What was expected to be a busyish weekend turned out to be limited to the one match on Sunday as Salisbury A was scheduled to escape from Salisbury to play our A-TEAM. The girls must wait for Ringwood David Lloyd who have turned down two alternatives and have two more chances before we will accept a walkover. Photo: Men's A from earlier in season.
Before I start I need to remind you that if you have not yet bought tickets it is time you did. IT IS LESS THAN TWO WEEKS TO THE SKITTLES EVENING AT PHOENIX HOTEL IN TWYFORD ON FRIDAY 23RD MARCH 2018. If you need a ticket contact me please on 07963803515 or send me an email wm.g.chatterton@gmail.com. Tickets are £15.00 but there is a meal to go with that and my scintillating presence to enliven the proceedings. This is YOUR CHANCE to impress with a ball that doesn’t keep coming back.
The week for me has been dominated by International Women’s Day although to be honest we didn’t really celebrate it that much. I do recall, as one does, the first experience of this day in Belarus as my IT specialist was lured away to assist the lady engineers down the corridor who were experiencing problems with their computer network. The only thing wrong with their computer turned out to be the vodka, chocolates and gherkins on offer which somehow kept young Phil occupied for two hours. We poured him into the car for the hotel and he failed to appear that evening! He wasn’t much cop at breakfast the next day either. But that is the problem with Belarusian gherkins.
Sunday morning was lovely. There was only one snag for Paul Scullard, Mats Colling, James Blair, James Ardley, Simon Piper and Milan Bharadia: Salisbury A could not assemble a team for the match so conceded before they even left home – which they didn’t do incidentally and neither did our team but nobody bothered to tell me so it was just as well I didn’t go to Thornden to watch wasn’t it. I have lots of clever things to say about Salisbury but they are best unsaid in view of the ongoing investigations in the city. The net result is that we find ourselves second in the league at the end of the season on set difference being tied on points with Winchester. Congratulations – it is great when a plan comes together.
Sunday afternoon we had Portsmouth Tennis Academy mixed 10s at home to play in a friendly match 9we cannot field a set of eligible tens). The result was a loss of 0-6 matches but everyone had fun, only the parents got stressed and the refrreshments were a great reward.
It was rather sad to learn of the passing on of Roger Bannister. I was 9-years old when I watched him break the 4 minute mile in 1954. One or two of the club will also have memories of this historic event: seeing the film of the event now it is just amazing how far athletics and sport in general has come from a few blokes in flat caps standing around with a pistol and a couple of stop-watches on a Wednesday evening in Cambridge. Quite astonishing: we were into speed at that time with test pilots trying to break the sound barrier and not always surviving the attempts, land a sea speed records but for a man to run at 15 mph seemed quite impossible to us at the time. Now marathon runners almost achieve that on average over 27 miles or so and we take it as being normal.
Not much joy in the rugby as Abertillery was firmly crushed by the far superior Pontypool. At least they had a game as Croesyceilliog v Ynysbwl was cancelled. Thought that might keep you occupied as you struggled to say the team names. OK. Worked it out yet? Problem is that they will have to play later so I will be back to test your pronunciation.
Next week: Maybe the girls will finally play at home to David Lloyd Ringwood and I know there is another rescheduled match on Sunday 18th March – I think it is Men’s Cees at home to Totton & Eling B. Time will tell!
Title: Bruce Springsteen and E Band, 1975: you know the reason why: title seemed so appropriate.