Aug. 26th, 2021

eiffel_71: The Big Match opening title (Default)
Last night Chichester & Selsey Ladies played Southampton FC Women. A nice little jaunt along the coast, I thought, surely an easy ground tick?

Getting to the ground was easy enough, train to Chichester then bus on to Selsey. It was a glorious summer evening, a couple of cold berry Rekorderligs in the friendly clubhouse went down very well.

The Southampton manager, England legend Marieanne Spacey-Cale, recognised me from her time with the England Lionesses. We had a lovely chat and Leeta Rutherford waved to me.

Then as I was on my way back to the clubhouse I met Laura Galway who played for Havant when I was there. She had a Chichester coach's tracksuit top on. "Hi Laura, are you a coach now?" I asked.

"Yeah, my playing days are over now!"

"Great to see you're still in football."

"Who are you supporting tonight?" she said. "Better be us."

“Of course.”

Alas, the visitors had the upper hand in a closely contested game and opened the scoring early on. A very tasty burger and chips from the friendly guy in the tea hut. Southampton struck again with a looping wonder free kick from 35 yards out on 68 minutes. I shouted hello to Katie Rood, who I remembered from Lewes, when she passed in front of me ready to go on as sub. Towards the end I walked over to the away bench to commiserate with Laura and manager Sadie Blakely, another old Hawk pal. Sadie said hello and we talked briefly.

At the final whistle, after clapping the girls off, I filed out of the ground and headed out onto the High Street to call up an Uber. 'No cars available'. I made my way to the nearest hostelry, the Crown Inn, for shelter, bought a Rekorderlig and tried again. 'No cars available' and trying to order one anyway just resulted in the app eternally seeking a driver in vain.

I had no more luck with Selsey's only taxi firm on the phone. Fully booked, as were a Chichester cab company who said on their Facebook that they cover Selsey. Nothing for it but to wait in the pub and catch the 10.58 bus three quarters of an hour later.

The bus came, and I breathed a sigh of relief to be getting out of Selsey at last. Not that it was an unpleasant town, just relief at not being stranded on its streets overnight. At Chichester station, the last westbound train went a few minutes later and only went as far as Havant.

Thankfully, the board at Havant station showed a train to Portsmouth leaving ten minutes after. A group of girls were sat at the far end of the platform. One of them, the worse for wear, went for a walk along the platform and said hello to me. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"Gosport."

"That's a shithole." She carried on merrily walking along, talking to the guys at the other end. On her way back, she wanted to wear my woolly hat. Her friend said to me "Take no notice" and steered her back to their group.

At Portsmouth harbour, there were two engineers working on the jetty but no sign of the late night boat. "I don't think it's running," one of the engineers said.

Terrific.

A couple, also wanting the late boat, came along. We decided to go and look at the board advertising the late boat. After staring at the phone numbers on it, the lady said "Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday."

"What's today?" I asked.

"Wednesday."

After looking at each other for a while, the couple started to talk about getting a taxi round to Gosport. I asked if they wanted to share one. They agreed and we went halves on the fare. Got home shortly after 1 am.

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The Man Who Loves Laura Bassett

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