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May. 26th, 2008 07:10 pmTook the train up yesterday evening for the Hawk girls' 6-a-side tournament at Denham today. Arrived at my B&B in Hillingdon at about 9pm - it was run by a friendly couple called Kath and Tony who appeared to have set up a B&B in their home. The room had a Freeview TV, so spent the rest of the evening watching "Ant and Dec"'s Spitting Image retrospective followed by two episodes of SI on ITV4. Disappointingly, the episodes were the first ever and the last ever, the very same two chosen by ITV4 for re-screenings a few months ago. Let's have some variety please. Next up was an episode of Father Ted and The IT Crowd on More4, then bed.
Up early this morning to be greeted by pissing rain. Tube to Uxbridge, a couple of bacon rolls in Greggs for breakfast, then a minicab (I'd have walked the couple of miles if it had been dry) to be at the Denham football ground for the nine o'clock start time. The ground is actually owned by the Denham United Ladies club, they don't share it with any men's team - that is made of awesome. I was over 20 minutes early, but they were already serving coffee and the clubhouse, with Sky Sports News on, was open - the only drawback was carrying a cup of coffee from the refreshment tent, over the muddy quagmire that the ground outside the pitch area was, to the clubhouse - more than once a bit of boiling hot coffee spilled onto my hand, but I managed not to drop it.
The girls arrived just before 9, which turned out to just be registration time - the first game didn't kick off until 10. They'd driven up today, setting off from Havant at 6.30 am. I was glad I'd travelled up yesterday. They managed to bag half of a marquee as their base camp. Between games I alternated between there and the clubhouse, which was drier but more crowded. In the refreshment tent they were helping people get their five a day by selling assorted pieces of fruit at 3 for £1. I went for an orange, a banana and a bag containing three melon slices. Later, at lunchtime, I visited the adjacent Barbecue tent for a first-class bacon roll.
Hawks entered two teams. Sneakily, they called the stronger side the B team and the ragbag side - filled out by Jenna D, playing in goal to spare her dodgy ankle, Claire's friend Nikki and everyone's friend Bernadette - the A team. When Katie heard that I live in Gosport, she and her boyfriend offered me a lift home as she's stationed at Fort Blockhouse.
There were a few breaks in the rain throughout the day, but it always poured down whenever Hawks played. Each game lasted just seven minutes, with the eight teams in each group all playing each other once. The ragbag team finished bottom of their group without winning a match, but were fiercely proud of the three 0-0 draws they got. Our B side qualified for the last sixteen, with Jodie, Chantelle and Claire all scoring fine goals while Erin played a blinder in goal, not letting a single one in during the group stage. Early in the proceedings, just before 11 am, Jodie announced that she'd seen a man with a pint - "Where'd he get that from?" she wanted to know.
"There's beer on sale in the clubhouse," I pointed out.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Jodie demanded.
As the teams who'd qualified waited for the draw for the last sixteen - every few minutes for about half an hour, the PA announcer said the draw was "five minutes away" - one of the tunes played over the PA was the Macarena. Some girls from another team did the dance out on one of the pitches. Eventually the draw was made and the last sixteen got under way. Hawks lost 2-1 to Chesham; once we'd conceded a penalty in the first minute our fate was sealed.
And so the girls got changed and we all made our way to the car park. As my shoes, like the bottom half of my trouser legs, were totally caked with mud, I began efforts to clean them on the tarmac, only for Katie to say "Don't worry about bringing mud in the car". As I was peckish by the time we got to Gosport - not a problem for Katie as she'd had a chicken wrap in her bag, which she demolished before we'd left Buckinghamshire - she dropped me at Burger King, as that was en route for her anyway.
Up early this morning to be greeted by pissing rain. Tube to Uxbridge, a couple of bacon rolls in Greggs for breakfast, then a minicab (I'd have walked the couple of miles if it had been dry) to be at the Denham football ground for the nine o'clock start time. The ground is actually owned by the Denham United Ladies club, they don't share it with any men's team - that is made of awesome. I was over 20 minutes early, but they were already serving coffee and the clubhouse, with Sky Sports News on, was open - the only drawback was carrying a cup of coffee from the refreshment tent, over the muddy quagmire that the ground outside the pitch area was, to the clubhouse - more than once a bit of boiling hot coffee spilled onto my hand, but I managed not to drop it.
The girls arrived just before 9, which turned out to just be registration time - the first game didn't kick off until 10. They'd driven up today, setting off from Havant at 6.30 am. I was glad I'd travelled up yesterday. They managed to bag half of a marquee as their base camp. Between games I alternated between there and the clubhouse, which was drier but more crowded. In the refreshment tent they were helping people get their five a day by selling assorted pieces of fruit at 3 for £1. I went for an orange, a banana and a bag containing three melon slices. Later, at lunchtime, I visited the adjacent Barbecue tent for a first-class bacon roll.
Hawks entered two teams. Sneakily, they called the stronger side the B team and the ragbag side - filled out by Jenna D, playing in goal to spare her dodgy ankle, Claire's friend Nikki and everyone's friend Bernadette - the A team. When Katie heard that I live in Gosport, she and her boyfriend offered me a lift home as she's stationed at Fort Blockhouse.
There were a few breaks in the rain throughout the day, but it always poured down whenever Hawks played. Each game lasted just seven minutes, with the eight teams in each group all playing each other once. The ragbag team finished bottom of their group without winning a match, but were fiercely proud of the three 0-0 draws they got. Our B side qualified for the last sixteen, with Jodie, Chantelle and Claire all scoring fine goals while Erin played a blinder in goal, not letting a single one in during the group stage. Early in the proceedings, just before 11 am, Jodie announced that she'd seen a man with a pint - "Where'd he get that from?" she wanted to know.
"There's beer on sale in the clubhouse," I pointed out.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Jodie demanded.
As the teams who'd qualified waited for the draw for the last sixteen - every few minutes for about half an hour, the PA announcer said the draw was "five minutes away" - one of the tunes played over the PA was the Macarena. Some girls from another team did the dance out on one of the pitches. Eventually the draw was made and the last sixteen got under way. Hawks lost 2-1 to Chesham; once we'd conceded a penalty in the first minute our fate was sealed.
And so the girls got changed and we all made our way to the car park. As my shoes, like the bottom half of my trouser legs, were totally caked with mud, I began efforts to clean them on the tarmac, only for Katie to say "Don't worry about bringing mud in the car". As I was peckish by the time we got to Gosport - not a problem for Katie as she'd had a chicken wrap in her bag, which she demolished before we'd left Buckinghamshire - she dropped me at Burger King, as that was en route for her anyway.
