the third proper game.’ ‘Hmmph,’ humphs Smiffy. ‘I’m the expert on decimal places, if you don’t mind,’ but in what is quickly becoming a family trait, the humph falls on remarkably deaf ears.

It’s not long though before Smiffy comes to the fore again, picking up the ball and executing a perfect (if illegal), one-handed throw-in, despite Coach Stalley’s comprehensive session on this very subject, less than seventeen hours earlier. Smiffy’s soon to become known as two-foot-one-hand, but we’ll leave that for another day.

St Albans respond by grabbing two quick goals via Berro and Mitchell, though neither can be attributed to the stand-in custodian, before Boris says he’s had enough of standing around with an ice pack on his cranium and returns to the contest, where almost immediately he’s called upon to make a fine save and thus prevent Wallace adding a third to the Yellows’ tally.

History is about to be made at the other end, however. A free kick from Black Boots Dix causes confusion in The Saints’ defence and just nine minutes after removing his goalkeeping mitts, Eagle Horrid Boots notches his first of the season with a close-range finish. ‘That’s my job to score from two foot,’ humphs Smiffy, who’s just been replaced, and now fears his monopolies of both decimal place expertise and 24-inch finishes are being threatened by EHB, who’s quickly becoming his former friend. He slumps back to the bench and fiddles around for the box of chocolate fingers, only to discover that it isn’t there. Instinctively, Barnard squeezes half a smile from his usually impassive visage, a quarter in recognition of the goal that EHB’s just scored and a quarter in recognition of Smiffy’s fingerless quest. The remaining two quarters he’s retaining for use a little further down the line.

We have two further opportunities to grab a first half leveller, Miklas making a fine double save to deny Lidl, before Monty Don’s lob over the onrushing keeper is spectacularly cleared off the line by Appleton – two excellent defensive interventions that prove to be pivotal in the eventual outcome of the game.

Half time sees no Jaffas, as the coach seems reticent to invest another £1.65 in a Tesco triple pack that only Boris will eat. Meanwhile, on the far touchline, there’s plenty of bob-bob-bobbing of bobble hats, with Mother Cooper, Mother Eagle and Father Liddell all impressively cranially protected against any forthcoming inclement weather. Father Steadman and Father Jones look on enviously, while noting that the black & yellow version will be on sale at the next home fixture.

Back to the action and the second half sees a number of forays from the home side, with Steadman doing his best to create an opening and initiate an equaliser, but when Coffey’s free kick increases the visitors’ advantage, the wind seems to come out of the city side’s sails and St Albans add two more through Mitchell’s fine volley and McIver’s cross-cum-shot. ‘It’s all been a bit below par,’ says The Coach to The Jones, who’s just replaced Smiffy in searching for the chocolate. ‘Pretty much like my golf,’ nods The Hurricane in reply.

The final whistle sees The Colonel in a happy mood. He’s had a relatively quiet game by his standards, due largely to his team being in the ascendancy for most of the match, something for which the majority of residents within a mile and a half radius of Longlevens are eternally grateful. And he’s also hugely happy (and relieved) that the recent, two-day dry spell has meant the big, orange Bielsa bucket on which he’s resided for most of the game hasn’t sunk completely into the pristine turf as last year’s big, blue bucket did. And when he finally departs the complex in about 30 minutes time, he’ll have all eleven of his fingers crossed that Hertfordshire enjoys a far drier winter this time around and he won’t need to spend hours on end searching the Amazon catalogue for an affordable, but unsinkable seat.

The visitors go on to win the second game too, edging a tight encounter by the odd goal in five and The Photographer is not only licking his lips, but putting high-density pocket reinforcers in place as he speaks. ‘Bad luck,’ he communicates, sad face to the fore, to every home player, parent and coach as they amble past, ‘but good news for me,’ he adds at a decibel level of circa 0.1 as he commits another five-pound note of St Albans origin to his ever-growing and highly lucrative stash.

The Girls enjoy a rather more productive afternoon than their predecessors, being good value for a brace of victories over Woking and Wokingham respectively, while the Development side record our third success of the day with an impressive victory over their St Albans counterparts at OSP. 3-2 to us, then.

5.10. Get home, find GCFC have won at Chorley to go top of the league (after two glorious games) and vow to enjoy every second of the high life while it lasts. Won’t be for long. The Real Manager’s away at some dog thing in deepest Dorset, so do some more GPSFA stuff, mull over the morning’s events, then go to bed. Wake up at one, two, three, four and five, but settle down once it’s clear the scoring’s complete.

Sunday

Take ages sorting The Lens’s ‘WeTransfer’ photos and put a few random offerings on Twitter. There’s a ‘spot the player’ quiz with five people correctly identifying the mystery player as The Gardener, with Mother Don eventually making it six after spending a good hour and a bit trawling through the family photo album just to make sure.

Monday

Coaching at OSP and a session with a difference. We’re locked in the Sports Centre for an hour and a bit while a posse of armed police and sniffer dogs roam around the extended site. They’re looking for a person who’s proving impossible to pin down as he’s never in the same place for more than five minutes at a time. ‘He was last seen wearing a pair of gold and white boots,’ says the man in charge of the uniforms. ‘Not one of ours,’ replies Two-Foot-One-Hand with about as much conviction as an eighth-minute throw-in, while behind him, HB squeezes out the remaining two quarters of the surreptitious smile he began forming about fifty-nine hours ago. ‘Well, keep an eye out,’ concludes the sergeant as he prepares to call in the troops, ‘Cos I’ve no idea where he’s going to turn up next.’

‘And neither have we,’ agrees the Head Coach, ‘and neither have we.’

Gloucester: Boris; Hurricane, Captain Cooper, Black Boots; Two-Foot, Smiler, Steadman-no-name-yet, Monty Don; Lidl; Man for All Seasons