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.

Alton Town v East Cowes Victoria Athletic

The final game at the Bass, as advertised outside the gate.

[Reader's voice: Hey, Andy! You're normally pretty good at publishing match reports on the Monday or Tuesday after a game! Why has this one taken so long?]

Ah, it's a long story, dear reader! This is the short version:

Firstly, I had no intention of going to Alton Town for their final match at the Bass Sports Ground (pronounce Bass as in "Mass" for the southerners reading this - or "Class" for my northern friends; and not as in "Bass, how low can you go?" for the Public Enemy fans amongst you). I'd woken up on the morning of Saturday 5th December hoping to go to Romsey Town's Bypass Ground to see them play promotion-chasing Amesbury Town. Unfortunately, the game was called off due to a tree root becoming exposed on the pitch (obviously quite a dangerous thing if a player should twist an ankle on it or fall on it knee-first). As it happened, Romsey got a bit of publicity out of this, being featured on BBC 5Live's Non-League Show, amongst other media outlets. Romsey Town fans were "stumped" by this turn of events, apparently.

So, I looked at the fixtures afresh, and decided that Alton Town would be a good alternative for my Saturday afternoon footy fix. I'd liked the Bass Sports Ground immensely on my previous visit. I'd liked the spirit of the people of Alton, standing up to Molson-Coors' corporate bullying in large numbers, and I'd loved the old stand, broken but unbowed, defiantly old school. It would be my last chance to go there, so...go there I did, to say goodbye and to pay my respects.

Leaving the pavilion changing rooms for one final match.

Details:
Alton Town FC (2) 4 v 0 (0) East Cowes Victoria Athletic FC
Saturday 5th December 2015
Sydenhams Wessex League Division One
Attendance: 102
Admission: £5
Programme: £2 (an excellent end-of-an-era special with plenty of colour photos. Badges were also on sale at the turnstile)
Colours: White / black / black and white hoops v Yellow / blue / blue
National Grid reference: SU7240

The bench seats in the stand went black-white-black-white...all the way up. This is one of the white benches from the side.

The famous train picture. I mean, it's alright, but I thought I'd got myself a photo to rival one of Jurgen Vantomme's best...

I went to Alton, I took my camera, but I still hadn't intended writing about this match. I was going to do a report on Otterbourne v Hamble Club in the Hampshire Premier Football League on the 12th as my final pre-Christmas missive. But, with all the rain this past week, the game at Otterbourne was called off. So, I had a problem: should I leave my last pre-Christmas report to the final Saturday before Christmas, risking another postponement, or should I write about Alton instead?

I'd have to write about Alton Town with no new photos. What do you mean, you ask - there's eight pictures here...

True enough. But I'd lost them all. I'd come home from Alton last Saturday evening, and whilst uploading the match photos to my PC, the programme that I use for uploading crashed, wiping all my pics from the memory card. They were gone, seemingly forever. Whatever I did, I couldn't find a way of getting them back.

In the meantime, I told the other members of the HAH Facebook group how amazing these photos of the Bass Sports Ground had been, exaggerating in the manner of an old fisherman describing the ones that had gotten away. There was the warm and fuzzy pic of the tea urn, boiling away in the boardroom post-match with Christmas fairy lights twinkling away in the background; there was the poignant one of the fella writing out his match report, taken through the broken perspex of the old stand - the last person sat in the stand at the very last match at the ground; then there was the train picture - the famous train picture, which in my mind rivalled one of the great football photographer Jurgen Vantomme's finest...

Peeking at the stand through a gate.

Post-match huddle for Alton Town.

How did I get the photos back in the end? Well, it was like a miracle, one of the Yuletide variety. When Otterbourne's game was called off, I decided to go and watch Romsey Town play away at Totton & Eling. And yes, I took my camera. The pictures from Alton were still not there as I snapped away in the late afternoon gloom at Millers Park...until I wandered out of the ground with ten minutes remaining to take a pic of some AFC Totton fans next door (they were thrashing Bishops Cleeve 7-0 and looked pretty happy). As I steadied my camera to take the photo, I suddenly saw a picture of a squirrel on the screen...then a cat...then another cat...and then some puffins...and, what was this? The pictures from Alton were back! I have no idea how that happened! I didn't touch anything - it just happened...

...and here they are! (I'll be posting a few more on the Facebook page later).

The last man in the stand at the final match, busily scribbling down his match report.

I'm glad I went to the Bass Sports Ground for one last visit. The first thing I noticed was that the bowling green behind the stand had been abandoned. Next to the bowling green, the once-thriving tennis courts were derelict, with saplings growing through the tarmac. Inside the football ground, the old stand had not seen any love for quite some time - although, as the club knew they'd be leaving many years ago, it's easy to understand why the old girl hadn't had a lick of paint for so long. Where the broken perspex sides had been left unrepaired, rain had blown in and made the top corners of the stand, in particular, damp to the point of nearly rotten. Walking around the stand, with the floorboards bouncing beneath my feet, I was afraid that I might tread on some rotten wood and fall through. It didn't happen though.

It was one of those days when it seemed like everyone else was carrying a camera - there was Howard Gadsby, a former player who was there on behalf of the club. He had access all areas and took a superb set of photos, which you can see on Flickr here. Then there was poor old Paul Paxford, hobbling around the pitch grimacing from backache.

Then over there was a film camera. I didn't ask why the cameraman was there at the time, but it turns out that he was filming a short piece for Sky Sports on Liam Priday, the 4-year-old boy from Havant who has been to 100 different football grounds with his dad, Chris. You can watch the report on Liam here - it also features Alton's first goal and plenty of footage of the ground. Oh, how I wish I'd owned all those Corinthian figures when I was four!

As before at Alton Town, everyone was very friendly. I spent some time speaking with an old fan who reminisced with me about the good old days at Alton, when they were a major force in amateur football, about some of the big matches against some of the famous London amateur clubs of the 1950s and 1960s, when there were regular large crowds to cheer on the team. He was sad that the Bass Ground would be covered in rabbit hutch houses in a year from now - he was equally sad that Molson-Coors had shut down the brewery in town and sold it for housing - the biggest employer for miles around, taken over by a faceless American corporation, asset stripped and then shut down, just like that.

The kettle steaming away in the boardroom for...you guessed it, one last time at the Bass.

Alton's most famous footballing son, Jimmy Dickinson, would not have approved. However, I'm sure Gentleman Jim would be raising a glass to The Brewers' future at their new home just up the hill.

Secondary to the occasion was the match itself, which Alton Town won easily enough, by 4-0. They had the wind behind them in the first half and took a 2-0 lead early on. It looked like it could be an 8 or 9 goal thrashing at that point, but credit to East Cowes, who dug in and kept the score down to 2-0 until late in the second half, when Alton scored twice more to give the old ground a decent send off.

There's a lovely tribute to the Bass from Alton's Mr Chairman here. So much more eloquent than anything I've ever written.

I'll visit Alton Town's new ground in the New Year. By all accounts, they had a grand old time at the opening ceremony this Saturday just gone. Another big win in front of a crowd of over 200. I read that Mr Chairman was also handing out free crisps. I don't know whether Jimmy Dickinson would have approved of this, but I certainly do!

The festive roller round-up will be my next post. After that, I'll be back on either January 9th or the 16th for my 93rd match report on HAH. See you then.

Bemerton Heath Harlequins v Andover Town

The changing rooms at Bemerton Heath Harlequins FC.

I was recently approached by a publishing company to write a book for them, aimed at the Christmas gift market. They specialise in cheaply made club-based books of trivia. They've successfully produced books of facts on most Premiership clubs, many clubs in the Football League, plus Celtic and Rangers. You may have seen some of their titles for sale in bargain book stores - The Bumper Book of Arsenal Fun And Facts was their top-selling title last Christmas - at a cover price of £4.99, it was a no-brainer stocking gift for the Arsenal fan in your life.

However, open the book and delve in on a Christmas morning, and the Arsenal fan in your life would be extremely disappointed - a hundred pages of "trivia" copy/pasted from Wikipedia and other sources on the internet, with line drawing illustrations to fill out the white space which your little brother could have knocked out in two minutes (and probably did). Nothing the Arsenal fan didn't already know. A book destined to be put down and forgotten about within five minutes of opening the covers.

Anyway, Cheap & Tatty Primary Gifting Season Products of Westbury got in touch with me three weeks ago. They'd seen the telly programme about the Class of '92 and were under the impression that the next growth market in football publishing would be trivia books about non-league clubs. They asked me to knock out a book about Glossop North End by the end of the week. Well, their offer of 50p and a bag of marbles was too good to turn down. I signed the contract, and two evenings later, the publishers had their book.

But I hadn't read the contract properly. They paid me the 50p, but what I hadn't noticed in the small print was that I was supposed to write a second book if I wanted the bag of marbles, and that if I hadn't produced a new title by midnight on Monday, their lawyers would be e-mailing me first thing Tuesday morning. They left me to choose the club to cover.

Chequerboard seats in Bemerton's stand. Anyone for chess?

Details:
Bemerton Heath Harlequins FC (2) 2 v 1 (0) Andover Town FC
Saturday 28th November 2015
Sydenhams Wessex Premier League
Attendance: 50-ish
Admission: £6
Programme: £1
Colours: Black and white hoops / black / black v All blue
National Grid reference: SU1131

Andover fans tie their flag to the rail at the front of the Les Pantlin Stand.

Anyway, it's Monday now, and I know the readers of Hopping Around Hampshire are expecting a new match report this evening. I'm just going to have to multi-task if I'm going to get both things done on time. Excuse me if I have to drop a few made-up pieces of trivia into this report. I have a book to write before midnight...

I've chosen to write about Bemerton Heath Harlequins for the book, as I visited them on Saturday for their Wessex League game against Andover Town. Now, where to begin? I know, a bit of background detail about the area. Let's have a look on Wikipedia and come up with a few facts:

• Bemerton Heath Harlequins are based in the Bemerton Heath area of Salisbury, which is mostly a post-war council estate, with a few older buildings dotted around from when Bemerton was a separate village.

• The Bemerton Heath estate was notorious in the 1970s as the place where the Stuffing Ball Wars erupted. Everyone ate roast dinners on a Sunday in the '70s. However, in 1973, there was an acute shortage of stuffing due to the failure of the sage crop. Two rival gangs in Bemerton got hold of a lorry-load of Paxo and were able to sell it on at a tasty profit until they fell out with each other. Both gangs had guns, but this being the '70s, there was a shortage of bullets that year, so they made makeshift bullets out of stuffing balls. For a few days in July, the streets of Bemerton were alive with the sound of gunshots. Luckily, no-one was killed, but to this day you still see old-timers walking around the mean streets of Bemerton with sage and onion scars on their cheeks.

Hmm, that sounds a bit unlikely, but it was on Wikipedia, so it must be right.

Okay, what next? I have another 98 pages to fill...

Clouds.

How about the formation of the club?

• Bemerton Heath Harlequins were formed in 1989 as the result of a merger between three strong local sides: Bemerton Athletic, Moon FC and Bemerton Boys. All three clubs had been successful and wanted to try their hand in the Wessex League.

What next? The Moon FC? The Moon! Facts about the Moon!

• It has recently been accepted by leading scientists that the Moon is made of cheese.

• Cheese is one of the main ingredients of Twiglets.

• When you eat a packet of Twiglets, there are always a few broken Twiglets and a whole load of Marmitey dust left at the bottom of the packet. The collective name for this detritus is Twiglet giblets.

Jeez, this is harder than I thought! I must stop straying off the subject. At least Cheap & Tatty Inc don't have any proof readers, so nobody will notice the irrelevant stuff. Let's move on:

• The new Bemerton Heath Harlequins club were accepted in to the Wessex League immediately and finished 8th (of 19) in their first season.

• Since then, the club have finished in the top five of the league on eight occasions - their best seasons being 2010/11 and 2011/12 when they were runners-up.

• Harlequins have never been relegated since their formation.

That's better, sticking to the subject now. That must be another five pages filled.

Andover Town's Oliver Yates waits for the ball to reach him on the left wing.

Okay, what next? I know, their kit:

• Bemerton Heath Harlequins used to play in black and white quarters - similar in style to Bristol Rovers.

• At other times, the club have played in black and white halved shirts, similar to Blackburn Rovers.

• Currently, they play in narrow black and white hoops, the same kit as Scotland's Queen's Park, otherwise known as The Spiders.

• Terry Woodcock of Bemerton Heath owns the world's largest collection of Guatemalan Fighting Spiders. He tours the school fairs of South Wiltshire with his famous arachnids. He has created a Fighting Arena for them out of an old Battling Tops stadium with a hand-made see-through perspex roof. For 50p, he will paint a spider's torso with your favourite club's colours and set them up against another spider painted in your club's enemy's colours. The spiders then fight to the death. During the last World Cup, Terry used his fighting spiders to predict each match in the tournament, after hearing about Paul the Octopus in Germany correctly predicting each score in the competition. Terry used the result produced by his fighting spiders to place bets on each match. He lost a lot of money.

Good, good, I'm getting somewhere. I think I should finish this by midnight.

The winning goal from Harlequins' Russell Cook.

I'd better write my match report for Hopping Around Hampshire now. Once I've done that, I'll search the 'net for information about Bemerton's badge, some well-known ex-players, a few crucial matches from the past...should be alright for midnight.

The weather forecast was atrocious for Saturday. Rain, strong winds, general misery all expected. As it turned out, the rain kept off until near the end of the match, and the 70mph gusts may well have occurred, but Western Way is well sheltered by leylandii on three sides, so the wind wasn't noticable. Indeed, playing conditions couldn't have been much better considering the time of year.

Even so, I arrived early, just in case the game was called off (I would have diverted to Pewsey Vale if that scenario had happened). With a near-full car park and shouts from players warming up on the practice pitch to greet me, I knew it was "game on" without enquiring within. As I was there before the turnstile had opened, I went into the clubhouse. It's a big one - built at the same time the club was formed by voluntary labour, and since extended.

Two big tellies were showing the early kick-off at Charlton Athletic and a darts tournament respectively. Darts seems to be popular at Bemerton - there are two dartboards in the club, and on the walls as you enter the front door, immediately to your left and right are two large wooden boards listing all their darts, pool and crib champions since 1989, lettering lovingly applied in gold leaf. (Note to self: check to see whether any of the crib tournaments was won by a last-minute "one for his knob" on the final cut - would be an interesting fact for the book).

Whilst I sat and watched the darts on the telly with the sound turned down, I hummed along to the greatest hits of country music, which was being piped over the speakers: "Sylvia's Mother" (TUNE!), "It's Four In The Morning" (TUNE!), "Rose Garden" (TUNE!). I couldn't remember who sung Rose Garden, and it bothered me for most of the first half until it suddenly struck me...

Lynn Anderson!

Seats for the Plumbs.

Bemerton Heath Harlequins were 2-0 up before Lynn Anderson's name entered my trivia-fried brain. Both goals were similar - long balls played through the middle of Andover's defence for Bemerton's strikers to run on to. The first one-on-one was converted by Sam Griffin, low to Jamie Bray's right; the second by Russell Cook, this time to Bray's left. It hadn't been all one-way traffic towards Andover's goal - the away side had hit the bar before the second goal went in, but Andover's fans were feeling down - the half-pint on their flag being more half-empty than half-full before thirty minutes had passed.

Andover had come to Bemerton riding high in the league - it was mid-table versus second. Despite the two goal margin, I always thought that the away side had enough about them to come back in the second period, and so it would have proved, but for some rock-solid defensive work and inspired goalkeeping from the home side. Andover did everything but score. An absolute scorcher from the boot of sub Kuiars from 25 yards smacked against the bar on 75 minutes. Surely, surely, they would score at least once?

The Andover fans behind the goal were in good spirits - they "only sing when we're losing" - and with only two defeats all season up until Saturday, they haven't been singing very much.

The goal did come eventually. A scramble in the box, and a blue-shirted player (just hidden from view for me behind a couple of defenders) toe-poked the ball downhill, very very slowly. The ball hit the inside of the post and just rolled over the line before it stopped. With three minutes remaining, Andover piled forward again, looking for the equaliser, but it never came.

Rain.

There may be other match reports on the 'web, but I haven't seen one yet. There was a press cameraman there, and somebody taking reams and reams of notes (that wouldn't be me then), so there must be a report somewhere...perhaps it was for paper press only?

Right, I'd better get on and finish that book. I've got another four hours or so until midnight. Forgive me for ruining this match report with all that trivia, but you could tell how much pressure I was under to meet that deadline.

In Hopping Around Hampshire news, I've set up a Facebook group since the last report. You can find it here. It's a Public group, so I think anyone on Facebook can see it without necessarily joining. I'll be using it to upload extra photos from each match I cover on here. If anybody else wants to join in and post a few photos, please feel free to do so. Keith Legg of Sholing has uploaded some pics from their recent Vase match at Buckland Athletic, and I've put a few up from my trip to North Wales last week where I visited Porthmadog FC. Apologies to anyone who isn't on Facebook - I wasn't myself until a few weeks ago, so I know how annoying it is when someone posts a link to the site and you can't see it. I should know better.

Oh, and 100,000 all-time page views have been clocked up since last time, so thank you to all my readers out there. I feel reasonably popular.

Portland United v Horndean

From left to right: the cover behind the goal; the combined pay hut/tea hut; the ref and players; and the clubhouse at Portland United FC.

It's a puzzle.

I mean, who do those Premiership managers think they're fooling when they say their superfit, overpaid, mollycoddled players can't play four games in nine days over the Christmas period (the festival of whinging is coming soon, folks...)? They train for two hours a day, they eat nothing but the best food, they have fitness coaches on call 24/7. And they're paid as much in a day as we are for a whole year of hard, stressful, unbearable toil.

They don't have to get up at 5am to go and heave bricks around on a building site two hours drive away (and another two hours home again). They don't have to stand up and teach noisy, disruptive, uninterested teenagers all day long, then go home and mark homework until half past ten. They don't start work at 8 in the morning at the local hospital, patching up weeping sores and wiping helpless pensioners' bottoms only to get home at midnight after a 16 hour shift when they're only supposed to do 8 hours because the NHS is critically understaffed. Day after day after stressful day.

Yes, our disconnected heroes will be tired again this year at Christmas.

The Butch Nash Stand.

Details:
Portland United FC (1) (1) 2 aet 1 (1) (0) Horndean FC
Saturday 7th November 2015
Sydenhams Wessex League Cup 2nd Round
Attendance: 151
Admission: £5
Programme: 50p (better than several I've paid £2 for)
Colours: All blue v Red / black / white
National Grid reference: SY6972

Action in front of the disused St Peter's Church on Grove Road.

A Premiership club will play between 40 and 60 competitive matches in a season, depending upon how successful they are in the cup competitions that they enter. There will be money-making friendlies on top of this - trips to Malaysia, Thailand, or wherever the marketing men think they can rake in the dollars. So, if a player plays in 50 games a season, they're on the pitch for 75 hours or so. Some people work 75 hours in a week - most of us will work that amount in two weeks or less.

The players of Portland United and Horndean are just like us. They'll get up early to deliver the post or stack shelves or fix our cars. Then they'll leave work, grab a sandwich and an hour later, they're warming up in front of 100 people dreaming of being this week's hero. And being paid peanuts, if anything at all.

Horndean will play 40 league matches this season. They will also enter up to six cup competitions:

• The FA Cup
• The FA Vase
• Hampshire Senior Cup
• Portsmouth Senior Cup
• the mysterious Russell Cotes Cup
• and this competition, the Sydenhams Wessex League Cup

That's a minimum of 46 games to be played over the 40 weeks of the season. Many matches will be postponed during the cold wet months, so they could easily end up playing three games a week during April to fulfil their commitments. Now, with their day jobs to consider, that's tiring!

Portland clear this Horndean attack.

It had been raining constantly for three days. I woke up on Saturday morning not expecting to go to Portland. I started checking the fixtures for November 14th..."yes, perhaps the next HAH report will come from Pewsey Vale next week instead? I'll just check Twitter though - you never know..."

GAME ON! The pitch has held up well and the rain is clearing! Yeeessss!

It's quite a drive from Southampton to Portland, indeed, from anywhere else in the Wessex League to Portland. Their local derby at Christmas will be against Ringwood Town, which is nearly an hour away by car.

Arriving at Portland Bill, the rain had stopped around Wimborne and the sun was just breaking through. I drove to the top of the impressive hill which greets the visitor and stopped at a viewpoint above Fortuneswell. It's one of the most spectacular views in the south of England. I stood next to the Olympic rings (the National Sailing Centre, home of the 2012 sailing competition, is on Portland) and just stared. The 15 mile long shingle spit of Chesil Beach is to the left, fierce ex-storm waves pounding the stones, trying to break through to the lagoon on the other side.

The main town on the peninsula, Fortuneswell, lies below. Beyond that, across the bay, is Weymouth. Angry grey rain clouds welled up on the horizon, but I knew these were drifting away to the north and east. Only miles and miles of blue sky to the south and west, where the strong wind was blowing from.

Walking back to the car, I stopped and pondered at the war memorial, dedicated to all the local men who fell in the wars. I noticed a lot of names appearing over and over again - there must be a lot of Pearces and Saunders on the isle - but the name that really stood out was Stone. Not only is Portland famous for stone quarrying, but a large number of their citizens are named after the rock beneath their feet. As I was leaving, a family arrived. The little girl shouted to her mother: "Look mummy! A poppy!" I'd been so busy studying the names of the soldiers that I'd failed to spot the single poppy left at the base of the memorial. Once again, a small child proved more observant than me.

I was taking this panoramic view when Portland's Ross Doidge scored the opening goal!

I arrived at Portland United's New Grove Corner with plenty of time to walk around the ground. I knew that the club had been forced to move from their original Grove Corner ground in 1994, when the Crown demanded the land for a new quarry (Portland is famous for its quarries - the stone mined here was used to build St Paul's Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, the Cenotaph - both in London and Southampton - and Your House). The mining company built a new ground for the club on a reclaimed quarry site not far from their original ground, and it's rather splendid.

A gale force wind blew straight down the ground as I walked around. I noted two covered seated areas - the one behind the goal featured three park benches dedicated to club stalwarts, as well as a number of other bench seats. Lying next to the ivy-covered stone wall which separates the ground from the road outside were a set of old floodlights. I'd guess a condition of their promotion from county football last season was that the floodlights needed upgrading.

Both stands are handmade and give good views of the pitch. However, the best views were to be had from a grass bank which runs the length of the pitch on the north side. It may even be called The North Bank. This is where many of the regular connoisseurs of The Blues gathered to watch the game, either sat on one of the park benches perched up there, or simply standing at the top of the slope. Behind them were gorse bushes which separated the ground from another quarry. A kestrel spent most of the match hovering above the huge stones below her. She had more important things to do than watch football on this Saturday afternoon.

Watching the kestrel diving for rodents reminded me of my own hunger. I was able to buy food behind the bar in the clubhouse and stand outside on the balcony for a few minutes to watch the match whilst crunching away at my salt 'n' vinegar crisps.

More food - soup, chocolate bars - was available in the combined tea hut/pay hut at the entrance. Tea could be drunk from proper mugs for just 80p a pop.

Home-made cover behind the near goal. Shelter from the wind.

The wind blew and it blew and it blew. The glaring sun was dropping fast behind the clubhouse. It was crucial to win the toss and avoid having to defend the far end during the first half. I can only assume that Portland won the toss and decided to have the wind at their backs. The toss isn't normally as important in football as it is in cricket, but today was an exception.

Wave after wave of Portland attacks then ensued. They had their twelfth and thirteenth men (the sun and the wind) behind them and Horndean struggled to cope. Every time they tried to break forward, the ball would just stop in mid-air and start rolling back towards them. Running against the wind, it must have felt to them like they were eleven Marcel Marceaus climbing a ladder. Getting nowhere fast.

The incessant pressure paid off for the home side after 14 minutes, as Ross Doidge sidefooted home from eight yards. Portland are top of the Wessex League's lower division; Horndean are third in the higher division, but you wouldn't have known it.

The home side failed to score another goal during the first half, despite numerous chances, which they came to regret after eight minutes of the second half. With the wind and setting sun behind them now, Horndean equalised when Harry Potter [Reader's voice: Don't, just don't...!] produced a piece of magic [Andy!!! No!] as he headed the ball backwards over the advancing home keeper.

The wind then started to die down as the sun dropped behind the clubhouse, making the game a lot more even. Chances came and went for both sides. In to extra-time, and both teams had shouts for penalties which were turned down. 22 pairs of tired legs couldn't produce any more magic, until...

...Nine minutes from the end, a ball was heaved forward from Portland's defence. Ed Bastick got in front of two Horndean defenders. The ball bounced once, then did Ed juggle the ball on his knee two or three times as he rushed forward, 35 yards from goal? Did my eyes deceive me, or was that CR7-esque skill on display? I was tired too and could have been hallucinating, but whatever the truth, the next thing we knew, the ball was flying, arcing over the Horndean keeper's head and rippling the back of the away side's net.

The home supporters went wild, the players did a collective Klinsmann, diving and sliding over the wet grass, piling on top of one another. We had our Saturday hero, and this week, it was Ed Bastick.

After two hours'-worth of shift and toil, Portland ended the game with nine men when one player went off injured during extra-time (all subs had been used), and another received a dead leg with a few minutes remaining. He could only stand and watch as his team mates defended heroically until the final whistle for a deserved victory. For those Portland players who had worked hard all week in their proper jobs, they could relax and unwind after a job well done on the pitch. Horndean's players had a long trip home, but for them, there's always next week to be the Saturday afternoon hero.

Horndean fire in a free-kick.

I started off this report with the phrase "It's a puzzle". I'm ending it with two puzzles. Two wordsearches, to be precise. The first wordsearch contains words which may have been uttered by the fans of Portland United when Ed Bastick's wonder goal hit the back of the net. If you're unfamiliar with wordsearches, you are looking for the following 14 words or phrases within the grid. They can be spelt out horizontally, vertically or diagonally. They can be read as nature intended, or back-to-front or upside-down:

ACE                        GET IN
AMAZING                GREAT
AWESOME              MAGIC
BONZER                  NEAT
CRUCIAL                 RAD
DANDY                    SPLENDID
FAB                         WIZARD

A	T	Y	D	N	A	D	S
W	M	W	R	N	R	P	U
E	C	A	E	A	L	T	C
S	M	A	Z	E	D	A	I
O	T	I	N	I	T	E	G
M	W	D	O	Z	N	R	A
E	I	O	B	A	F	G	M
D	L	A	I	C	U	R	C

Silhouetted fans pointing at the action on the pitch as the sun sets.

The second wordsearch contains words which may or may not have been spluttered by Horndean's fans when they conceded that extraordinary second goal. I've had to be careful here, because I remember buying a Barbie magazine for my daughter when she was little, and in the back was a seemingly innocent wordsearch puzzle where the girls had to find words such as BARBIE, KEN, HORSE and suchlike. However, the compiler had obviously had enough of his/her job, and had hidden some filth within, which had not been picked up at the quality checking stage of the magazine (cheaply made tat that it was, I suspect there was no checking done at all...).

Find the following nine words or phrases of frustration in the grid below:

BOO                         OH MY
FLIP                          OOPS
HISS                          PANTS
NUTS                         SUGAR
OH DEAR

R	A	G	U	S	A	R	B
E	A	J	P	A	N	T	S
E	T	E	E	L	F	S	E
W	O	O	D	L	I	C	E
F	H	G	I	H	L	B	N
E	M	P	R	I	O	Y	U
C	Y	S	P	O	O	N	T
K	N	I	C	K	E	R	S

I'm fairly confident there's nothing else hidden within that one. No Barbie magazine situation here. Not that I've checked properly.

[Hmmm, don't know if that worked. It seemed like a good idea at the time...]

More silhouettes. Players this time, waiting for the ball to be crossed in to the box.

There's a proper match report on Portland United's website here. I'd recommend a visit to New Grove Corner for any ground enthusiast out there reading this. A fine place.

I've been writing Hopping Around Hampshire for just under five years now. At some point towards the end of November, it is likely to receive its 100,000th page view. I didn't expect that when I started.

I intend to set up an HAH Facebook group at some point this week. I shall add extra match photos to the group pages. I'll add a link on here when I've done that. You're welcome to join if you're on Facebook.

The next HAH report will be from a match in Wiltshire on November 28th, so long as the weather is kind. See you then.

Goodnight from Portland United!