![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jan. 17th, 2011 07:22 pmBack down to the New Forest yesterday to see the Hawk girls take on Eastleigh Ladies in the Hampshire Cup quarter-final. This didn't have the derby feel of its male equivalent fixture, as the Eastleigh girls are three divisions below us and our women's players and officials and theirs get on fine.
Lovely Michelle was in the bar, as her sister plays for Eastleigh. We went through our ritual sparring of Michelle asking me when I was going to switch my support to her team and my rejoinder of asking when she was going to sign for us, then had a good catch-up chat. Then, as part of my match-reporting duties, it was time to get the Eastleigh team from their coaching staff...except their coaches weren't there. For this game their girls were left to look after themselves. One of them agreed to give me their line-up; when I had my pen and notebook ready she began "Robin, Sid, Trout..." A list of the players' nicknames wasn't quite what I'd envisaged, but fortunately at that point another player came over and, after establishing that I was with Havant, handed me the copy of their team sheet meant for Trevor. I walked back to the clubhouse copying the names down, passed the sheet on to Trev and settled down with a Magners (the IPA tap wasn't yet on). Lauren, seeing my drink, said "Blimey, Wilhelmus, you'll be sozzled soon."
I always thought we would win, but never expected a turkey shoot. The girls, though, were four up within twenty minutes and Chris, sitting behind me, confidently predicted double figures. Near us were a couple cheering Eastleigh. I guessed they had a daughter in the team; we got talking at half time and they confirmed they were the parents of Kirsty Troughton - 'Trout'. After establishing that I was just a fan and not a relative of a player, her dad asked me who I support in men's football.
"Havant & Waterlooville," I said, pleasantly but with an intonation that indicated that it was only natural that my men's and women's football affinities would be the same.
His reply was "Portsmouth?" This is something that really gets on my nellies - people assuming that if you follow a non league side they can only be a second or hobby team, with your real allegiance lying with one of 'the 92'. I explained that I am a season ticket holder at H & W. He said he was a Birmingham City fan and that he was waiting to hear how the Blues had got on in their derby with Villa.
Number eight came on 55 minutes, but Eastleigh defended doughtily and we didn't get our ninth until the 82nd minute. Then, with two minutes to go, Chloe struck home a cross by Lauren to bear out Chris's double-digit prediction - made all the sweeter for Chris as this goal completed his daughter's hat-trick.
A wind-down with the girls over another Magners, but most of them shot off fairly quickly and there were only a couple left by the time I had to go out into the pouring rain to catch the bus.
The rail replacement bus from Southampton arrived at Eastleigh station just as the Fareham train was leaving. With fifty minutes to kill, it was across the road to the Wagon Works for a Sunday roast. The two middle-aged blokes at the next table appeared to be eyeing me warily, and I realised : I was sitting in a pub in E*******h wearing a top with the HWFC badge on. But they turned out to just be bus spotters, looking through the window intently studying the replacement buses calling at the station.
At work today was our first day working with a new system. We had a training day before Christmas and there are enough similarities to the old one for nobody to feel too disoriented, but it took until this afternoon for us to be able to start actually working on it because there turned out to be several bugs in it and Robbie, our IT man, had to keep coming over to de-bug us. Chris and I didn't get a chance to skive, though, as we had thousands of handwritten notes to copy over from our old textbooks to our new ones. The others had managed to get that task done last week, but we'd both taken a day's holiday on Thursday so we hadn't had time.
Hawks waterlogged off YET again tonight - our fixture pile-up's getting horrendous but at least I get an early night...
Lovely Michelle was in the bar, as her sister plays for Eastleigh. We went through our ritual sparring of Michelle asking me when I was going to switch my support to her team and my rejoinder of asking when she was going to sign for us, then had a good catch-up chat. Then, as part of my match-reporting duties, it was time to get the Eastleigh team from their coaching staff...except their coaches weren't there. For this game their girls were left to look after themselves. One of them agreed to give me their line-up; when I had my pen and notebook ready she began "Robin, Sid, Trout..." A list of the players' nicknames wasn't quite what I'd envisaged, but fortunately at that point another player came over and, after establishing that I was with Havant, handed me the copy of their team sheet meant for Trevor. I walked back to the clubhouse copying the names down, passed the sheet on to Trev and settled down with a Magners (the IPA tap wasn't yet on). Lauren, seeing my drink, said "Blimey, Wilhelmus, you'll be sozzled soon."
I always thought we would win, but never expected a turkey shoot. The girls, though, were four up within twenty minutes and Chris, sitting behind me, confidently predicted double figures. Near us were a couple cheering Eastleigh. I guessed they had a daughter in the team; we got talking at half time and they confirmed they were the parents of Kirsty Troughton - 'Trout'. After establishing that I was just a fan and not a relative of a player, her dad asked me who I support in men's football.
"Havant & Waterlooville," I said, pleasantly but with an intonation that indicated that it was only natural that my men's and women's football affinities would be the same.
His reply was "Portsmouth?" This is something that really gets on my nellies - people assuming that if you follow a non league side they can only be a second or hobby team, with your real allegiance lying with one of 'the 92'. I explained that I am a season ticket holder at H & W. He said he was a Birmingham City fan and that he was waiting to hear how the Blues had got on in their derby with Villa.
Number eight came on 55 minutes, but Eastleigh defended doughtily and we didn't get our ninth until the 82nd minute. Then, with two minutes to go, Chloe struck home a cross by Lauren to bear out Chris's double-digit prediction - made all the sweeter for Chris as this goal completed his daughter's hat-trick.
A wind-down with the girls over another Magners, but most of them shot off fairly quickly and there were only a couple left by the time I had to go out into the pouring rain to catch the bus.
The rail replacement bus from Southampton arrived at Eastleigh station just as the Fareham train was leaving. With fifty minutes to kill, it was across the road to the Wagon Works for a Sunday roast. The two middle-aged blokes at the next table appeared to be eyeing me warily, and I realised : I was sitting in a pub in E*******h wearing a top with the HWFC badge on. But they turned out to just be bus spotters, looking through the window intently studying the replacement buses calling at the station.
At work today was our first day working with a new system. We had a training day before Christmas and there are enough similarities to the old one for nobody to feel too disoriented, but it took until this afternoon for us to be able to start actually working on it because there turned out to be several bugs in it and Robbie, our IT man, had to keep coming over to de-bug us. Chris and I didn't get a chance to skive, though, as we had thousands of handwritten notes to copy over from our old textbooks to our new ones. The others had managed to get that task done last week, but we'd both taken a day's holiday on Thursday so we hadn't had time.
Hawks waterlogged off YET again tonight - our fixture pile-up's getting horrendous but at least I get an early night...
