Examples
‘Not a chance! There’s going to be a monsoon overnight. You may as well book Oxstalls now.’
So said The Weatherman on Monday evening and it was at this point that everyone involved with GPSFA, from players to supporters, catering organisers to the association’s reluctant accountant, knew once and for all that the pitch would be absolutely fine and perfectly fit for play on Tuesday morning.
And so it proves. It’s been a bone-dry night and the only signs of wetness at the Home of Football are the washing up bowl that The Chef forgot to empty last Saturday afternoon and the half-full / half-empty, depending on your take on life, vinegar bottles that are nestling quietly in the eating room’s fake-wicker condiment baskets.
The Chef’s three-day old proclamation that Saturday’s fruit will be fine on Tuesday morning remains accurate only for those people who like three-day old fruit, none of whom are likely to be in evidence today, so the returning Margaret Albert Pargeter will have to make do with a couple of Tesco chocolate biscuits and the lingering aroma of a bunch of over-ripe bananas instead.
The midweek working party of Mother Randall, Father Kelly, Mother Limbrick and Father Knight arrives somewhat earlier than Coach Harris, who has spent the first waking hour and a half of the day contemplating the pros and cons of a McDonald’s breakfast bap versus being in prime physical condition for the upcoming tour to Jersey, with the Channel Islands eventually finishing a distant second in the decision-making process.
The Groundsman however is absent due to remaining bed-ridden, though whether it’s a case of external injuries, internal issues or plain old Montezuma’s Revenge is anyone’s guess. The Lens has returned from his sabbatical in east London, confident of completing a sale or two when Bexley arrive shortly, while The Chairman pays a fleeting visit to complete the official handing over of the day’s flapjacks. The tin, it transpires, is already half empty and the patriarch is wearing a rather contented smile, but with end-of-season reviews imminent and contracts in the balance, no-one is prepared to say what they really think. Not until he’s gone, anyway.
The Yellows get events underway, turning in a battling display against a strong Bexley side who eventually triumph by a single first half strike that ensures they win the Geoff Richards League for the first-ever time. The Girls’ game is similarly tight, with the visitors edging home by the odd goal in five to take the Girls’ EW Trophy back down the M4 to the Garden of England.
We’re now staring down the barrel of another first-timer, with Bexley in their nine previous visits never having completed the triple crown which, as the players emerge from between the GPSFA flags, is tantalisingly within their grasp. Gloucester though start well and with the breeze at their backs would have shaded the first half possession stats if anyone had bothered to keep them.
Eight corners are won, each of which is well defended by the visitors, while the impressive Scarface’s effort following Adibayor’s fine run and cross is brilliantly blocked by one of the Bexley defenders. Will I Am Now Eleven displays a level of energy not always commensurate with those of similarly advancing years and results in him continually causing problems for the right side of the Bexley defence, while Billy, Muzzy, the aforementioned Scar and latterly Nureyev are all performing well in the hosts’ midfield. MAP returns to the GPSFA fray after one game and twenty minutes away, miskicking the sphere on two of his first three attempts at boot-to-ball contact, having made no contact whatsoever with his first attempt, but not putting either foot wrong thereafter. ‘I need bananas,’ is his only attempt at explanation.
Wing backs Weatherman and Big Bad Sam are once again excellent from first minute till last and Kenny only has one first half save to make, using his Big Strong Feet to good effect.
The second period is again competitive and well contested. There’s a man on the side who must have the Opti Stat app on his mobile, as he seems to know that one team has been denied eleven free kicks and a penalty within a single two-and-a-half-minute passage of play and that the other has been given two free kicks that they shouldn’t have been in the fifteen seconds that follows. Someone asks him about the first half possession stats, but he doesn’t seem to have those.
Bexley have two livewire forwards, but the defensive acumen of the entire home side is there for all bar one to see. At the other end Nureyev plays in The Colonel whose effort is turned away for a corner before Billy slides in Lacoste with a delightful pass, but he’s now thinking candles and cake and is forced wide before winning another flag kick.
Nureyev, who is playing a pivotal role for the hosts - quite apt for someone with his Bolshoi-like connections - then sees his effort fumbled by the keeper who recovers well to deny The Colonel, the striker looking ever more hunter-like as the half progresses.
With nine minutes remaining, Billy shoes-in Gloucester twelfth corner of the contest and The Lens captures Muzzy’s exemplary headed action, a movement which perfectly camouflages The Colonel’s key interception that sends the ball winging into the far corner. At virtually the same moment, Mother of the Colonel’s new Woodstock-inspired wellies levitate in unsurpassed elation for the entirety of the team’s usual, yet still beautifully synchronised goal celebration and The Photographer’s mad dash back to his big red money machine to print off an already-framed copy.
Bexley push forward in search of a leveller, but the defending is resolute and the homesters’ determination to hold on to their advantage obvious for even those boasting a single Cyclopean eye to witness. The thrill of victory is palpable amongst the city players and while magnanimity is largely the order of the moment, Kenny’s (and ten other) mile-wide smiles that reflect the clean sheet obsession of a man in grey and the resulting satisfaction of a job well done is exactly what success is meant to look like.
Much has been written over the years regarding the technicalities of coaching, the subtleties of managing, the vagaries of parenting and the appreciation of spectating. Sports science now prevails where instinct once ruled. Caution and common sense have replaced bucket and sponge. Positive approaches have superseded negativity and criticism. Questions replace commands. So many good ideas, so many fruitful innovations, so much better (on the whole) have things become over the years.
But despite the instructions and lists and tick boxes and courses and techniques and manuals and books and articles and statistics and data and strategies and surveys and research that find their way into the overloaded psyche of the adult population at large, what the managers and coaches and parents and spectators of today need to do more than anything, is set the (right) example. Doing nothing else is absolutely fine.
An example that puts manners, respect, tolerance and responsibility at the beginning, middle and end of its values list and relegates the selfishness of the Cyclops back to the bigotry of the period from whence it first reared its ugly little head. And teaching everyone to be able to make proper weather forecasts wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
Gloucester: Kenny; Weatherman, Nureyev, Big Bad Sam; Scarface, Muzzy, Billy, Will I Am Eleven Now; Adibayor; Margaret Albert Pargeter, The Colonel.
So said The Weatherman on Monday evening and it was at this point that everyone involved with GPSFA, from players to supporters, catering organisers to the association’s reluctant accountant, knew once and for all that the pitch would be absolutely fine and perfectly fit for play on Tuesday morning.
And so it proves. It’s been a bone-dry night and the only signs of wetness at the Home of Football are the washing up bowl that The Chef forgot to empty last Saturday afternoon and the half-full / half-empty, depending on your take on life, vinegar bottles that are nestling quietly in the eating room’s fake-wicker condiment baskets.
The Chef’s three-day old proclamation that Saturday’s fruit will be fine on Tuesday morning remains accurate only for those people who like three-day old fruit, none of whom are likely to be in evidence today, so the returning Margaret Albert Pargeter will have to make do with a couple of Tesco chocolate biscuits and the lingering aroma of a bunch of over-ripe bananas instead.
The midweek working party of Mother Randall, Father Kelly, Mother Limbrick and Father Knight arrives somewhat earlier than Coach Harris, who has spent the first waking hour and a half of the day contemplating the pros and cons of a McDonald’s breakfast bap versus being in prime physical condition for the upcoming tour to Jersey, with the Channel Islands eventually finishing a distant second in the decision-making process.
The Groundsman however is absent due to remaining bed-ridden, though whether it’s a case of external injuries, internal issues or plain old Montezuma’s Revenge is anyone’s guess. The Lens has returned from his sabbatical in east London, confident of completing a sale or two when Bexley arrive shortly, while The Chairman pays a fleeting visit to complete the official handing over of the day’s flapjacks. The tin, it transpires, is already half empty and the patriarch is wearing a rather contented smile, but with end-of-season reviews imminent and contracts in the balance, no-one is prepared to say what they really think. Not until he’s gone, anyway.
The Yellows get events underway, turning in a battling display against a strong Bexley side who eventually triumph by a single first half strike that ensures they win the Geoff Richards League for the first-ever time. The Girls’ game is similarly tight, with the visitors edging home by the odd goal in five to take the Girls’ EW Trophy back down the M4 to the Garden of England.
We’re now staring down the barrel of another first-timer, with Bexley in their nine previous visits never having completed the triple crown which, as the players emerge from between the GPSFA flags, is tantalisingly within their grasp. Gloucester though start well and with the breeze at their backs would have shaded the first half possession stats if anyone had bothered to keep them.
Eight corners are won, each of which is well defended by the visitors, while the impressive Scarface’s effort following Adibayor’s fine run and cross is brilliantly blocked by one of the Bexley defenders. Will I Am Now Eleven displays a level of energy not always commensurate with those of similarly advancing years and results in him continually causing problems for the right side of the Bexley defence, while Billy, Muzzy, the aforementioned Scar and latterly Nureyev are all performing well in the hosts’ midfield. MAP returns to the GPSFA fray after one game and twenty minutes away, miskicking the sphere on two of his first three attempts at boot-to-ball contact, having made no contact whatsoever with his first attempt, but not putting either foot wrong thereafter. ‘I need bananas,’ is his only attempt at explanation.
Wing backs Weatherman and Big Bad Sam are once again excellent from first minute till last and Kenny only has one first half save to make, using his Big Strong Feet to good effect.
The second period is again competitive and well contested. There’s a man on the side who must have the Opti Stat app on his mobile, as he seems to know that one team has been denied eleven free kicks and a penalty within a single two-and-a-half-minute passage of play and that the other has been given two free kicks that they shouldn’t have been in the fifteen seconds that follows. Someone asks him about the first half possession stats, but he doesn’t seem to have those.
Bexley have two livewire forwards, but the defensive acumen of the entire home side is there for all bar one to see. At the other end Nureyev plays in The Colonel whose effort is turned away for a corner before Billy slides in Lacoste with a delightful pass, but he’s now thinking candles and cake and is forced wide before winning another flag kick.
Nureyev, who is playing a pivotal role for the hosts - quite apt for someone with his Bolshoi-like connections - then sees his effort fumbled by the keeper who recovers well to deny The Colonel, the striker looking ever more hunter-like as the half progresses.
With nine minutes remaining, Billy shoes-in Gloucester twelfth corner of the contest and The Lens captures Muzzy’s exemplary headed action, a movement which perfectly camouflages The Colonel’s key interception that sends the ball winging into the far corner. At virtually the same moment, Mother of the Colonel’s new Woodstock-inspired wellies levitate in unsurpassed elation for the entirety of the team’s usual, yet still beautifully synchronised goal celebration and The Photographer’s mad dash back to his big red money machine to print off an already-framed copy.
Bexley push forward in search of a leveller, but the defending is resolute and the homesters’ determination to hold on to their advantage obvious for even those boasting a single Cyclopean eye to witness. The thrill of victory is palpable amongst the city players and while magnanimity is largely the order of the moment, Kenny’s (and ten other) mile-wide smiles that reflect the clean sheet obsession of a man in grey and the resulting satisfaction of a job well done is exactly what success is meant to look like.
Much has been written over the years regarding the technicalities of coaching, the subtleties of managing, the vagaries of parenting and the appreciation of spectating. Sports science now prevails where instinct once ruled. Caution and common sense have replaced bucket and sponge. Positive approaches have superseded negativity and criticism. Questions replace commands. So many good ideas, so many fruitful innovations, so much better (on the whole) have things become over the years.
But despite the instructions and lists and tick boxes and courses and techniques and manuals and books and articles and statistics and data and strategies and surveys and research that find their way into the overloaded psyche of the adult population at large, what the managers and coaches and parents and spectators of today need to do more than anything, is set the (right) example. Doing nothing else is absolutely fine.
An example that puts manners, respect, tolerance and responsibility at the beginning, middle and end of its values list and relegates the selfishness of the Cyclops back to the bigotry of the period from whence it first reared its ugly little head. And teaching everyone to be able to make proper weather forecasts wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
Gloucester: Kenny; Weatherman, Nureyev, Big Bad Sam; Scarface, Muzzy, Billy, Will I Am Eleven Now; Adibayor; Margaret Albert Pargeter, The Colonel.
