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Thunder And Lightning
Oct. 24th, 2022 09:04 pmSaturday went to Fleetlands v Amesbury Town. A chat with Mark and Lynn, both on stewarding duty, on my way from the entrance to the clubhouse. Gemma showed me with pride the new stock of Powder Monkey beer in the fridge behind the bar, including several Drunken Sailors :)
Seeing me drinking a can, Iain asked me if I preferred cans to draught beer. Drunken Sailor isn’t on draught there, so I just replied “I like a Drunken Sailor”. Iain laughed “Don’t go around shouting that!”
Iain and some of the other club guys were sitting around a phone watching a stream of Liverpool v Nottingham Forest. Most of them seemed interested in the game mostly because it was part of their accumulator bets. Iain was cheering Liverpool; I wondered if that might be just fandom rather than gambling, as way back in the 90s my ex Liz told me Liverpool FC have a big following in Falkirk, Iain’s home town.
Jade arrived at 2.15 and we had a drink together before heading outside. I’d seen the weather forecast predicting rain through the second half, so I suggested we get out a little while before kick-off and bag a space in one of the two small shelters across one side of the pitch. We bought snacks and drinks to keep for half-time before we left the bar.
We got into one of the shelters, where we had a tricky time getting a view of the pitch beyond the guys standing along the perimeter rail. We saw an entertaining end-to-end game, and Fleetlands scored the only goal late in the second half. Lovely jubbly.
Yesterday went down to Crawley for Brighton & Hove Albion Women’s evening match with Chelsea. Reached Crawley at 4 pm and walked out of the station and into torrential rain. I took cover under a bus shelter just in time, as the rain intensified. Lightning flashed, thunder clapped, and the rain poured down and down until there were waves moving along the adjacent road. I and several like-minded souls remained under the shelter throughout it all.
Eventually the rain calmed to medium mild and I wandered around the town centre in search of a hostelry, but didn’t find one. I settled for a bacon roll and a decaf mocha in Starbucks until it was time to return to the bus stop.
At the ground, the queue for the East Stand was a mile long. A steward spoke to us people at the back of the line and advised us to join the shorter queues for the West Stand and then walk round once we were on the inside. It turned out that because of the torrential rain there had been a pitch inspection, and all the waiting spectators were kept outside the ground until the inspection result was known.
Having moved to the West Stand queue I was in the ground just after 6pm, with kick-off at 6.45. Another long queue at the tea hut culminated in the last hot dog being sold to the bloke two in front of me ☹️ The sausage roll I opted for was very tasty though.
The East Stand was along one of the long sides, with my seat in an end section. My section was close to full, with competing bands of youngsters chanting for each team. Several adults joined in the Brighton chants. The She-Gulls played superbly, matching their star-studded opponents, ex-Lady Pie Megan Walsh in the Brighton goal playing a blinder. With the score line blank at half time I genuinely believed Brighton might hold out for what, for them, would have been a fantastic point.
The dream lasted until the 58th minute when a goalmouth scramble culminated in Beth England tapping in on the goal line. Still the She-Gulls battled on. Katie Robinson had an excellent game, constantly surging forward, but for most of the time the Chelsea defence were equal to the challenge. Katie went through on goal and shot but the unpredictable wet pitch saw her effort go wide.
A huge cheer greeted the announcement that the attendance, 3626, was a record for a Brighton Women’s match at Crawley.
With four minutes remaining Pernille Harder pounced to seal the points for Chelsea. And in the closing minutes the rain started pelting down again.
On my way out of the ground, hood up, I thought “that’s the worst one over with” (Brighton aren’t scheduled to have any more Sunday evening home games, touch wood). Managed to get a double seat on the bus.
Happily there was a covered waiting room on Crawley station. The indicator board showed the Portsmouth train’s expected arrival time gradually slip later minute by minute, until it eventually showed up at 9.42, a quarter of an hour late.
Then between Chichester and Havant we got stuck behind a slow train and had to crawl along at tortoise pace. We eventually reached Portsmouth Harbour at 11.22, 26 minutes behind schedule. At least the Gosport ferry men held the boat just long enough for me to run down the pontoon gangway and catch it. In bed at midnight. Back to work this morning.
Seeing me drinking a can, Iain asked me if I preferred cans to draught beer. Drunken Sailor isn’t on draught there, so I just replied “I like a Drunken Sailor”. Iain laughed “Don’t go around shouting that!”
Iain and some of the other club guys were sitting around a phone watching a stream of Liverpool v Nottingham Forest. Most of them seemed interested in the game mostly because it was part of their accumulator bets. Iain was cheering Liverpool; I wondered if that might be just fandom rather than gambling, as way back in the 90s my ex Liz told me Liverpool FC have a big following in Falkirk, Iain’s home town.
Jade arrived at 2.15 and we had a drink together before heading outside. I’d seen the weather forecast predicting rain through the second half, so I suggested we get out a little while before kick-off and bag a space in one of the two small shelters across one side of the pitch. We bought snacks and drinks to keep for half-time before we left the bar.
We got into one of the shelters, where we had a tricky time getting a view of the pitch beyond the guys standing along the perimeter rail. We saw an entertaining end-to-end game, and Fleetlands scored the only goal late in the second half. Lovely jubbly.
Yesterday went down to Crawley for Brighton & Hove Albion Women’s evening match with Chelsea. Reached Crawley at 4 pm and walked out of the station and into torrential rain. I took cover under a bus shelter just in time, as the rain intensified. Lightning flashed, thunder clapped, and the rain poured down and down until there were waves moving along the adjacent road. I and several like-minded souls remained under the shelter throughout it all.
Eventually the rain calmed to medium mild and I wandered around the town centre in search of a hostelry, but didn’t find one. I settled for a bacon roll and a decaf mocha in Starbucks until it was time to return to the bus stop.
At the ground, the queue for the East Stand was a mile long. A steward spoke to us people at the back of the line and advised us to join the shorter queues for the West Stand and then walk round once we were on the inside. It turned out that because of the torrential rain there had been a pitch inspection, and all the waiting spectators were kept outside the ground until the inspection result was known.
Having moved to the West Stand queue I was in the ground just after 6pm, with kick-off at 6.45. Another long queue at the tea hut culminated in the last hot dog being sold to the bloke two in front of me ☹️ The sausage roll I opted for was very tasty though.
The East Stand was along one of the long sides, with my seat in an end section. My section was close to full, with competing bands of youngsters chanting for each team. Several adults joined in the Brighton chants. The She-Gulls played superbly, matching their star-studded opponents, ex-Lady Pie Megan Walsh in the Brighton goal playing a blinder. With the score line blank at half time I genuinely believed Brighton might hold out for what, for them, would have been a fantastic point.
The dream lasted until the 58th minute when a goalmouth scramble culminated in Beth England tapping in on the goal line. Still the She-Gulls battled on. Katie Robinson had an excellent game, constantly surging forward, but for most of the time the Chelsea defence were equal to the challenge. Katie went through on goal and shot but the unpredictable wet pitch saw her effort go wide.
A huge cheer greeted the announcement that the attendance, 3626, was a record for a Brighton Women’s match at Crawley.
With four minutes remaining Pernille Harder pounced to seal the points for Chelsea. And in the closing minutes the rain started pelting down again.
On my way out of the ground, hood up, I thought “that’s the worst one over with” (Brighton aren’t scheduled to have any more Sunday evening home games, touch wood). Managed to get a double seat on the bus.
Happily there was a covered waiting room on Crawley station. The indicator board showed the Portsmouth train’s expected arrival time gradually slip later minute by minute, until it eventually showed up at 9.42, a quarter of an hour late.
Then between Chichester and Havant we got stuck behind a slow train and had to crawl along at tortoise pace. We eventually reached Portsmouth Harbour at 11.22, 26 minutes behind schedule. At least the Gosport ferry men held the boat just long enough for me to run down the pontoon gangway and catch it. In bed at midnight. Back to work this morning.
