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Sep. 21st, 2008 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eiffel_71
Up at sparrow's fart this morning to travel to leafy Buckinghamshire, for the Hawk girls' away game with Slough. Being Sunday morning, there were engineering works on the main Portsmouth to London line, hence the early start to catch the 8.17 train - which turned out to go via Fareham and E*******h. When we pulled into Fareham at 8.45 I couldn't help reflecting that, 1 hour and 20 minutes after leaving home, I'd travelled a net distance of 5 miles.
An early lunch from The Bagel Factory at Paddington, then onto the fast train to Beaconsfield. My online source for the football ground's location - not a football website at all, but the Amersham Jazz Club's site - stated that 'you will have to take a taxi [from Beaconsfield station]. The ground is not within walking distance'. With me looking to save pennies, and acknowledging my need for exercise, plus having nearly two hours to spare until kick-off, that was a challenge I couldn't resist.
Well, I successfully walked it, in about 50 minutes, but it's not an experience I'd recommend to anyone. I had to cross two busy A roads (on one, a suitable gap in the traffic did happen, but on the other I was thankful to a kindly RAC van driver who stopped to let me cross) and for the second half of the walk the roadside wasn't too well equipped for pedestrians. I trekked a good proportion of the way across rough grass surfaces and rough (thankfully) dried mud surfaces.
Then when I arrived at the football ground the bar was shut and there was no sign of life in the clubhouse except the Hawk girls and staff. Thank goodness, it was only ten minutes before I spotted a guy from the home club talking to someone, who turned out to be the barmaid. She happily gave me a card with the number of a local taxi firm, and assured me that the bar would open 'soon' - in fact we had to wait till just after 1.30; I was first up when the shutters finally came up and quenched my thirst with a Bulmer's Pear.
The word had been that Slough were one of our main title rivals and a physical side. They didn't play an over-physical game today, but did set out to contain and frustrate us, and for the most part it worked. Fortunately Trudi managed to get a lucky break and net the only goal of the game to preserve our 100 per cent record. The ref had a zero tolerance approach to arguing, yellow-carding six players including five of ours, mostly for that. I almost got Chelsea's brother into the cult of calling Chantelle Sally; near the end of the game he said "If Sally - or whatever her name is - Chantelle had got her foot to that..." Both Liz's mum and Chelsea's mum did call her Sally at least once. If I keep it up I'll win them all over yet...
In the clubhouse after, some of the girls talked about the ref's card-happiness, and I said I was surprised Jenna D had been one of ours to shout at him and get booked as she's normally so quiet. "You are joking, aren't you?" was Jo's reply.
And so into the taxi back to the station. The Indian driver hadn't known that a ladies' football team played locally, and seemed delighted to hear it - and even more impressed that I'd come all the way from Portsmouth for a match. There was half an hour till the London train left so I moseyed up to Costa for a medio Mocha, and succumbed to the young lady barista's temptation to add whipped cream and a Flake.
And so the three-hour train journey home. At Portsmouth Harbour, with nine minutes till the ferry went I thought I was on safe ground ordering a couple of bacon rolls from Popeye's. They served me just in time to miss the boat by seconds.
An early lunch from The Bagel Factory at Paddington, then onto the fast train to Beaconsfield. My online source for the football ground's location - not a football website at all, but the Amersham Jazz Club's site - stated that 'you will have to take a taxi [from Beaconsfield station]. The ground is not within walking distance'. With me looking to save pennies, and acknowledging my need for exercise, plus having nearly two hours to spare until kick-off, that was a challenge I couldn't resist.
Well, I successfully walked it, in about 50 minutes, but it's not an experience I'd recommend to anyone. I had to cross two busy A roads (on one, a suitable gap in the traffic did happen, but on the other I was thankful to a kindly RAC van driver who stopped to let me cross) and for the second half of the walk the roadside wasn't too well equipped for pedestrians. I trekked a good proportion of the way across rough grass surfaces and rough (thankfully) dried mud surfaces.
Then when I arrived at the football ground the bar was shut and there was no sign of life in the clubhouse except the Hawk girls and staff. Thank goodness, it was only ten minutes before I spotted a guy from the home club talking to someone, who turned out to be the barmaid. She happily gave me a card with the number of a local taxi firm, and assured me that the bar would open 'soon' - in fact we had to wait till just after 1.30; I was first up when the shutters finally came up and quenched my thirst with a Bulmer's Pear.
The word had been that Slough were one of our main title rivals and a physical side. They didn't play an over-physical game today, but did set out to contain and frustrate us, and for the most part it worked. Fortunately Trudi managed to get a lucky break and net the only goal of the game to preserve our 100 per cent record. The ref had a zero tolerance approach to arguing, yellow-carding six players including five of ours, mostly for that. I almost got Chelsea's brother into the cult of calling Chantelle Sally; near the end of the game he said "If Sally - or whatever her name is - Chantelle had got her foot to that..." Both Liz's mum and Chelsea's mum did call her Sally at least once. If I keep it up I'll win them all over yet...
In the clubhouse after, some of the girls talked about the ref's card-happiness, and I said I was surprised Jenna D had been one of ours to shout at him and get booked as she's normally so quiet. "You are joking, aren't you?" was Jo's reply.
And so into the taxi back to the station. The Indian driver hadn't known that a ladies' football team played locally, and seemed delighted to hear it - and even more impressed that I'd come all the way from Portsmouth for a match. There was half an hour till the London train left so I moseyed up to Costa for a medio Mocha, and succumbed to the young lady barista's temptation to add whipped cream and a Flake.
And so the three-hour train journey home. At Portsmouth Harbour, with nine minutes till the ferry went I thought I was on safe ground ordering a couple of bacon rolls from Popeye's. They served me just in time to miss the boat by seconds.
