Tag Archives: football

Sunday 30th March 2014 – THAT’S MUCH BETTER …

… from Pionsat today. the 2nd XI went down the road to play Le Quartier’s 2nd XI and won 3-1 without really breaking into a sweat either. And Apart from the three goals, they also missed a penalty and had countless shots cleared off the line too.

The irony of it all was that they were playing without an attack either. Up front were Michael the Ist XI reserve centre-half who was available today because he didn’t play last night, and Michael who played in goal for the 2nd XI until he broke his shoulder three or four years ago.

I don’t remember about the first goal now, but the second goal was a driven cross by Michael the 1st XI centre-half that hit Jerome on the knee and went straight in the goal without anyone being aware of what had happened.

The third goal was a peach. Michael the 1st XI centre-half again, this time laying off a ball about 25 yards out to Bertrand who was rushing in like a steam train. He hit it plumb on the volley and normally these go into the field behind the goal, or else into the garden at the side of the pitch, but this one, just for a change, kept low and hard right into the far corner with the keeper a very distant second.

Talking of the keeper however, a more-miserable bad-tempered keeper I have never seen. He started at the first attack, throwing the ball into the back of Michael the 1st XI centre-half. Of course Pionsat were playing away and it’s the home side that supplies the referee in Division 4, so we didn’t even have a penalty, let alone a sending-off. And then every time there was a 50-50 ball the goalkeeper would physically threaten the opposing player, and the referee would intervene to punish the attacker.

Home-town referee, as you can guess. This kind of thing is totally shameful and does no credit to Le Quartier’s football club.

But of course Pionsat’s players are far too naive for even this level of football. They need to learn more about the judicious use of the elbow during high balls into the area from corners. That would have kept the goalkeeper under control.

As for Pionsat’s defence, they were up to their usual antics but Le Quartier had nothing to offer up front. Nevertheless they scored a goal near the end when a sleeping Pionsat defence allowed an attacker through and he scored a goal with a delightful lob over the advancing Christophe.

Apart from that, the change to Summer Time didn’t bother me at all. I was up and about as usual by about 10:15 new time. And I spent a few hours writing up more for the web site.

After the football (which had a 13:00 kick-off) I emptied Caliburn as we have a furniture removal to do this week, and then wrote a pile of stuff for the Radio Anglais programmes.

A chat to Cecile and her mum rounded off the day and that was that.

Back to work tomorrow.

-4

Saturday 29th March 2014 – JUST HOW UNLUCKY CAN YOU BE?

Jerome Brunet has the ball about 15 yards out and whacks the ball goalwards with everything that he has got. It hits the knee of a defender, cannons right out of the area and back all the way over the halfway line to where a lone Beauregard l’Eveque forward is standing. And he has the simplest of tasks with a one-on-one with Michael, while everyone in the stadium looks on, open-mouthed.

Back in the early 70s I once saw Albert Kinsey, playing for Crewe Alexandra, hit the bar with such force that the rebound cleared the halfway line before it bounced, but I’ve never seen anything like this.

So FC Pionsat St Hilaire lost again, 5-3 this time, to this goal and two of the most controversial offside decisions that I have ever seen, each one of which resulted in a Beauregard goal. And Pionsat should have had this team dead and buried. Hit the bar, hit the post twice, kicked off the line three times, and in the dying minutes they had 6 consecutive corners to add to the 25 that they had had during the rest of the match. But to lose a game in this fashion leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

Add to that the fact that Michael bravely took his place in goal after his bad injury two weeks ago, but lasted just 45 minutes. Young Frédéric took ovee for the second half and looked the part, but he let two goals in and you really can’t do much about that. Everyone was doing his best today.

But it does have to be said – that breakaway goal, no matter how unlucky, wouldn’t have been scored had Pionsat’s defence been concentrating. Those two offsides – how many times do I have to spell it out – you don’t hang around with your hand up waiting for the referee’s whistle, no matter how clear-cut it might be. You play the ball and let the whistle take care of itself.

The fourth goal – the defence being out of place when the team loses possession and the midfield slowly ambling back instead of having any sense of urgency at all. Consequently the defence is caught short-handed.

And the fifth goal – Pionsat messing about in defence again – failing to clear the ball upfield or out for a throw-in but showing off on the edge of the penalty area and losing possession.

It’s all simple schoolboy errors, this is, and it’s been the same ever since I’ve been following the club, and probably before as well. The problem is that there is no leadership out there in the team – no-one who can take command.

So apart from that, having had a day off yesterday, I worked today. Until 12;00 I was working on the laptop – not on the website but writing the notes for the rock music programmes that we do on Radio Anglais.

Later, I went out and dug over another raised bed. This is the one where the shuttering has collapsed and so I used those red bricks that I was telling you about. However it hasn’t worked – that isn’t going to be very successful unfortunately as the bricks are too low and so I can’t dig them in properly. In fact it looks something of a mess. I shall need to think again.

I did manage a bit of work on the website once I had finished the raised bed. It is Saturday after all and there’s no point in killing myself by starting on another one.

And we had another day of high winds. More wind energy today than we have had in the last three or four weeks combined. I wish that it was like this every day.

-4

Sunday 23rd March 2014 – IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE …

… that last Sunday at Menetrol, at half-time during the footy, we were all lounging around on the grass sunbathing. If I had been to the football today, we would have spent half-time shovelling the snow off the pitch and building snowmen … "snowPERSONS" – ed.

Coming back from Liz at Terry’s tonight, it was snowing like crazy and the road between St Gervais and Gouttières, and over the Font Nanaud, was becoming difficult. Yes, I changed Caliburn’s snow tyres for his summer tyres the other day, didn’t I?

So with an early(ish) night last night I was wide awake, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 09:20 and so even with it being Sunday, I had an early breakfast. But the morning was so depressing – rain, hail, sleet, and probably plagues of locusts and the like too. Pionsat were playing the Chimps at Villosanges but
1) kick-off was at 13:00
2) the weather was positively atrocious
3) it’s a 90-km round trip
4) I wouldn’t be back til after 16:00, I was expected at Liz’s at 17:30 and I still had wome work to do on the radio stuff.
For those reasons I stayed behind and carried on working.

But the weather really is dreadful and (apparently) it’s going to be like this for all of next week. And we have a lot of travelling to do with the radio programmes tomorrow.

BRRRRRR!

-5

Saturday 22nd March 2014 – YOU MAY NOT BELIEVE IT …

… but I’ve been outside working this morning!

I nearly didn’t though. After a night of driving rain that stopped me sleeping properly, and waking up before the alarm clock because I needed a gypsy’s, I wasn’t in much of a mood for it.

After an early breakfast, I did a couple more hours on the web site but by 11:00 it had stopped raining and there was a little glimmer of light outside. “Now or never!” I reckoned, and went outside.

I planned to be out there for just an hour and so I finished off the raised bed that I had started. I gave it a really good raking and hoeing, and then added a plie of wood ash, a natural source of potash. It had another good hoeing and raking after that, and then I planted the shallots and garlic. And just as I was about to finish the last row of planting, the heavens opened again.

Never mind, I stayed to finish it, even though I was soaked to the skin. And that was when I noticed that it was 13:00 and I’d been out two hours. Still, it’s all finished now and I’m glad that I did it.

I went shopping in St Eloy but there was nothing exciting, and this afternoon I carried on in a desultory fashion with the web pages.

No footy this evening at Pionsat so I went to Marcillat, who were playing in the Cup against St Remy En Rollat, a club from the suburbs of Vichy. St Remy was the better side on the whole but lost 2-1 in something of a controversial match.

But there was no controversy about Marcillat’s first goal. The centre-forward did well to shrug off a couple of hefty challenges that pushed him over to the right of the goal. He managed to squeeze off a shot from about 15 yards that swerved round and behind the keeper at the near post. That cannoned off the inside of an upright and came soaring out of the goal at about head height, right into the path of a Marcillat player running in. No mistake about that one.

The other two goals were from free kicks, both rather dubious in my opinion but in one of them I would have awarded a free kick – but in the opposite direction. Lots of contested decisions in the match, and I do have a little sympathy for the players. But the Marcillat linesman was clearly quite incensed with some of them, and the referee had words with him on several occasions. He was lucky to have stayed on the field in my opinion.

The temperature was plummeting while we were there ad we are going to have a cold night. Only natural, seeing as how I’ve done all of this planting. I’ve had to cover my raised beds with black plastic to keep the frost off.

-4

Sunday 16th March 2014 – THAT’S THE LAST TIME …

… that I shall ever have a cup of coffee made by Matthieu. Here I was, at 05:00 this morning, and still not tired enough to go to bed. Good job that I didn’t put any sugar in it – I would have bent the spoon trying to stir it. Yes, just a little strong.

And during the night (or maybe I ought to say “morning”) was back on the buses again and this time on my particular school run I had the daughter of the ruler of the world as a passenger. “This is my big chance to do myself some good!”

Instead, I woke up and contented myself with spending the morning editing a pile of photos that I had left outstanding since last August.

I had a nice drive down to Ménétrol through the gorgeous weather this afternoon, as Pionsat’s 1st XI were playing the local side.
Menetrol were a big, powerful side who a couple of seasons ago were playing two or three divisions higher up the pyramid, and they showed a lot of skill on the ball today.

They ran out quite comfortable victors 4-1, but that really only tells you half a story of the match – and probably not even that.

As usual, Pionsat were short-handed. No goalkeeper of course with Matthieu still being out injured and François having retired, but Michael Bucaud does his best and I’ve seen many worse than him, make no mistake about that.

And I counted at least seven regular first-teamers still with the club who were not out there today. Just one substitute, young Vincent.

Here’s Michael making an excellent reflex save from a Ménétrol forward, having initially dived the wrong way.

But Michael’s match ended shortly after this. he was injured making another save and although he carried on at first, 5 minutes later he limped off the field and blond Frederic took over.

He’s no goalkeeper either but you have to do what you can with what you’ve got. And while he let in two goals, there wasn’t really all that much than any regular keeper could have done to stop them. As I said, Ménétrol are a good side.

But by this time Pionsat were down to 10 men. The other Michael had been injured just before half-time and he didn’t make a reappearance for the second half. So it was always going to be tough.

Pionsat pull a goal back right at the end of the match. One of the Pionsat forwards, on a strong run through Ménétrol’s defence, goes down under a heavy challenge. The referee awards a penalty, which is very strongly contested by the home team as
it wasn’t a foul
it was outside the area
but the referee is the man with the whistle and he says that it is. Cedric makes no mistake from the spot, sending the keeper the wrong way

Back home, I cleaned Caliburn’s windows and checked the oil and water. And there’s a headlight out too. Of course, it’s the one that’s hard to get at so I spent about three quarters of an hour looking at the easy one seeing if I could work out how to change it.

Then of course the light goes on inside the brain and 30 seconds later the bad bulb is changed and all is working happily just like it should.

Yes, two torx-drive bolts are all that hold the headlight in on a new Ford Transit, and once you undo them, the rest is, as they say, easy.

And remember yesterday when I said that I thought that the ref had blown for full-time 10 minutes early.I’m not alone in that thought. Several people I talked to today said the same.

-4

Saturday 15th March 2014 – ONLY THIS MORNING I WAS PONDERING …

… about how I’m going to extract all of this dust and the like from the house as it is getting on my nerves. And I was still pondering when I entered LIDL this afternoon.

But not now, anyway. In LIDL today they were selling some 500-watt fireplace cleaners. I had a good look at one and from what I saw, with a few small modifications here and there, it will make quite a useful cylinder vacuum cleaner.

And 500 watts will run fine off my system for 10 minutes here and there, you know. So at just €26:00 it had to be worth a gamble.

Thatwasn’t all the exciting stuff in the shops at St Eloy this afternoon. Carrefour had something of a plant sale. Most of the stuff was rubbish but I managed to make up a tray of lettuce and a tray of green cabbage. I need to put the potager into order and this will hopefully help me make a start. I did nothing last year as you know and baby lettuce plants seem to do fine here.

This morning I dashed off 2500 words for Radio Anglais. It started off on something about the communes of France but it now seems to be something of a geography/history/politics lesson, and there’s plenty more to come as well. A real pot-boiler you might say.

At the football tonight … well … I was going to say that I’m speechless but I’ve seen this happen so many times that I ought to be used to it by now.

Pionsat had only 10 players out there tonight but of those 10, 4 of them were 1st Xi players and another one or two had featured for the 1st XI too.

By half-time that had a comfortable 2-0 lead and looked like they were getting ready to run out of sight. I’d lost count of the number of shots on goal that they had had. But then they simply switched off.

St Angel pulled one back out of a defensive error from nothing, something that took me by no surprise at all given the previous 10 minutes, and I had this uneasy feeling running down the back of my spine that I’ve had so many times before.

However Jerome, who I haven’t seen for ages at the club, roared back up the field and scored a third goal before anyone had drawn breath so it was ok, I suppose. But then, the whole team went back to sleep.

And in two ridiculous moments of madness the team gave away two of the silliest goals that I have ever seen. I couldn’t believe it, and neither did anyone else.

But if that’s not bad enough, just as the team galvanised itself into action and laid siege to the St Angel goal, the referee blew for full time – by my reckoning a good 10 minutes short. Yes, we kicked off at 20:00 on the dot, played 45 minutes of fist half (plus stoppages), had a 15 minute break at half-time, and then played another 45 minutes (plus stoppages) and I was back in Caliburn at 21:38 on the clock. No, that doesn’t add up at all.

But then it shouldn’t really have mattered. Pionsat should have been down the road and out of sight, having fielded the strongest side that they’ll ever field for a hundred years.

-4

Sunday 2nd March 2014 – I CAN’T LEAVE …

… Hendaye without showing you a photo of the beach here.

It stretches for over three kilometres, and even in the dismal weather that we were having this morning, it looked quite impressive. It really is a shame that the weather has conspired to defeat me on this little journey. Hendaye has always been a place high on my list to visit, and I can’t believe that the weather has let me down.

The town might not be up to too much but the seafront is certainly from another time – the Belle Epoque of the period from 1890 to 1929 (minus the war of course) as you can tell from some of the magnificent buildings here.

It costs a king’s ransom to rent a flat there as you might expect but, surprisingly, the restaurant is quite “democratic” in its prices and the vegetable risotto that I had the first night here was excellent, in both quality and price.

This is ice-station Zebra where I stayed for a couple of nights.

They had fixed the hot water by this morning but not the heating, but I’m not complaining. All hotels are under repair during the close season – it’s part of the fun of travelling at this time of year – and they made me a handsome reduction on the price as well as including the (copious) breakfast free of charge to make up for the inconvenience. Chapeau to the Hotel Bellevue!

Diesel is about 10 cents a litre cheaper in Spain and so Caliburn, Strawberry Moose
and I crossed the border and fuelled up.

From there we followed the border for quite a way – but on the Spanish side.

Neither Caliburn nor Strawberry Moose have been to Spain before and so here’s a photo of Caliburn to prove that he was here. Strawberry Moose will be having a better photo-opportunity in due course.

Watch this space.

But there’s all kinds of interesting things to see at the roadside. Here in a pub car park (or what passes as a pub in Spain) there was a steam locomotive.

Built by the Lokomotivbau Karl Marx in Babelsberg (East Germany, of course), this is build number 16005 of 1950 and is probably one of the 4000-odd narrow-gauge steam locomotives built for the East German narrow-gauge railway network.

What it’s doing here is a mystery but one thing is certain in that it won’t be going anywhere else. It’s in a dreadful state.

We climbed back into France over the Col d’Ispeguy, all 672 metres of it. This was the scene of a battle between the French and the Spanish in June 1794 and it’s clearly a sensitive military area as even today there are the remains of a great number of military defences guarding the Pass.

These though are likely to be something to do with World War II. Spain was neutral during the War but Hitler had asked Franco for permission to send an army across Spain to besiege Gibraltar. This was a logical step, as it would have closed the Mediterranean to British forces and led to the collapse of the British position in North Africa.

Franco refused and, apparently, gave Hitler such a verbal mauling that Hitler emerged shaken from the intervie and declared that he would rather go to have all of his teeth pulled at the dentist that have another discussion with Franco. Franco would be well-aware of the importance of Gibraltar, convinced that the Germans would invade Spain in order to capture the Rock, and doubless ordered these fortifications to be built.

Hitler’s failure to force the issue with Franco was the first nail in the Nazi coffin, in my opinion.

But as I have said before, the power of vehicle advertising is teemendous. Here I was sitting at the top of the Col d’Ispeguy quietly eating my butty and admiring the view into France when there was a knock on the window of Caliburn. As a result I ended up doing a site visit for a French guy in the area.

It will come to nothing as he’s at the bottom of a steep-sided valley and won’t have the sun for more than 4 or 5 hours per day in summer, but nevertheless, it just shows …

Next part of the route was to take me from Ahaxe to Tardets on a road that is something of a roller-coaster of half a dozen mountain passes of well over 1000 metres – up there somewhere.

However on turning off onto the lane there was a large gate, all padlocked off, with “road closed” all over it. Not that I’m surpised. It’s been raining for much of the day and it’s quite cold so snow up there is an odds-on certainty. And it’s not as if it’s a main road – or even a minor road, come to that.

I ended up having to come by the Col d’Osquich, Mauléon, Cheraute (where I was lucky enough to catch an exciting football match) and Barcus, and now I’m cosily esconced in a hotel opposite the railway station at Oloron Sainte-Marie where I’ll be spending the night.

It’s nice and warm here and the shower works. Just what the doctor ordered.

-3

Sunday 23rd February 2014 – PHEW!

No wonder I’m so flaming tired all the time, if last night is anything to go by.

There I was in South-West London, renting a room in a house and to reach the area of London where the house was, there was a zig-zag climb up to a plateau rather like the way in to Marcillat from the Montlucon road only, of course, all built-up and urbanised.

I was talking to a girl who was something to do with a business, down at the business premises at the foot of the climb, talking about the house in which I was living, and she was expressing her astonishment that here in the inner suburbs of London there was a house that had three wind turbines powering all of the electricity (I do actually have three wind turbines here).

The conversation was interrupted as I needed to go to Brussels in Belgium. There, I met Anne-Marie in a café half-way up the Boulevard Léopold II near to the Simonis transport hub. She was wanting to see more of the parts of Brussels that she didn’t know, and the area of Molenbeek and Koekelberg (served by the Simonis hub) is an area that I know quite well.

But Anne-Marie. She joined the EU at about the same time that I did and was part of this little group of us that went around together. I had quite a soft spot for her and we went on a couple of skiing trips together. She would have been a good partner for me, I always reckoned, as she had a knack of bringing my feet back firmly to the floor whenever I went off on one of my regular flights of fancy. But as is usual, though, I would have been far too much hard work for someone “normal” and so nothing ever happened. Another “one that got away”, the lucky girl.

But let’s return to the issue at hand. Despite all of the contemporary stuff that was going on in the Boulevard Leopold II, it was in fact early 1914 and the eve of World War I. Some German notable, von Something zu Somewhat, was there trying to negotiate something with some Belgian politicians and my task, if I chose to accept it, was to find out who he was and what he was doing and who he was negotiating with and why. On the eve of World War I, everyone in Europe was nervous.

So once I had ascertained his name, I contacted MI6 to see if he was “known” to the British authorities. I didn’t receive a reply but it turned out that the principal reason why he was there was that he (only a young guy) had made a young girl pregnant because he needed a child in order to inherit something. But this girl was not ready to have herself “announced” to all the world. Therefore there was some machination about producing the baby, with a spurious mother, and producing the real mother at a later date.

I suggested that he should have produced a spurious baby as well and saved all of this pantomime, but this didn’t go down too well at all.

After all of that running around Northern Europe for 100 years when I should have been sleeping, I didn’t feel too bad about staying in bed until 10:10 this morning. And after breakfast I just mooched around for a while.

There should have been some footy this afternoon – I had a choice of the 1st XI at Lempdes – about a 90-minute drive away – or the 2nd XI at home against the Goatslayers, both kick-offs at 13:00. Of course, I chose the Goatslayers at home, and so of course the match was postponed, as I found out when I arrived at the ground.

But with the glorious summer weather today (180.1 amp-hours of surplus solar energy, 66°C in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load), firstly I aired all of the bedding that I use in Caliburn – it’s been in its suitcase in the barn since early November, and secondly, I had a look at Caliburn’s auxilliary electrical circuits.

The solar panel on Caliburn’s roof rack hasn’t been charging up the second battery for a while and neither has the split-charging relay that works off the main battery. It turns out that the cheap charge controller that I bought years ago in the UK has burnt itself out. Luckily, in one of these solar briefcase kits that I bought years ago and which broke when it fell off the LDV’s roof, there was a charge controller that was now sitting around doing nothing. Consequently, that’s now wired in the circuit and seems to be working.

As for the split charger, after much furkling arouns and bad temper and cursing, I found that there was a poor earth connection. Once that was all cleaned up and greased and sanded, that now works as it should.

But with having almost dismantled the auxilliary electric circuit, I decided to tidy it all up. It really was such a mess. Now it’s all shipshape and Bristol-fashion, bolted to the bulkhead as it should be, and out of the way of where I’m likely to trip over it. But I’m still not all that happy – I can do much better than this and I will do too.

But me? Working on a Sunday? Things are getting to me, aren’t they?

And this evening, no pizza. Not that I can’t make one, but that the temperature up here is 18.4°C, and that’s with no heating on either. If I light the fire I’d be melted out long before the pizza would be cooked.

This winter is thoroughly crazy.

-6

Sunday 2nd February 2014 – THE FOOTY RESTARTED TODAY

Well, it shouldn’t have done, but there are so many matches in arrears that Pionsat’s 1st XI hastily rearranged a postponed match against Lapeyrouse.

And hasty was the word too, so hasty in fact that Pionsat were short of five or six regular players and they had to pad the team with players from the 2nd XI who play 3 divisions lower down the pyramid.

Of course, Pionsat lost, and by 2-0 too, but then you can’t expect half-a-dozen players from Division 4 of the District league pyramid to compete against a team that last year was playing in the Elite pyramid.

The first goal was quite avoidable though and Pionsat’s defence should be pretty depressed with that. All the defenders drawn to the near post and then the ball driven across the goal to a couple of Lapeyrouse players standing unmarked at the far post.

The second goal from Lapeyrouse was a peach, though, and worth the price of the admission … "it’s free!" – ed. A free kick about 35 yards out played to an attacker standing about 15 yards from goal and he hits the ball on the volley. It’s one of those shots that could have gone anywhere – the stand, the school playground, the cemetery, the abandoned railway line, but this one chooses to go into the far top corner of the net despite a despairing dive from Michaël.

Pionsat had their moments too and they were desperately unlucky on a couple of occasions.

We had a moment where a confusion between the centre-half and the keeper saw the former back-head the ball over the outstretched arms of his keeper. The ball hit the cossbar and in a desperate tangle on the line, neither the Lapeyrouse keeper nor Frédéric could make contact with the ball and the Lapeyrouse n°14 hacks it away before Cedric can get to the ball.

In another moment of desperation in the Lapeyrouse defence, a really good corner from Pionsat is won in the air by one of the Pionsat forwards and the other Frédéric just can’t make a contact with the ball to force it into the net.

Nevertheless, with most of the Lapeyrouse defence paralysed, the defender covering the far post (the near post in this photo) manages to hack the ball off the line at the very last moment to avoid a certain goal.

Pionsat also had a clear penalty denied when Nico was blatantly pushed off balance as he went for a loose ball in the area, and there was another incident in the Lapeyrouse area that some referees might have punished with a penalty for Pionsat for holding.

But then again, to be honest, I don’t really remember either goalkeeper having a proper save to make. Pionsat’s attack looked well below par today.

But the weather was quite impressive this morning. We had clear skies for a few hours until early afternoon, not like winter at all today in fact. I think that when winter does finally come, it will come in spades.

-2

Saturday 14th December 2013 – WELL, IT DID RAIN …

… during the night, all 2mm of it. First time for ages too as I said. And when I woke up this morrning there was a hanging cloud to greet me. Consequently I stayed in and read a book, and then reorganised the bookshelves a little and did some housework.

It cleared up this afternoon so I had a quick run to St Eloy-les-Mines and the shops, and spent almost nothing there either. I’m back into my old ways again.

After a late lunch I did some work on the laptop and then wznt to Marcillat-en-Combraille for the last match prior to the winter break. AS Marcillat were playing Vallon, top of the table, and to everyone’s surprise they won 1-0. Once again, they could have had a bagful of goals but couldn’t hit the nether regions of a ruminant animal with a stringed musical instrument. Some of the misses were comical to say the least.

Vallon offered nothing up front although they were the better team. And they can consider themselves unlucky, if now downright cheated, of a good goal. An AS Marcillat defender handled a cross just outside his area but the shot fell to a Vallon attacker who volleyed it home. The referee blew his whistle … for the handball, thus disallowing the goal and the Vallon players were furious. The ref said that he had blown prior to the shot but I am totally and utterly convinced, as was everyone else around the ground, that the goal had been scored before he blew. And why blow anyway. Hasn’t he heard of the advantage rule?

And anyone who says that football is a man’s game is clearly unaware of Marcillat’s n°13 this evening. Only been on the pitch two minutes and he’s booked for having a ‘frank exchange of views’ with the referee. And 30 seconds later, as the Vallon keeper goes to clear a ball out of his hands and upfield, the n°13 goes up and impedes the clearance. A second yellow card, and so into the dressing room, and not been on the pitch 5 minutes either. Two of the most stupid bookings that I have ever seen.

Vallon had a player sent off too right near the end. He was rather too vocal about a bizarre refereeing decision and while one never condones that sort of behaviour, I do have to say that some of the decisions made by the referee were totally bewildering to say the least.

Ahhh well.

-4

Sunday 8th December 2013 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I saw Pionsat’s 2nd XI go a goal down early in a game (that’s not really a change), but come back strongly and score three times in the second half to win 3-1 to get their show back on the road.

But never mind that for a moment – this morning started as I meant to go on, by dropping my breakfast tray and all its contents all over the floor downstairs. I’d had a nice sleep too – an early night, a lie-in until 10:30 without any inerruption through the night, a good dream, and then the bright burning sun shining in through the windows. And then of course the breakfast all over the floor.

I managed an hour or two catching up on some recording that I needed to do, and then in the glorious sunshine off to Charensat to see the footy at 13:00.

Pionsat had 11 players, but no more, and it was a fair team too, and as I said, they ran out winners 3-1 after being down 1-0 for a long period in the game.

It was particularly important for young Vincent. He came up from the juniors last year and he’s finding it something of a big step up, but he’s doing what he can and he showed that if you have a genuine striker’s instinct, then nothing much else really matters all that much.

Here, a high ball into the area had the keeper stretching and … he dropped it. It’s not easy hanging on to a ball in this cold weather with the sun streaming into your eyes.

And there was Vincent, following the ball in like every good striker should, whether he thinks he’s going to get it or not, and when the keeper fumbles the ball, it lands right at Vincent’s feet and that was 3-1 to Pionsat.

Back here, I finished off the recording and then watched the Packers against the Falcons. The Packers came back to scrape a dour win, having fallen behind to the most bizarre touchdown that I have ever seen. The Pachers’ quarterback overthrows, a Falcons defender sticks out a hopeful foot, and kicks it right into the hands of a colleague wide open on the left wing, who, totally unmarked, runs it back 72 yards for a touchdown. The Falcons won’t ever do that again, that’s for sure.

-4

Saturday 7th December 2013 – I FINALLY MADE IT …

… to the shops in Montlucon today – first time in ages. And I spent a pile of money too, which is not at all like me, of course.

Mind you, it was an effort to get out of bed which was hardly surprising seeing as it was absolutely taters outside. And scraping the ice off Caliburn’s windscreen didn’t improve things either. But in Montlucon I did the usual round of the usual shops.

Just for a change, LIDL turned up nothing exciting apart from a big box of clementines (yes, it’s nearly Christmas) but everywhere else did me proud. At Noz, the cheapo shop, I bought a full set of the Piorot Series I DVDs and also some of the home-made fizzy lemonade that they have. Three bottles of that, for me over the Christmas / New Year festivity period, and not only that, the bottles with the drink inside are those with the wired stoppers and cost less than just the bottle alone at IKEA.

In Brico Depot, I bought 24 planks of shuttering board – €3:95 a plank and three joined together widthways makes a decent 50cm shelf 3 metres long. I can crack on and build my shelving now, once the rain restarts. But it didn’t restart today – we had another one of these glorious Alpine winter days.

Before leaving Montlucon I went to the Centre Aqualudique, which is the posh way of saying “swimming baths”. It was cold in there, but not as cold as it would have been at Neris les Bains, and I made history by not only forgetting to take my clean undies with me but also my soap and shampoo. Something of a wash-out, if you pardon the expression.

This evening I froze to death on the terraces (well, terrace) at Marcillat as the home side’s 1st XI took on Varennes in a squalid bottom-of-the-table match.

Two worse attacks I have never ever seen in my life. Varennes never even tested the Marcillat keeper once during the entire match and while Marcillat had plenty of opportunities, they couldn’t hit the nether regions of a bovine animal with a stringed musical instrument. They could still be playing when the winter break is over in February and the score would still be 0-0.

That is – except for a very dubious penalty and a woeful calamity of a mix-up between the Varennes n°3 and his goalkeeper. And tule n°1 of any defence is and always has been “when making a backpass to the keeper, always send it wide of the posts”.

Are you reading this, Varennes n°3?

But it was a niggly, argumentative match – a typical foot-of-the-table affair, and when the referee finally did have enough and brandished the first yellow cards, I would have had half the teams in the dressing room a long while previous to that.

-3

Sunday 1st December 2013 – SUNDAY IS A DAY OF REST …

… and so I rested. In fact I didn’t even get out of bed until 10:30, and that was only because I needed to visit the beichstuhl.

I didn’t do any housework either. I had a nice relaxing morning reading a book. As you know, I’m fully of the opinion that everyone should have the right to have one day per week where they can sit and do nothing at all if they so choose, and not feel guilty about it.

I didn’t even set foot outside my house until 14:30 – not because there was nothing to set foot outside for, but merely because it was so perishing cold.

However at 14:30 I set out, for Terjat as it happens. No footy again in the Puy-de-Dome today but Terjat’s 2nd XI had a rearranged match against Quinssaines and so I reckoned that I would toddle off over there to see whether we were going to have a repeat of the humiliation of a couple of weeks ago when, even playing with 11 men against the 10 of Premilhat, they still managed to be well-and-truly stuffed 7-0.

Well, Quinssaines were pretty poor, although quite well-organised, and Terjat were even worse. But somehow Terjat managed to win. And not by just one goal, but by an astonishing 5-2 scoreline.

The big difference was that while both goalkeepers were, shall we say, guardiens de fortune and so couldn’t really be expected to do too much, Terjat actually put the Quinssaines keeper under quite a lot of pressure, shooting from just about everywhere there was a sight of goal. And of course, it paid off in spades.

On the other hand, even though the Terjat keeper never made a clean catch during the entire 90 minutes, no-one followed up the balls into the area to pounce upon the dropped balls, or even had a serious attempt at trying to beat him. In fact, when finally Quinssaines did have a go at really testing him, a free kick blasted over the wall into the goalmouth from about 25 yards out, it went clean through the keeper’s hands into the net.

Ohhh what might have been!

No gridiron tonight either. The internet connection isplaying up and I was seeing nothing but a stop-start freeze-frame slideshow. That was a shame as we were to be treated to a bottom-of-the-table grudge match between the Falcons and the Bills. It doesn’t get more desperate than that.

-5

Sunday 10th November 2013 – THERE’S ONE THING …

… about owning a bright yellow van, and that is that everyone knows who you are. So at about 12:15 when I was on my way to Villosanges, a red saloon car suddenly sat on my tail and started desperately flashing his lights.

It turned out to be Fabien from the football club. It seeemed that the heavy rain over the last few days has caused the river at Villosanges to burst its banks and seeing as how the footy ground is right at the side of the river, the ground is now under three feet of water. So that was that.

Mind you, listening to the weather this morning, I didn’t feel much like going out. In fact I didn’t feel much like getting out of bed either, but then again it’s Sunday and Day of Rest so there’s no problem with that.

I had a late breakfast and did some desultory cleaning up here – the typical Sunday stuff – and then I went off for the footy. The bakery in Pionsat is open on Sunday mornings and so I went in to pay my respects and restart the bread round that I cancelled when I went off to Brussels. No point in me going every day or every other day to buy my bread when I can have it delivered for less than the cost of the fuel to go and fetch it. And it was shortly after this that I was turned back.

Back here, I made some butties and did a little job of work. I’ve been buying loads of CDs just recently and keen readers of this rubbish will recall that a good while ago I had bought some CDracks from IKEA. I’d put up four of them but now the collection has overflowed, so I installed a fifth one. Just one more left, so I might make a little trip to IKEA in due course to buy a couple more.

After eating my butties I went off to Terjat. I’d heard that the 2nd XI were playing Premilhat at 15:00 and as you know I try to get out and see Turgid whenever there isn’t any local football here.

This was a match that had everything. Torrential rain, sleet, hailstorms, as well as bright sunlight. But the howling wind was pretty much a constant and made play from east to west rather a tricky proposition.

It also had a few other features as well, including a right hook that would have put Joe Frazier to shame and which put the Terjat right-back into the dressing room iwthout any help from any of his colleagues. This led to controversy, as you might expect, for at this level (the basement of football as far as I’m concerned) there are no bookings and no sendings-off. The offending player was taken off by his captain, but a substitute ws sent out and this threatened to bring the game to an unceremonious end.

However, wiser councils prevailed. The referee blew for half-time a minute or so later, and at the start of the second half, it was clear that Premilhat had returned to the field with just 10 men.

Playing with the wind in their favour but with 11 against 11, Terjat were only trailing by 3-0 at half-time. But playing against the wind and against one man less, they were completely overwhelmed and let in another 4 goals, to lose by 0-7.

The fact that the score was 0-7 is laregly due to the Terjat goalkeeper who was effectively playing on his own against 5 or 6 Premilhat forwards and made probably 7 or 8 high-quality saves that would not have been out of place at Conference North level, and also due to the Premilhat attackers who missed a penalty, who hit the woodwork four times and who missed a load of sitters. If Premilhat had scored a dozen, no-one from Terjat could have complained.

Worse, though, is that Valentin, one of the heroes of Pionsat 2nd and 3rd XI’s valiant struggles, is now playing for Terjat, in his usual role out on the wing. He was an excellent player for Pionsat’s lesser sides but here he had a match that he would rather, I’m sure, forget completely. Not through any fault of his own, but simply that his colleagues were totally incapable of getting the ball forward to him.

I said to him after the game “what on earth are you doing with a team like this?”, for there’s no doubt that Terjat are the worst team that I have ever seen so far. And here I was – it was less than 8 days ago that i’d been watching a team that is playing in the Europa League.

Back here I lit the fire and made myself a pizza in the oven, and then watched some gridiron before going to bed. Tomorrow is a bank holiday so I’m going to have another lie-in.

-7

Saturday 9th November 2013 – DUNNO IF YOU REMEMBER …

… a couple of years ago and I posted a photo of the local village shop in Ronnet which had caught fire and burnt out.

The owners moved to other premises in the village with their shop and opened a little café-restaurant there too. But that’s not lasted too long, because this was what I discovered when I went through Ronnet at midday today.

We’ve had another fire and all of this seems to have gone for a Burton too. Even more importantly, when the first place caught fire they had a tarpaulin up and over it almost as soon as the flames were extinguished. Here though after the fire at their second premises, they seem to have abandoned everything to its fate and that seems to be that.

Yes, I was in Ronnet today, on my way to Commentry for shopping, and rather later than intended too. I’d heard the alarm go off but I decided that, seeing as how I’m still recovering from my exertions, I was going to have another morning of rest.

But what a beautiful morning it was though, not a cloud in the sky and the batteries were fully-charged by 10:45. I emptied some more stuff out of Caliburn and tidied up some more in here, slinging some filled rubbish bags into the van and then went off to Commentry, via Ronnet.

Christmas isn’t too far off and so I’ve started buying Christmas nibbles today. And nothing else of note or excitement, except that at Centrakor I picked up a couple of small pepper mills on special offer, to use for grinding my cardamon seeds and so on, and also some waxed table cloth. That was what I wanted, because I don’t want to ruin this new table when I use it as my kitchen worktop up here.

As the weather deteriorated, clouded over and started to rain, Neris was next, and the swimming baths. Ages since I’ve been there and it was freezing in the building. About 25 of us poor souls braving the extremes, but at least I’m clean for once.

So now that I’m back home I can return to my usual haunts and habits, FC Pionsat St Hilaire being one of them, and tonight the Ist XI were taking on Chatelguyon.

I had to get dressed for it too as it was freezing outside, although the rain had stopped. And it’s as well that I did for nothing that happened on the pitch served to warm me up at all.

PIonsat started the stronger and were peppering the Chatelguyon goalmouth and it was no surprise that they took the lead. A beautiful cross across the goalmouth from Nico and Pavel, this new Polish striker, volleying in a superb shot at the far post.

In that opening spell wre had shots kicked off the line, shots pounded into the woodwork and shots put wide when it would have been easier to score and I can’t think how it was that they missed. Pionsat were threatening to run riot.

They were however living dangerously at the back and it was no surprise to anyone that Chatelguyon equalised – with just a few minutes to go before half-time.

A break down the left wing saw a Chatelguyon forward clean on with the ball and although Michael managed to get down and stop the shot he couldn’t hold on and as the ball ran free from his grasp, another Chatelguyon forward following up had a pretty simple tap-in and that, dear readers, was that.

The second half started just like the first half. Pionsat came out of the trap like a rocket and for the first five minutes had Chatelguyon pegged right back in their own half and under something of the cosh.

We had the Pionsat missed chances, the woodwork peppered with shots, the Chatelguyon keeper making some excellent saves, and then the unbelievable happened.

Well, it isn’t unbelievable if you have been following what I was writing about the matches three and four years ago. Back in those days Pionsat were struggling because they had a defence that had a tendency to switch off and gp to sleep at important moments, and this was exactly what we had here.

And it didn’t happen just once or even twice, but FOUR TIMES, would you believe, and what looked like a comfortable Pionsat victory turned into something of an absolute rout as they went on to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

I felt sorry for Michael in the Pionsat goal. He’s not a goalkeeper but with injuries to everyone else he’s in there keeping goal and doing his best.

No one could fault him for any of the five goals that he conceded, but with two Pionsat centre-backs standing too far apart so that an attacker can go straight down though the middle for a one-on-one with him, what is he expected to do?

We had two of those, one after the other, and that was followed up by two balls over the top of the defence when the Pionsat defence was pushing too far forward and not quick enough to get back. For the fifth goal we had Michael on his own against three Chatelguyon attackers and no-one can do much about that.

Back home, I was skyped by an old friend of mine, telling me that he’s moved house. He has, but his wife hasn’t, meaning of course that their marriage of some considerable number of years has come to an end. That’s really sad news as between them they made quite an impressive couple with many qualities. But I suppose that it’s none of my business except to dole out the sympathy.

-5

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality