Exodus
The A Team charabanc is the first bus to leave Longlevens and begin a Saturday-morning exodus that sees a combined total of six hundred miles covered between the three Gloucester teams that comprise 32 players, six coaches and travelling photographer, the latter beginning talking 20 seconds before the BP garage on Cheltenham Road and failing to take a single breath until Worcester North is but a distant memory.
A variety of pre-match nutrition (in the broadest sense of the word) is taken on board at Donnington Park Services, the squad is photographed with a member of the M5 traffic police (and the resulting picture sold to the uniform in the car for a cool £7.50), meeting the smoothly moving, non-stopping Nottingham trams is thankfully averted and arrival at the very well maintained University Sports Ground is in remarkably good time.
The opening fifteen minutes of the game however is anything but good and a lacklustre first quarter sees the visitors overrun in midfield with Nottingham profiting as first Hatvani and then Yeats provides them with a two-goal lead. A great interception from the impressive Kelly prevents a third, but the visitors improve and the Second Knight sees an effort well saved by the home keeper.
Gloucester’s custodian Franks produces a fine save of his own shortly after the break and the excellent Peirce maintains a second very promising performance before the real action begins.
With eighteen minutes remaining, the Second Knight is fouled and Walters drives the resulting free kick through a mass of humanity to pull a goal back. Almost immediately however, Gloucester lose concentration and Hammond restores the hosts’ two-goal advantage.
Undeterred, the city team, as all the great Empires do, strikes back, Hanlon setting up Mustoe to drive home the city team’s second. Hanlon is at it again shortly afterwards, playing in the First Knight who wriggles free to slot delightfully into the far corner for the equaliser. ‘Manna from heaven’ would be the biblical reference.
But there is more manna to come. The visitors win a corner, Mustoe is pulled back and a penalty is awarded. ‘I’ll take it,’ says Muzzy, seconds before the Second Knight rolls the resulting spot kick nonchalantly into the bottom corner.
The visiting supporters erupt with glee and the team goes wild as the Second Knight strolls back for the restart, the threat of a smile breaking out bearing similar odds to the long-suffering coach winning the evening’s Euro Millions despite never buying a single ticket.
Post-match refreshments, collected from ‘the van’ and eaten on the grass are convivial in the extreme and the squad’s collective knowledge of that old favourite, the apostrophe, suggests that schools’ SPaG lessons are really beginning to bear fruit. The University noticeboard, with at least seven glaring errors suggests however, that the improvement hasn’t, as yet, reached the higher echelons of the country’s academia. Well, the East Midlands, anyway. The students aren’t impressed by either this revelation, or the one for ‘nine pounds, two for ten’ offer from the photographer, who has snapped each of them during the preceding 30-second punctuation lecture.
Twycross Zoo is fun, though after two hours of apes, penguins and birds doing their best not to eat our £1 pots of nectar, the lady on the gate is concerned that the primates are escaping. The GPSFA badges on the eleven exiting defectors however are (just) enough to persuade the official to allow us through, and the photographer ensures she is properly rewarded by selling her a self portrait at half price.
The final nutrition of the day is taken at Strensham Services, where the MacDonald’s counter is universally popular in terms of squad refuelling, while the adjacent Health Food cafe is equally popular in terms of squad seating. No-one minds as the place is empty and no outlet manager can turn down the offer of a ‘buy one, get one free’ photograph.
It’s been a great day, until, approaching the new ‘hamburger-laned’ Elmbridge Road roundabout, the photographer completes his near twelve-hour speech by beating his previous best when making four grammatical errors in a single five-word sentence. 4-5 then is the final score for the spellbound snapper, but everyone knows that 4-3 are the only numbers that really matter.
Gloucester: Franks; Peirce, Pargeter, Kelly; Adichareh, Mustoe, A.Knight, W.Knight; Mitchell. Subs: Hanlon, Walters. Photographer: Hickey
A variety of pre-match nutrition (in the broadest sense of the word) is taken on board at Donnington Park Services, the squad is photographed with a member of the M5 traffic police (and the resulting picture sold to the uniform in the car for a cool £7.50), meeting the smoothly moving, non-stopping Nottingham trams is thankfully averted and arrival at the very well maintained University Sports Ground is in remarkably good time.
The opening fifteen minutes of the game however is anything but good and a lacklustre first quarter sees the visitors overrun in midfield with Nottingham profiting as first Hatvani and then Yeats provides them with a two-goal lead. A great interception from the impressive Kelly prevents a third, but the visitors improve and the Second Knight sees an effort well saved by the home keeper.
Gloucester’s custodian Franks produces a fine save of his own shortly after the break and the excellent Peirce maintains a second very promising performance before the real action begins.
With eighteen minutes remaining, the Second Knight is fouled and Walters drives the resulting free kick through a mass of humanity to pull a goal back. Almost immediately however, Gloucester lose concentration and Hammond restores the hosts’ two-goal advantage.
Undeterred, the city team, as all the great Empires do, strikes back, Hanlon setting up Mustoe to drive home the city team’s second. Hanlon is at it again shortly afterwards, playing in the First Knight who wriggles free to slot delightfully into the far corner for the equaliser. ‘Manna from heaven’ would be the biblical reference.
But there is more manna to come. The visitors win a corner, Mustoe is pulled back and a penalty is awarded. ‘I’ll take it,’ says Muzzy, seconds before the Second Knight rolls the resulting spot kick nonchalantly into the bottom corner.
The visiting supporters erupt with glee and the team goes wild as the Second Knight strolls back for the restart, the threat of a smile breaking out bearing similar odds to the long-suffering coach winning the evening’s Euro Millions despite never buying a single ticket.
Post-match refreshments, collected from ‘the van’ and eaten on the grass are convivial in the extreme and the squad’s collective knowledge of that old favourite, the apostrophe, suggests that schools’ SPaG lessons are really beginning to bear fruit. The University noticeboard, with at least seven glaring errors suggests however, that the improvement hasn’t, as yet, reached the higher echelons of the country’s academia. Well, the East Midlands, anyway. The students aren’t impressed by either this revelation, or the one for ‘nine pounds, two for ten’ offer from the photographer, who has snapped each of them during the preceding 30-second punctuation lecture.
Twycross Zoo is fun, though after two hours of apes, penguins and birds doing their best not to eat our £1 pots of nectar, the lady on the gate is concerned that the primates are escaping. The GPSFA badges on the eleven exiting defectors however are (just) enough to persuade the official to allow us through, and the photographer ensures she is properly rewarded by selling her a self portrait at half price.
The final nutrition of the day is taken at Strensham Services, where the MacDonald’s counter is universally popular in terms of squad refuelling, while the adjacent Health Food cafe is equally popular in terms of squad seating. No-one minds as the place is empty and no outlet manager can turn down the offer of a ‘buy one, get one free’ photograph.
It’s been a great day, until, approaching the new ‘hamburger-laned’ Elmbridge Road roundabout, the photographer completes his near twelve-hour speech by beating his previous best when making four grammatical errors in a single five-word sentence. 4-5 then is the final score for the spellbound snapper, but everyone knows that 4-3 are the only numbers that really matter.
Gloucester: Franks; Peirce, Pargeter, Kelly; Adichareh, Mustoe, A.Knight, W.Knight; Mitchell. Subs: Hanlon, Walters. Photographer: Hickey
