The Fifth Annual Festive Parade of Rusty Rollers

Brockenhurst FC. "The Cobra". Not bright enough.

I've not told anyone this before, but I've been an undercover detective these past few months. If you'd met me, you'd see a scruffy middle-aged bloke with a camera and a notebook who writes rather odd reports on non-league football matches involving Hampshire clubs. I'd be happy to pass the time of day talking about the weather with you, or swapping stories of football grounds we've both visited. I have as many opinions on the red hot topics of the day as anyone else, and I'll share them with you if you wish to listen.

But underneath this bonhomous exterior, I've been on the lookout for a criminal, who is thought to be hiding within a non-league football ground. However, it's reached the point where I need others to join in to help me find this vagabond, as I've had no success thus far.

Will you help me?

Fareham Town. Too big.

Think back to the beginning of August. Do you remember all the WANTED posters pasted up around town? The first one I saw was on the back of a bus stop in Shirley. It read something like this:

WANTED!

FOR THE CRUSHING OF STU FRANCIS'S GRAPE

RUSTY LEE

ARMED AND DANGEROUS!

DO NOT APPROACH!

 LAST SEEN IN HAMPSHIRE BUT IS KNOWN TO HAVE CONNECTIONS IN NORTH WALES

Larkhall Athletic. Too weedy.

Upon seeing this poster, my inner sleuth's curiosity was piqued. I wandered down to Shirley Police Station to find out more. At the front desk was a jolly, red-cheeked sergeant who filled me in on some details.

Apparently, ageless comedian Stu Francis (ex-Crackerjack, amongst other TV shows) had recently been in Southampton to hold talks with the management of the Mayflower Theatre about appearing in their Christmas pantomime. He'd brought his prestigious (and priceless) Golden Grape statuette with him, which was awarded to him in 1990 by the British Fruit Farmers Association for popularising grapes in his famous catchphrase "Ooh, I could crush a grape!"

The panto talks had gone well and, to celebrate, he'd gone to a local Wessex League ground to watch one of the opening matches of the season. He'd taken his Golden Grape award to show a friend of his on the club's committee. During the first half, he'd happened to comment on the rather dowdy nature of the club's roller and that if he got the pantomime gig, how he'd buy the club a sparkling new roller with his first night's earnings.

Stu had lain his award on the ground behind him and forgot it was there as he went to the tea hut at half-time. Upon his return, he was aghast to see that his Golden Grape had been crushed! Oh, the irony!

Swivelling around, he turned his gaze towards the dowdy club roller...

Salisbury FC. Spotless.

...But it wasn't there! It had mysteriously disappeared during the half-time break! Stu's committee member friend was most apologetic, but all he could do was call the groundsman over to ask the whereabouts of the roller. What the groundsman said shocked all who were listening:

"I haven't used the club roller for three weeks now. It's been locked away in my equipment container all that time". When Stu described the roller that he'd seen behind him, the groundsman denied ever seeing one that looked like that at the club.

This is when the police were called, and sure enough, nobody but Stu Francis had seen this phantom roller, thus he was the only witness to this ghostly phenomenon. He told the police that the roller had been approximately 4ft wide x 18in tall. It was extremely rusty and - weirdly - had a mark on the main roller mechanism in the shape of a Crackerjack pencil - almost like a birthmark.

The sergeant at Shirley Police Station was dubious that this had ever happened outside of Stu Francis's mind, but as the comedian had offered a large reward for the capture of the rogue roller (dubbed "Rusty Lee" in the local press as a strange kind of tribute to Stu's celebrity chef friend, Rustie Lee), he felt it incumbent on the force to at least be seen to be doing something.

It was at this moment that I offered my services in the hunt for the mystery roller. I explained that I travel the county and beyond taking photos of rusty groundsmen's equipment and that I might be able to find the roller in question. The sergeant gave me a queer kind of look, and giggling through his fingers, said "Yes, yes, go ahead, why not?"

Sway FC. "Naughty".

The first place I visited this season was Abingdon Town's ground for a match between Abingdon's groundsharers Chinnor and Hartley Wintney. Despite a thorough search, there were no rollers to be seen anywhere, so my attention turned to Brockenhurst a couple of weeks later. Brockenhurst's roller, "The Cobra", is notoriously clumsy, having broken one of their goals the previous season. Despite its rather dangerous-sounding nickname, it was surely not clever enough to have crushed the Golden Grape?

On to a floodlit match at Fareham Town. The club roller here was certainly rusty enough to be Rusty Lee, but was surely too big? Stu Francis had said that his nemesis was 4ft wide - Fareham's roller was a good 6ft, and could be safely ruled out.

Portland United. Inseparable.

Stu Francis came up with some more evidence a few days after Fareham. He'd contacted the police and told them that he thought that he'd heard someone - or something - whispering profanities in Welsh on the evening of the crime. I couldn't make it as far as Wales for my next roller search, but Bath's Larkhall Athletic was near enough. I found a green roller under a tree. Now, this one was about the right size, so I had a really close look at it. But it had obviously been there quite some time, as it had weeds growing all over it. It could not have been Rusty Lee.

Soon after the Larkhall visit, I went to Salisbury. I was delighted to see a roller appear after their match with Follands, being pulled along by a powerful Mario Kart. This roller didn't have a speck of rust on it, so could not possibly have been Stu's grape-crushing enemy. Another suspect ruled out.

Dyffryn Nantlle Vale. Mud sculpture.

I was hopeful that I'd found the criminal roller on a visit to Sway, but speaking to a committee member there, it transpired that their rollers had been locked up in a cage for several months since they'd been "naughty". He didn't specify what he meant by "naughty", but he was adamant that they couldn't have escaped and reappeared at the Wessex League ground near Southampton in early August. I took his word for it.

Portland United in early November was my next opportunity to track down the bad roller. As the sun set over the peninsula, I spotted a pair of rollers cuddling each other by the far wall. Upon closer inspection, it transpired that they weren't cuddling, but were actually stuck together with super-strength glue. Why? I don't know, but Stu had only seen one roller, and these two were like Siamese twins. One wasn't going anywhere without the other any time soon.

Porthmadog FC. Knows no Welsh profanities.

With no rollers on show at either Bemerton Heath Harlequins or Alton Town, I was left with only my two visits to grounds in North Wales this autumn. Now, this was a proper long-shot, based on Stu hearing some whispering noises in Welsh...

There were a pair of rollers at Dyffryn Nantlle Vale lying down next to an ancient standing stone. The blue one had something that looked like a birthmark! Could it be the mysterious Crackerjack pencil "birthmark" that Stu had seen? I had a look and was disappointed to see that the "birthmark" was actually a clod of mud. However, my disappointment soon turned to joy when I noted that the mud clod was shaped exactly like the British Isles - England, Scotland, Wales and the island of Ireland all in perfect outline! There was even a miniature Isle of Wight with a tiny River Medina!

The final hope of success came at Porthmadog on the only cold day of the winter so far - the wind was blowing straight down from the surrounding snow-capped mountains when I spotted their roller sat down in front of a hedge. It was rusty, 4ft x 18in, and had a mark upon it which resembled a pencil. Could it be...? I went up to it and asked it if it knew any profanities in Welsh. In reply, he said: "Nah mate, I'm from the East End. I'm here on holiday! I wouldn't know a Welsh profanity from an Anglesey eel!"

No luck with the mystery roller in the first half of the season then. I'm going to need some help in the second half of the season with this. Would you be so kind as to keep your eyes peeled and tell me if you see anything suspicious? Remember, there's a reward!

Other festive parades and roller round-ups can be found by clicking on the tag "Rollers etc". And yes, they're just as weird as this one...

Happy New Year everyone! I think I'll be back with a match report from a ground near Southampton on January 16th, weather permitting.

Salisbury FC v Folland Sports

Salisbury FC's main stand at the Ray Mac.

If you look up in to the night sky in the right place and at the right time, you can see a million stars with the naked eye. Pick up a pair of binoculars, and you can see a million more. Set up an astronomer's telescope, and another billion would be revealed.

Obviously, I'm not talking about right here, right now - I'm in the middle of a city with all of its bright light pollution, and anyway, it's tipping down with rain out there. If I went outside at this moment, I would be:

(a) very wet indeed; and

(b) unable to see any stars at all.

But if you could theoretically see all the stars in the universe, there would be more fiery orbs out there than there are people on Earth. Therefore, they say that there is a star out there for everyone. You could have a star named after you, a loved one, or a cluster named after all the members of the most successful squad of footballers in your particular club's history.

If you were allocated a faint, twinkling pinprick of light a billion light years away and an unlimited choice by the Star Naming Authorities (whoever they are), who would you name your personal star after?

From below, looking up...

Details:
Salisbury FC (1) 4 v 1 (1) Folland Sports FC
Saturday 3rd October 2015
FA Vase 2nd Qualifying Round
Attendance: 538
Admission: £8
Programme: £2
Colours: White / black / white v Burgundy / sky blue / burgundy
National Grid reference: SU1533

Follands on the attack in front of the seated areas on the north side of the Ray Mac.

Difficult, isn't it? You'd probably come up with a shortlist containing beloved family members and personal heroes, and then a day or two of mental torture whilst you crossed them off your list one by one and ended up with...I don't know, yourself?

I think I know one person that Salisbury fans would never have on their star list...Outail Touzar. This was the no-goodnik conman that bought Salisbury City for a quid when the previous owners could no longer keep up with their debts. In a story that would resonate with Pompey fans and their years and years of having the lifeblood sucked out of them by dodgy "businessmen", fake Sheiks and convicted gun runners, this penniless twenty-something would pose for photos in front of flash motors as if they belonged to him, he would give false addresses in Gulf states, and would generally do all he could to take whatever he could from SCFC whilst putting nothing in.

Eventually, his bluff was called, and the original club were liquidated before the start of the 2014/15 season, leaving a gap in the Conference South (with two fixtureless weekends for each member club) and another gap in the Non-League Directory's index between Salford City and Saltash United where a Salisbury club should have been.

There's a lengthy thread about all the goings-on here, with plenty of links to other sources if you have a few hours to kill.

Parachutes descending towards the airport behind the far goal.

Salisbury's year of non-existence is over, and they're back, starting all over again as plain old Salisbury FC at their Raymond McEnhill Stadium, three miles from the city centre. Voted in to the Sydenhams Wessex League during the summer, they have to gain three promotions before they reach the same level as the original club.

I arrived at the stadium by car (and it is a "football stadium" as opposed to a "football ground" - on Ordnance Survey maps, a stadium is defined as a pitch which is "fully enclosed with no gaps between the stands and/or terraces", which means that Havant & Waterlooville's Westleigh Park or Eastleigh's Ten Acres are merely "football grounds" with their gaps in the corners). There is a £1 charge for parking, but there is plenty of room for everyone.

The club shop is situated under the main stand outside. They have shirts, but no pin badges yet (they're on order). There is a choice of turnstiles through which to enter the stadium. I chose one to the left. Clicking through and glancing to the left and right, there is a covered terrace of between ten and fifteen steps. This terrace extends the entire width of the pitch behind the goal which Follands were to attack in the first half.

Walking to the far side, you drop down on to an uncovered four step terrace, which encircles the rest of the pitch (excepting the main stand). Breaking the terrace on the far side are two identical elevated Arena kit stands with a gap between them which looks like it could be used as a stage if they ever wished to provide the citizens of Salisbury with a stadium rock concert.

Hard to see, but the ball is there, hidden behind the near post and just about to cross the line for Follands' goal.

The main stand on the entrance side is the focal point. It consists of black plastic seats with executive boxes on the top level. Only two of the five boxes were occupied on Saturday, but not for want of trying on behalf of the commercial department, as they tweeted some bargain prices on the morning of the match. According to the programme, you could hire a box for twelve people for between £150 and £350 per match, if that sort of thing appeals.

There are snack bars at either end of the stand selling small cups of tea for £1.50.

Anyway, one of the first things I noticed upon arrival was the number of flying machines that were circling the stadium. Triplanes, biplanes, gliders and parachutists were all buzzing or floating gently through the rarefied air. It happens that the Ray Mac is next door to an airport, so there was a constant stream of air traffic throughout the match.

I suppose the sound of all the plane engines overhead could have inspired Follands, who up until recently were the works team of GE at Hamble, who make parts for aircraft. Indeed, the club's nickname is The Planemakers. Sadly though, they were a goal down within two minutes, Sam Wilson looping a header in before Follands had even crossed the halfway line for the first time. The fellow next to me on the end terrace turned round to me and said, "Double figures today".

Well, it didn't work out like that. Salisbury had the better players, unsurprisingly, as their relatively large income means they can afford to attract some of the better players in the area (although they say that their wage bill - at 35% of their total income - is only the third-highest in the Wessex League - which begs the question, who is outspending them on one-tenth of their gates? I can hazard a guess, based on hearsay, but I'm not writing it down as I'll be quoted on Wikipedia as a trusted source...).

Follands hit the bar and had a couple of other decent chances, but had to wait until stoppage time for their equaliser. Sam Craven blasted in a 25 yard free-kick given for shirt-pulling.

Disgruntlement from the home fans: "1-1...against this lot?" If there were any Follands fans in the stadium, they would have been very pleased indeed.

Celebrating the equaliser.

The programme for the match was very good, but something bothered me greatly within. It was the player profile. Now, I love player profiles - ever since I used to read the Focus On feature in Shoot! every week as a boy, I've found them fascinating.

This week's profile in the Salisbury prog was of Sam Roberts. He seems like a decent lad - ate a worm whilst he was at school, and would like to invite Justin Bieber and Lionel Messi round for dinner one day. He'd probably feed them his favourite food - chicken.

Fair enough, we've all eaten bugs before (I ate an ant once - it was disgusting, no wonder so few animals eat them - tasted of acid). It was the last line which bamboozled me:

"If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?" Sam's answer was: "to be wedge".

As I'm over 25, I had no idea what this meant. I decided to ask my teenage daughter to translate this unknown slang term for me. She asked me how old he is, and when I replied "20", she said that he must be talking in Nineties (!) slang, as she'd never heard of "wedge". I had to look it up in the Urban Dictionary. Apparently, it means "to be big and muscly". When I told my daughter this, she rolled her eyes and said, "oh, he means he wants to be hench!"

I never had to consult dictionaries of slang when Ron Davies or Ray Hiron were Focussed On...

An abandoned turnstile hut at the far end of the Ray Mac.

The second half was all Salisbury. I haven't got a clue about tactics, but I'm sure Steve Claridge must have changed something at half-time. It was all Whites pressure. However, they lost Callum Hart to a dislocated shoulder whilst the stewards were queuing at the tea bar for their free hot dogs and burgers. A Follands sub warming up in front of me said that he'd had a dislocated shoulder once - they had to put him to sleep to fix it.

Captain Kane O'Keefe scored from twelve yards a few minutes later to make it 2-1. Something you never hear at Wessex League grounds - crowd noise, proper crowd noise - inspired Salisbury to pile forward and make it 3-1 after 73 minutes. They won a free-kick in a similar position to Follands in the first half, and Wilson dispatched it in the same way.

I took a photo of the scoreboard after 93 minutes, thinking that would be a good pic to finish the report off with. Typically, Salisbury then scored a fourth with the last kick of the game through Ashley Jarvis. They deserved the win - Claudio Herbert was a tricky nuisance all afternoon, and their central defensive pairing were as solid as a very solid thing indeed (a rock, perhaps?).

Salisbury will make the relatively short trip to Calne Town in the next round of the Vase. They must be amongst the favourites to reach the final next May. How about a Salisbury FC v Hereford FC showdown at Wembley? That would be quite something.

Hampshire's remaining clubs have mostly been drawn at home on October 31st:

Hartley Wintney v Wokingham & Embrook
Littlehampton Town v Tadley-Calleva
Andover Town v Newhaven
Cove v Canterbury City
Haywards Heath Town v Alton Town
Plymouth Parkway v Blackfield & Langley
Moneyfields v Corsham Town
Horndean v Barnstaple Town
Lymington Town v Wells City
Whitchurch United v Welton Rovers
Team Solent v Cadbury Heath
AFC Portchester v Abbey Rangers
Sholing v Laverstock & Ford

The action is over and it's time for the post-match roller to appear!

There are competent match reports here and here.

By the way, for any Salisbury FC fans who want to name a star after captain Kane O'Keefe - don't do it, it's a rip-off. Only the International Astronomical Union can officially name stars. Any company offering such a service just wants your money. The certificate you may receive in return is worthless. Sorry to bring bad tidings.

It's Non-League Day next Saturday. I shall be at an FA Cup match (probably Brockenhurst v Wealdstone, cheering on The Badgers). I won't be writing about it - two weeks in a row of doing this is enough. I'll be back on here the week after covering a Hampshire Premier Football League game.

Other than at Brock, there are two other immense David v Goliath FA Cup ties locally - Blackfield & Langley v Maidenhead United and Petersfield Town v St Albans. Either club would love to see you if you fancy a rip-roaring cup tie on October 10th.