FLASHBACK: CINDERFORD TOWN 2-4 TRURO CITY, FA TROPHY, 2008-9...

Great Expectations: The Benchmark…

Suburbia had grown around Cinderford’s stadium, like dull, untended weeds around a mown lawn. Its gates hung, sadly, white on red, despite yet another typical black and white kit worn by the Town’s players. The restricted car-park afforded a view of a corner of the ground, a side wall of the dressing rooms and an open passage between the angle of goal-line and bye-line and the windswept, rain-hosed field. The fencing at that corner was simply a set of moveable metal barriers, allowing staff vehicles and officials to enter and pass the administrative area.

Barrier relief...

Peephole...

I was forced to walk the width of the pitch, behind the perimeter’s corrugated lengths, just to enter through the one whitewashed of two turnstiles and walk back to the corner again, where my car was parked and the refreshments were to be found… As I pushed through the turnstile, an official had retrieved an errant ball from the car-park, so I took it from him and punted it onto the field, where a couple of Cinderford players were loosening up, jovially and chaotically. I met Jason Donovan, sporting less hair than when he appeared on ‘Neighbours’ and he looked smaller than I had imagined, now playing in defence for Cinderford Town. Naturally, this wasn’t the real Jason Donovan, just a non-league footballer. He was hesitating under shelter and I jibed him, suggesting that it was too wet for him, just for a Trophy game. I made my way towards the main stand, which was unimpressive but largely and oddly protective because of its enclosed sides. These barely pellucid sections hampered vision, yet to be out of the wind and the seasonal deluge was something of a blessing in disguise.

Grandstand through a net...

Even the 'welcome' was veiled...

A trio of fine ‘spots’ led me to snap happily with my camera; first, the dressing rooms, which were so reminiscent of the public toilet buildings in any park, that I was stunned into statuesque incredulity. I wondered whether the visitors used the ‘Ladies’ entrance and I guessed that the officials would be shown to the ‘Disabled’ section. The club shop was, as usual, a hut but all seemed dark within and I recalled a terrapin hut from Year 9 at Secondary School, in which biology was practised and I wondered what dark horrors this building contained…

This would probably make a tough jigsaw...

The goalies were so close to the fans, their hairdressers could have worked their magic whilst the 'keepers stayed on their goal-lines...

Christmassy bulbs swayed unattractively in the wind and I could maybe make out boxes of old matchday programmes through the nearest window. Then beyond, I saw the Renault ‘mini-bus’ and silently prayed that Cinderford’s players were never transported within; the M.O.T. test was inaugurated and designed solely for this monstrous vehicle. I was intrigued by the ‘terracing’ beyond the main stand and I inspected the shelter, in which I wouldn’t have parked the bicycle of my worst enemy. It looked as though bricklayers had begun their apprenticeships there and the evidence had remained, in rows of cement-challenged bricks. Neater breeze-blocks separated the shed from the playing area and the end rail, presumably to aid access and prevent lolling supporters from falling sideways in their excitement, seemed like it was thwarting the twist of the collapsing shelter, like in a silent comedy movie, when nobody gets hurt and the building falls all around the actors.

Brickwork 1...

Brickwork 2...

Brickwork 3...

The, er, minibus?

Fascinated by this godforsaken sports arena, I ordered tea from the hatch, customised for me by the obligatory ‘tea-lady’ and made my way into the main stand, which now struck me as an allotment shack with a pair of loudspeakers screwed to the ends. A huddle of Truro supporters had populated the black benching, possibly railway sleeper seconds, due to their too narrow gauge, near to the best seats, which were of course two or three rows of plastic chairs, preciously reserved for directors and officials. 

Someone guessed how many times Truro would score...

Cinderford’s non-standing contingent must be large-buttocked, for the spaces afforded between the white markings on the benches were of Bunter proportions. I stepped into the stand and noticed a sign at the rear of the structure, directly above the end space of the top bench timber, which read: ‘PRESS BOX’. Box? There was no box… Just a wide-arse slot on the end of the row. I had thought that Mansfield’s Field Mill Stadium press-box used to be basic, but this?

As I wandered along the row, it became obvious why the Truro fans were congregated towards the middle of the edifice: it was the only vantage point to acquire a reasonable view of both ends of the pitch. Thus I sat with them and conversed with Tom Smith’s parents, as well as Ian Stonebridge’s father, who always followed Ian when he was playing at Plymouth and I was an unpaid volunteer, writing articles and match reports, as well as commentating on games, via the Argyle website. Oh, happy days… Mr Stonebridge accosted me at half-time, as I was copying down the Cinderford team list from a team-sheet posted on the edge of the main stand. In the wind. And the rain. I had a lot of time for Ian’s dad, who was a decent sort… Truro won 2-4.

Martin Watts, right, shakes a couple of dice...

White Tigers? Er, maybe Golden Calves?

Three Cinderford players took my notice: Heath, Sommers and Price. This could have been a firm of undertakers… Heath was tall. Very tall indeed. A very tall indeed defender. One could imagine him in top hat and tails, walking before a hearse, a sombre look on his churlish face. Sommers was a forward. He dwarfed, leaned into, stretched and buffeted Jake Ash and Tom Smith, until he was taken from the field to check that someone’s funeral arrangements had been made and then prepared to leer at the Wake. He was redolent of an ungainly English basketball player, doing it because he was taller than anyone else, whose turning speed resembled that of an articulated truck in a cul-de-sac. His legs virtually mirrored the arched bridge at Littledean nearby and despite possessing a modicum of know-how, it was galling that The Ineffectual Bulk was able to tax the Truro defence at all.  

Jake Ash heads wide...

And finally there was Price. He must have dug the graves. He was Dickens’ Magwitch from ‘Great Expectations’. He stood, he stirred, he clashed, he collided, he posed, he peered, he struck a post with a towering header. The bald pate, the evil eyes, the protruding chin, the massive belly, the bollard legs: he was the convict, who rose from behind a gravestone to terrify, not only Pip but me, as a child, on black and white TV. My childhood heart had made a vertical leap, circled my throat and descended into my stomach like an anchor, filling it with fear and touching a nerve in my bowels. 

And there he was.

The Price of Bad Dreams...

My worst nightmare.

And I crapped myself again.

And I had such Great Expectations…