Tag Archives: football

Saturday 2nd November 2013 – WHEN THE ALARM WENT OFF THIS MORNING …

… I just rolled over and went back to sleep. Somehow I couldn’t summon up the energy to leave my comfy little bed here.

And when I finally did wake up, I decided that I would have something of an informal day of rest and not do too much. That was the cue for coffee in bed and a James Bond film, together with a good book.

That took me through until lunchtime and then I nipped out to the local shops for the baguette and the bits and pieces that I shall need for the journey home next week. Hard to think that this is effectively my final shopping expedition in Brussels, although I’ve said things like that before.

This evening, I went out again. No football in the Netherlands border area this evening, and none in the German border area either. There was however a match at the Argosstadionachterdekaserne, the home of KV Mechelen, where the home team was to entertain Zulte-Waregem.

People, including Yours Truly, do say that Belgians have no sense of humour, but you would be forgiven for thinking differently when you see the sign over the entrance gate to the stadium. You can tell that KV Mechelen aren’t doing so well in the league at the moment.

But the stadium itself, which must qualify for having one of the longest names in mainstream football, wasn’t easy to find. It was hemmed in right in the middle of an area of what would be in the UK some kind of Victorian working-class terraced housing and it did remind me of going to a football match in the UK back in the good old days of when all stadia used to be like this.

There was however some easy – and free – parking on the old railway goods yard about 500 metres away, and there were even a couple of marshalls to help everyone. Long time since I’ve seen this kind of thing.

The next thing was something of a shock though – unlike at Breda in the Netherlands last week, the stadium doesn’t accept payments by card – it’s cash only. And I wish now that I had paid with a card at the supermarket this afternoon rather than with cash. The nearest cash point was 1500 metres away, so I was told, and me with a bad foot too after my exploits with the coffee table earlier in the week. I didn’t need any of this. Mind you it was a good job that I arrived early.

So having procured a ticket, at €16:00, it was into the ground. And this was a surprise as well. A First Division game in one of Europe’s leading national leagues and the stadium had probably over 50% of its capacity as standing. When was the last time that you ever heard of this?

And as for the stadium itself, you can tell that they’ve never heard of the Taylor Report in Belgium either because this place wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes in England following the report on the condition of English football grounds after the fire at Bradford City. It really was like stepping back in time to the early 1970s in English football and you have no idea how comfortable it felt to be standing up on the terraces.

But I don’t care what anyone in authority has to say – the fans are totally correct in their opinion of all-seater stadia. With so many standees in the ground, the atmosphere really was electric for the entire 90 minutes and the Mechelen fans must be the noisiest that I have ever heard at a modern football match.

The Powers That Be want everyone to be seated at a football match as in a theatre or a cinema, and give polite applause whenever someone does anything merit-worthy and to keep quiet the rest of the game. That is total nonsense and is what has ruined the game as a spectator sport. Football is all about noise and atmosphere, 90 minutes of bedlam on the terraces, and you can’t do that sitting down. And it’s not just about the merit-worthy actions either. When Zulte-Waregem’s n°3 went down rather too easily and for far too long right under the referee’s nose and on the “popular side” after a challenge early in the game, the Mechelen fans were on his back for the rest of the match with whistles, jeers and abuse to such an extent that his captain swapped him over to the other, more sedate side of the field.

THAT is what real football is about.

People might think that that is being grossly unfair to the footballers concerned. Four or five years ago I remember Craig Bellamy being quite upset about the abuse that he was receiving from the crowd. Firstly, I don’t ever recall him complaining or being upset when the fans of his team were dishing it out to an opposing footballer, and secondly, I will gladly go and stand out in the middle of a football pitch for a whole 90 minutes and let 30,000 people hurl as much abuse as they like about me and my family for only 25% of the money that he is on.

As for the football however, we had a torrential rainstorm and a 2-2 draw, the result being a fair reflection of the balance of the play. And the best player on the field was the Zulte-Waregem centre-forward who scored both his team’s goals. A different class of player than the others on the field.

I’d seen a Turkish Fritkot on my way into town and so I stopped off there and, sure enough, they conjured up a plate of falafel and fritjes. I enjoyed them too, especially as I felt that I had earned them. I’ll miss all of that when I leave. But I’ll have to come back ina couple of weeks though – there’s a book sale in the car park and I must add to my collection a copy of “Honkie and Ponkie On The Moon”.

I’m depressed though about how much Vlaams I’ve forgotten, I really am. I must do something about this.

-5

Saturday 26th October 2013 – I REMEMBER …

… back to 2004 when I was ill and thinking that I ought to develop a new interest, that the subject of footy first came up. Brussels is ideally situated for being a Northern European footy fan and I do remember thinking that as Belgium and France are rather boring in that respect, I ought to cast my net a little further afield.

Dutch football fans are well-known for their passion and ardour and as the town of Breda is easy to get to from here on public transport (change trains at Antwerpen), then NAC came onto the radar. However, times changed, and things changed, and I changed, and that was that. Nevertheless, it was always something that turned around in the back of my mind.

Dutch football has some very interestingly-named teams such as Willem III, Heracles and Top Oss, but pride of place has to go to the enigmatically-named Go Ahead Eagles. Any team with a name like that deserves to be supported. And so imagine my surprise this morning when, over a cup of coffee, I glanced at the footy fixtures and found that the Eagles were playing away this evening – at NAC Breda!

So early this afternoon after lunch I leapt into Caliburn and shot off up the motorway as far as Weerde (I really ought to live in a town with a name like that – second only to the town of Silly of course) when I realised that I didn’t have my passport (I seem to be making a habit of this).

Back on my way to Antwerpen I encountered a Carrefour at Mechelen so I was even able to do a pile of shopping, and after that, with Golden Earring playing on Caliburn’s music centre in honour of my Going Dutch, I eventually arrived at the ground.

Nice and modern, which many purists (including Yours Truly) will think is a pity, but with plenty of space around it and plenty of parking too which makes a pleasant change.

Buying a ticket for an Eredivisie match is not easy. You need to have a Dutch FA clubcard to but a ticket for the match. if you don’t have one, which of course I don’t, you need to produce a national identity card, which I don’t have either, or else produce a passport, which I did have, so it was a good job that I remembered to go back and fetch it. But just €15 (that’s £12) for a ticket is an absolute bargain to watch a 1st-tier match in a keenly-fought domestic league.

Next stop was to buy some food. I left Caliburn (who has never been to the Netherlands before, by the way, so there’s a first) at the Stadion Rat Verlegh (a delightful name) and went on foot to the centre, and I’m glad that I did because I stumbled once more upon something quite exciting that I would otherwise have missed.

This is a Fokker 100 of the late 1980s or early 1990s and what it is doing here as an advert for a scrapyard I really have no idea. This isn’t the first one that we have seen either, for those of you with very long memories will recall the Andover that sat on top of a scrapyard at Ettiley Heath, at the back of Sandbach, for a while. But anyway, here it is and here it sits, and here it will probably stay until the price of scrap aluminium rises again.

It did rather remind me of that delightful story about the old World War I pilot reliving one of his battles during a live television interview.
“There I was, at 8,000 feet, all on my own, and suddenly these five German Fokkers appeared out of a cloud, right in front of me”
“I should mention, for the benefit of our younger viewers” said the interviewer “that a Fokker is a type of German aeroplane”
“Thats right!” ejaculated our hero. “These Fokkers were Albatroses”

So I eventually made it into town, following my nose which was quite interested in the smell of chips that it was detecting.

This brought me to a little square just on the edge of the old medieval centre and here was a beautiful historic building. I’ve absolutely no idea what it might be although it looks like an ersatz town hall or school building of the late 19th Century when the Dutch ran out of inspiration. However, I could be completely wrong about this and nothing would surprise me.

Here I was distracted as two pizza delivery motorcyclists burst out of an alleyway and headed off in different directions. That gave me a clue and so I headed into the alleyway and found myself at the back of a takeaway pizza lace. My takeaway Vegetarian with my own vegan cheese (I always come prepared) was one of the best I’ve ever eaten.

On the way back to the stadium in the dark, wishing that I had come here much earlier to properly explore the town, I encountered this object, right outside the football ground as you,might expect one such object to be. Whatever its proper name might be, I was told that the locals refer to it as the p155 house, and for very good reason too as you can see.

In fact I made very good use of it. I must stop drinking all of this flavoured water while I’m driving. It’s doing me no good at all, I tell you that. I’m not sure how I would have coped had I not found this artefact. It’s certainly a novel way to spend 1.2 centimes.

Mind you, it’s a bit disconcerting having to resort to something like this in front of a crowd of about 17,000 people trying to get into the Stadion Rat Verlegh. I mean, I didn’t want to give them all an inferiority complex.

But that’s enough of me talking rubbish. Let’s concentrate on the football.

Tyhe quality was rather … errr … less than I was expecting for an Eredivisie match. NAC were, well, about average I suppose but Go Ahead Eagles were thoroughly awful and how they were in one place higher than the home side before the kick-off I really do not know. They had a central defence pairing of Lord Lucan and Martin Bormann and for the second quarter of the game they were quite simply torn to shreds. Its no exaggeration to say that 4-0 at half-time, all the goals coming in that 20-odd minute spell, was something of an understatement.

It will also come as no surprise to anyone reading this that the second half was a totally different game. Naive followers of the sport would expect the second half to begin with the Eagles having their heads buried in their boots and a bouyant bunch of Breda boyos bouncing out to run up a cricket score (mind you, 4-0 IS a cricket score when England are batting).

But no, Breda had gone right off the boil and were content to play exhibition football for a while, passing the ball around amongst themselves instead of going for the jugular.

This of course gave the Eagles some kind of respite and a couple of times they snatched the ball away and went racing off down the ptch to give the Breda defence some VERY ANXIOUS moments indeed. I remember thinking that if the Eagles scored twice (which they could so easily have done), there would have been an almighty panic in the Breda side and anything could happen.

However the Breda defence stood firm and with just two or three minutes to go, they managed to pot a fifth goal to calm what was clearly becoming a jittery Breda performance. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a side winning 4-0 look so nervous.

But I really don’t know why teams like this do this kind of thing. 4-0 up and looking good, and then going on the defensive for 45 minutes. They should have carried on with the allout attack, been 6-0 up after the hour, and then gone on to bury this team, instead of giving them a few easy chances to get back into the game. Really bad planning, this, and I would have kicked the players all around the stadium. A tight mid-table finish means that goal difference is all important when it comes to doling out the prize money at the end of the season and whenever you are given the opportunity, which doesn’t arrive very often for clubs like this, you should be going for the throat;

And on that note, I went home. Another one of my … errr … goals in life accomplished.

+14

-10

Saturday 19th October 2013 – THERE HAVE BEEN A LOT …

… of changes around here – it’s amazing what cam happen when you’ve been away for as long as I have.

Steaming down the hill past the quarry at Montaigut on my way to the shops at St Eloy this afternoon and I came shuddering to a halt. That’s because a new road, and of course, a new road junction seem, to have miraculously appeared.

I’ve heard a great deal about this proposed new road – it’s something that’s been proposed for quite a while. For years, heavy lorries from the quarry have struggled through the medieval streets of Montaigut, snarling up the traffic and rattling the houses, and all of the local inhabitants are thoroughly fed up of it.

But not any more. While I was away, a new road has been consrtructed that by-passes the village and goes off to the N144 on the outskirts.

There, the traffic is not obliged to enter into the village at all and that will please everyone.

It will please me greatly too. I often need to take the N144 and then turn off for Montmarault and in order to do that I have to go down some quite narrow windy roads with, more often than not, the sun full in my face at the most inopportune of moments. Now I can just steam on down to here and then hang a left on the new road, and I’m there in no time.

There’s another part of the road that is in the throes of being built. That part will take you onto the road that leads to Pionsat, and that’s another piece of road that should have been built centuries ago to by-pass the village.

All the traffic on there, if it isn’t going to the village itself (which is highly unlikely as there is nothing in Montaigut tha Pionsat doesn’t have) is going to the motorway at Montmarault and so is being channelled through the village and as anyone will tell you, traffic in Montaigut can sometimes be impossible.

No, when they finish this, it should be a good thing.

However I am getting ahead of myself. This morning I was intending to go to Montlucon but I’d seen some interesting stuff that would do for the radio programme, so I wrote a couple of thousand words on the tax changes that took place in July.

After shopping, I went round to Marianne’s to catch up on all of the latest news, and then to Cecile’s to unload Caliburn of the stuff that Cecile had chosen from the other Marianne.

We had footy this evening too. Pionsat’s 2nd XI were relegated to the fourth Division at the end of last season and are doing fairly well here. Tonight they were playing the Miners of St Eloy but they would only muster a team of 10 and which was not a particularly strong team either, with several faces missing from the squad.

They started off brightly, with the Pionsat n°9 ( a guy called Fred, a new signing) playing a total blinder up front and looking as if he could take on the entire Nord Combraille side on his own.

It didn’t however work out like that as Pionsat couldn’t keep going, being short-handed like that.

The Miners gradually came back into the game and eventually the goal that they had been threatening to score for quite some time went into the back of the net, despite the best efforts of Christophe who seems to have taken over the goalkeeping jersey on a permanent basis, given the illness, injury and retirement of everyone else around the club. There have been quite a few changes over the last two seasons.

Nord Combrailles scored a second goal late in the game to put the issue beyond doubt.
But that wasn’t quite the end of the story, because this guy Fred, who had quite impressed me throughout all of the match, was still going at the final whistle.

Here he is bursting through the Miners’ defence right on the final whistle, shrugging off a few strong tackles, and putting a shot across the face of the goal beating the keeper easily. But it hits the post and bounces to safety – about the third or fourth time that he had hit the woodwork. He would have been my man-of-the-match on any day of the week in any team, that’s for sure.

Even more astonishing was the weather. We were all standing on the terraces in shirt sleeves. This was one of the nicest October nights that I can remember.

-9

Sunday 4th August 2013 – YOU’VE BEEN SPARED …

… another discussion and more photos of the parking around here – not because of the fact that there was nothing to report (there was in fact even more than in the last few days) but because I’ve had other things to do.

I told you last night that I would go and visit Marianne today and give her a progress report, which I duly did. Her grave has been restored from the last time I was there, and it’s grown a basket of flowers – obviously someone else has been to visit her.

Her headstone hasn’t arrived yet though, but then again what I have ordered for her will not be the work of 5 minutes.

On my way to her grave I pass by the military section of the cemetery, where soldiers who died during the defence of the city in August 1914 and May 1940 are buried.

There’s also a section that deals with the civilian victims of the two World Wars and I went for a wander around that part of the cemetery today.

Many people, mostly British and Americans, tend to criticise, sometimes vehemently, the citizens of many occupied countries for what they see as their collaboration with the occupying powers during the wars.

They also criticise those in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan who are standing their ground and fighting the occupying powers, but that is by the way of course.

But these British and American critics of the civilians in these occupied countries are being extremely naive. They simply have no conception of what was going on and what it must have been like to live in these countries.

Here are a handful of the hundreds of graves in this part of the cemetery – people who died after falling into the hands of the occupying powers.

If you enlarge the photo you will notice the legends thereupon – “FUSILLE” (shot), “EXECUTE” (executed), “DECAPITE” (decapitated) and all of the hundreds of graves here, of both men and women, bear similar legends.

And none of these legends tells you anything about the sufferings that they must have undergone at the hands of the Gestapo before the Gestapo tired of amusing itself with them and sent them on their way.

Yes, it’s easy to criticise people for collaborating with the enemy when there’s a whole ocean or a sea between you and the enemy. The British and Americans would think twice then.

I don’t seem to recall the British inhabitants of the Channel Islands putting up too much of a fight when they were occupied by the Nazis – in fact they even sat on their hands for 10 months, slowly starving to death, after the war had passed them by.

They couldn’t even seize the initiative then when the Germans no longer had anything to fight for.

There’s also a section for civilian casualties of the Germans in World War I.

Back then in those days the Germans made no secret whatsoever of their policy of “frighfulness” towards the civilian population. All kinds of atrocities were committed upon the civilian population.

All kinds of people were caught up in the dragnet during World War I and in this photo you’ll see graves of a couple of British civilians and a couple of French civilians, as well as some Belgian civilian graves.

The flat at Boulevard Reyers where I lived for a few years, that backed onto the Tir National – the National Firing Range – and that was where people who were singled out for “special attention” by the German occupying forces were executed, and subsequently buried.

Edith Cavell was shot there, and many famous people from World War I and II, and many SOE operatives who were running escape lines across occupied Europe and who fell into the hands of the Gestapo are buried in there.

Even more poignant are the graves of the “unknown” – no-one knows who they were and why they attracted the special attention of the Gestapo. From the one or two survivors of this kind of treatment, the suffering was appalling and death was often a merciful release.

Leaving Marianne’s grave, I heard a familiar sound in the distance – yes, a referee’s whistle. The football season has restarted here in Belgium and it seems that there’s a football club here in Ixelles – the Royal Ixelles Sporting Club.

They play at the sports ground down the hill from the cemetery and today, they were at home to La Hulpe in Division 3b of the Provincial League of Brabant, so I was informed.

And so I went for a nosey around, like you do … "like SOME of you do" – ed …

The standard was pretty dire, I have to say. FC Pionsat St Hilaire could have defeated both these teams without drawing too much breath, but at least it was football and so that cheered me up considerably.

I was wondering what I was going to do for my weekly football fix while I’m living here, and now I know. It’s played on artificial turf, but I don’t suppose you can have everything.

Reminds me of that gridiron player asked by a television reporter if he preferred grass or astroturf, replying “hey man, I ain’t ever smoked astroturf”

But never mind the stadium itself. That’s quite a modern edifice, but it’s surrounded by Council Houses and Council Flats and not just any old council houses either.

If you’ve seen my page onthe houses built by the Peabody Trust in London, you might recognise the influence.

Brussels was also a slum-ridden city at the turn of the 20th Century and a great deal of effort was put into rehousing some of the inhabitants of the worst areas.

The earliest social housing was in the centre of the city but by the 1920s the city was building out in the suburbs and I reckon that this might be one of those

So there you are – 4 photographs and 1002 words. You really ARE having your money’s worth today, and on my day of rest too.

Still, back to work tomorrow.

+33

-5

Sunday 9th December 2012 – I am glad …

… that I bought the new wood stove last year.

Not only have I been nice and warm for most of the day, I had another lovely tea tonight. Pizza of course, but in the absence of any bread (what with the boulangère forgetting me yesterday) I had baked potatoes with garlic butter, all cooked in the little oven thingy.

Not only that, I boiled a couple of kettles on the top, and made a big pot of coffee, half of which I drank and the other half I put in a thermos flask. I’ll be intrigued to see what that will be like in the morning. I could be on to something here.

Strange as it may seem, I was up and about at 08:30 this morning, so an early breakfast and a film followed by a couple of hours work on the radio script. But coming downstairs at mid-morning I encountered the black feral cat that roams around here. Normally it totally ignores me but today it maiowed at me, came to me when I called it, let me stroke it and even let me pick it up. All that I can think of is that there’s no wild food around in this weather. Being a vegan, I’m not able to help it out and it turned its nose up at the soya milk. If this weather keeps up, I’ll have to splash out on a box of munchies. In the meantime, I’ll leave the door open to the verandah and the lean-to. There’s a mouse running around somewhere in there and a hungry cat is a useful ally.

I also found a footy match this afternoon – Terjat’s 2nd Xi against the 3rd XI of Quinssaines. Terjat had about 70% of the play but somehow managed to lose 4-1. Twice they were hit on the break, a third time a lucky deflection in the penalty area found an unmarked attacker, and the fourth time a tired defence was caught stationary. But it was an astonishing match all the same. We all froze to death and there was, tragically, no coffee.

So tomorrow I really must get cracking. I’m in danger of falling behind.

-1

Sunday 18th November 2012 – I WAS GOING …

… to go to watch a football match this afternoon.

No match for FC Pionsat St Hilaire this weekend so I had had a search around on the internet.

And I came up with quite a choice too – St Avit to see Le Quartier’s 2nd XI (which apparently is many of FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI from last year, so they say), Neuf Eglise to watch a cup match, or to Baudelaire or Chambon in the Creuse, where there were a couple of matches.

Instead, though, I stayed in, because I was busy. I have a lot to do and it won’t be done if I don’t do it.

I actually managed a lie-in until 09:45 today, although that wasn’t too much of a lie-in seeing as how I didn’t go to bed until about 02:00.

And after watching The Cannonball Run, which is definitely one of my favourite films for mindless, light-hearted entertainment, I sat down and started on a new project.

As you might (or might not) know, I present a Radio Anglais rock music programme twice a week for Radio Tartasse in Marcillat-en-Combraille.

That sounds very grand but it is in fact just a couple of programmes recycled during the month.

However, I’m playing stuff that most, if not all, my listeners have never heard, because I’m not going for mainstream music but for the more marginal stuff that never had the airplay to be a top 20 hit.

So what I’ve started to do today is to prepare a web page listing all of the albums from which I’ve been playing stuff, and arranging them by month.

It’s a long way from being finished but at least it’s started and it’s well on its way

This evening I picked up Cécile at her place and we went down to Liz and Terry’s – for me to rehearse my radio programmes with Liz and for Cécile to discuss some work with Terry.

In the end we all had a very good chat and a nice socialising evening.

And tomorrow, we’re recording our radio programmes, so I’ll be out all day.

It won’t leave me much time to do this floor.

-4

Saturday 17th November 2012 – AFTER AN EARLY …

… early start this morning, I dashed off a complete Radio Anglais programme – the rock music programme for January.

I can do things like that at one sitting when I’m in the mood and I wish I were in the mood more often. When I’m feeling like that I can move the world and that’s a phenomenon that I would like to maintain.

I had a quick whizz around the shops at St Eloy-les-Mines where I bought nothing of any importance, and then round to Marianne’s for a chat and a coffee. She gave me a couple of prezzies too, which was nice.

This evening it was out to Marcillat-en Combraille for the football.

This match tonight could best be described as a “warming” match – very entertaining, and all for the wrong reasons too, with AS Marcillat winning 2-1 in the end.

Tomorrow I’m having a lie-in, I hope and then I have more work to do. I can’t even arrange to have a day off these days.

Ohh how times have changed 🙁

-4

Friday 16th November 2012 – I’M BACK HOME NOW.

which is something of a surprise.

What isn’t a surprise though is that it’s long after midnight, which is some kind of indication of how much I had to do today.

I nipped out at 09:15 to drop the football club photos off at the new printer’s in Pionsat and then to go to Marcillat-en-Combraille to record my Radio Anglais rock music programme for half an hour or so.

For once, the people at Radio Tartasse were properly organised and I managed to have everything finished by 10:25, and that makes a pleasant change.

From there I went round to Cécile’s, She was having problems with one of her electric radiators – it didn’t seem to be working – and wondered if I could help her out.

So off I duly went to find that lunch had been prepared, which was very nice of her. I’m all in favour of that as you know. I’ll do almost anything for a cup of coffee and a home-made vegan salad.

Anyway, as far as the radiator goes, the fuse seemed to be fine but there seemed to be no power to the appliance. I disconnected the radiator, fitted a standard plug and plugged it into a standard socket.

Sure enough, it fired up as it should so there must be a fault in the wiring in the wall somewhere. Either that or there’s a bad connection at the fuse box end.

So that was that, and then my attention was drawn to a couple of other things that a quick turn of a screwdriver would put right straight away.

But to be quite honest though, I think that we spent more time talking than working, and I didn’t return home until just now.

I’m really going to have to get cracking chez moi though if I want to make any reasonable progress.

-5

Sunday 11th November 2012 – WHAT ANOTHER …

… extraordinary football match.

Yes, ths afternoon saw me at Terjat to see the AS Terjat 1st XI play Hyds in Division One of the Allier League. But I’ll talk about that in a moment.

First, though, with a fairly early night on Saturday (despite the cups of coffee) and no alarm clock either, I managed to be fully conscious and on my feet at … errrr … 08:26. I haven’t a clue what happened there.

So after an early breakfast and watching a film I mooched around for the morning doing not very much at all, and after lunch went off into the wilderness.

An extraordinary match indeed. The final score was something like 8-6 to Hyds and I’m not talking about the goals but about the yellow cards. I think that the referee must have had a pop-up toaster in his shirt pocket. Every time there was a foul, up popped a yellow card. Amazing!

And not only that, I’m sure that the referee must have been officiating a different match to the one that we were watching, because some of the decisions were, well, bewildering, to say the least.

We had the AS Terjat keeper throw himself on top of a Hyds attacker to stop him scoring (and I do mean exactly that) and the referee blew for … a free kick to AS Terjat.

And then, a few minutes later, an AS Terjat attacker flattened the Hyds centre-half, and the referee blows for … a penalty to AS Terjat (which they miss).

If that’s not enough to be going on with, there’s a foul on an AS Terjat player about 25 yards out but as the ball breaks free to another AS Terjat player in an excellent position, the referee plays a good advantage.

This second AS Terjat player is then scythed down well inside the penalty area by a later Hyds challenge and the referee blows … not for the penalty, but to bring the game back for the first foul.

That’s probably the strangest “advantage” decision I have ever seen.

AS Terjat eventually win 3-2, but both sets of supporters (and I was chatting to both groups) left the ground shaking their heads in disbelief.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I lit the fire to cook my pizza and settle down to watch the gridiron. We were promised a sportfest – three matches consecutively last night.

But the early start clearly had its effect because I fell asleep towards the end of the Eagles – Cowboys match, woke up in the 2nd quarter of the Jets – Seahawks match, fell asleep again later and woke up at 2:30 having missed all of the 49ers – St Louis match.

Saturday 10th November 2012 – WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY …

… football match!

I’ve just come back from Pionsat where I’ve been watching the FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st and 2nd XIs in action tonight.

As for the 2nd XI, despite havng a decent team out there tonight, and despite their rather dramatic improvement over the last couple of matches, they ran out of steam tonight.

It seemed to me that several of the players out there tonight just weren’t “with it”.

That’s quite a contrast to the last couple of matches against the Goatslayers and Miremont.

In those matches they played with real enthusiasm, but somehow tonight they couldn’t come up with the goods, and ended up losing 3-1.

This wasn’t really a difficult match either because the opposition didn’t seem to be up to much either.

The three points were definitely there for the taking but they ended up being thrown away.

As for the 1st XI’s match against St Bonnet, I’m still shaking my head even now.

The FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s defence was ripped to shreds by a lightning-quick St Bonnet attack team which played in a very robust, even physical manner.

And things didn’t go very well from an official’s point of view either.

Pionsat were denied an absolute stone-wall penalty when one of their players was pushed (and a clear two-handed push at that) off the ball.

They also were awarded a penalty for something that only the referee saw – even the FC Pionsat St Hilaire linesman, who was down at that end, said later that he saw nothing to get excited about – and they contrived to miss it.

All in all, you had the feeling that it was going to be “one of those days”

And so when I tell you that FC PIonsat St Hilaire ran out 2-1 victors at the final whistle, you will be just as surprised as I am.

One slice of good fortune, one spectacular long range effort that could have gone anywhere – and usually does – but this time finds the back of the net, and some dogged last-minute defending, and FCPSH stole the points.

It’s not every day that they come out with three points from a match like this so they should make the most of it.

Despite what I said last night about an early night, it was after 04:00 when I went to bed – clearly my guilty conscience is pricking me. And with going to bed at 04:00, you can imagine just how difficult it was to raise myself at 07:45.

I was rather like a zombie for an hour or two this morning – “only an hour or two? … ed – although I managed to finish my rock music radio programme for Radio Anglais.

Off then for a flying visit to the shops in St Eloy-les-Mines and then round to Rosemary’s to help her move some stuff and to receive the low-down on her date on Thursday night.

If you ask me, I think that it’s cute, all these people going out on dates. As for me, I can still chase after the women, even if I can’t remember why.

>So tomorrow it’s my weekly lie-in and then bits and pieces until the afternoon when I shall be off to Terjat to see AS Terjat in action at home – no footy tomorrow in the Puy-de-Dome.

I aren’t ‘arf getting about these days, aren’t I?

-3

Tuesday 6th November 2012 – HORRIBLE, GREY, WET AND MISERABLE.

But that’s enough about me – let’s talk about the weather.

That was miserable, dark and overcast, and it has done nothing but pour down with rain all day.

This morning I finally finished off putting the data logger statistics onto the computer. It’s taken me ages to do that and it would have been so much easier to have done it day by day.

I’ve also finished off writing the web pages for the Pionsat football matches at the weekend. You can see them here if you like.

That took me up to lunchtime, and this afternoon I carried on with the shelving.

Now, both the rails are now finished and assembled, and I’ve started to cut and shape the shelves. And that’s not the work of 5 minutes to cut them precisely to shape either.

And that’s it, really. Nothing else. It’s not been the right kind of weather to do much or to go far.

-2

Sunday 4th November 2012 – YOU ARE PROBABLY WONDERING …

… where I was last night when the report of the daily activities never made it to the world.

The answer is that I was crashed out here on the sofa. I dozed off in the middle of the Panthers v Redskins gridiron game and that was that until about 02:00 in the morning.

Having lived for so long in splendid rural isolation, I can’t come to terms with modern urban living. Traffic all through the night, people moving about at 06:00, dogs barking, horns blowing.

No, it’s no good for me. I had almost no sleep in my little room.

24 hours ago though, I was some where completely different.

I was sitting up on the car park at the panoramic viewpoint just outside Clermont-Ferrand on the D941.

I’d bought a pot of jam and some orange juice yesterday, this morning I’d picked up half a baguette, and here I stopped for breakfast.

This is one of the best places in the whole of the Puy-de-Dome to come and admire the view, even when it’s raining.

It’s certainly a class above almost everywhere else (the St Lawrence River excluded, of course) where I’ve stopped for breakfast when I’ve been on the road

And I wasn’t alone here either because several other people had come to join in the proceedings

We’ve been to the cathedral of Notre-Dame de l’Assomption – Our Lady of the Assumption – in Clermont Ferrand on many occasions as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Unfortunately though, we’ve never been able to take a really good photograph of it because it’s all hemmed in by buildings.

No such difficulties from up here though, is there? Especially with a 300mm zoom lens

And when I crop the photograph and blow it up, because I can do that despite modern terrorism legislation, I can produce something magnificent because the building really is superb

It’s the third cathedral on the site. The original one was built in the 5th Century and was destroyed by Pepin le Bref in 760 and again by the Normans in 915 – this time rather more permanently.

Its replacement wasn’t considered grand enough in the period of the magnificent church-building programmes of the 12th and 13th Centuries, and so construction of the present one was commenced in 1248.

Clearly built by the local council, the final (for now) stone of black pierre de Volvic was laid more than 650 years later, in 1905.

But it’s the second cathedral that is the most famous. There on the steps on 27th November 1095, Pope Urban II made the call for the First Crusade to the Holy Land, and laid the foundations for much of what has gone wrong in the world ever since.

Regular readers of this rubbish – albeit in one of its previous incarnations – will recall the view in that photograph.

That’s the Plateau de Gergovie and Liz and I, on one of our fact-finding missions, went to sit on the top of the hill and have lunch.

That’s said by many, including Napoleon III, to be the site where the Gaullish leader Vercingetorix inflicted upon Julius Caesar the first major defeat that he suffered.

Having breakfasted and … errr … relaxed for a short while, I headed off down the D941 in the direction of the historic village of Miremont.

The claim to fame of Miremont is the church of St Bonnet situated on top of an isolated rock on the edge of the village.

This is another one of those places that has been high on my list of places to visit, and following the football club about is certainly enabling me to see the sights

It dates from the middle of the 12th century, although I would have given it perhaps 50 years more.

But never mind the church for a moment, jut look at the site that it has.

It’s situated on a pinnacle of rock overlooking the confluence of the rivers Sioulet and Chevalet, – an ideal defensive position for any nobleman bent on increasing his power in the region

And as we know, some of these noblemen were as bent as they come.

We’re lucky in that the church was built in such a place.

As peace descended onto the area in the years before the horrors of the Hundred Years War, the inhabitants left the safety of the tops of the inaccessible hills and into the more accessible and more fertile valleys.

Consequently this church escaped the rush of church “modernisations” and “rebuilding” in the 13th Century following the return of the Crusaders with the wealth that they had pillaged from Constantinople and the Holy Land.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have a pet theory about early churches in rural France.

I’ve said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that I reckon that they started life as chapels to fortresses built in easily-defensible positions.

As the importance of the fortress declined in the era of peace, the importance of the church increased and gradually took over the site.

We are very fortunate here in that with this site being so inaccessible, it was never pillaged as ruthlessly for building stone when it was abandoned, as many other sites have been.

And so a good prowl around in the undergrowth produces very clear evidence that there was some kind of fortification up here.

This looks very much like the remains of one of these four-cornered fortified chateaux to me, the type that the Knights Templar loved to take over for their Commanderies.

As for the football, which is why we are here after all, it was a triumph for the FC Pionsat St Hilaire 2nd XI.

They’ve had some really bad luck in matches since the start of the season and at one time not so long ago they were hopelessly adrift at the foot of the table.

However a good win last Saturday night against the Goatslayers buoyed up their spirits.

Today though, for the first time in a couple of years, they played like a team with belief.

This was mainly down to Emeric who played today, being unavailable for the 1st XI last night. He drove the team on relentlessly from midfield.

And special mention must go to Kevin, who volunteered to play in goal and had an excellent game.

Vincent has come into the senior side from the juniors this season.

He has a lot to learn of course, but being coached from the crowd on the touchline, he managed to score his debut goal for the team – the first of many, we hope.

The tean finished by winning convincingly, 3-1, to move up to fourth from bottom.

And despite all of the criticism that I have given to the defence, the back four played magnificently. If only they could play like this in every match they would have no worries at all.

It’s a shame about the driving rain though – it put a dampener on the proceedings though.

And so, having had a nice weekend away from home, which surely does me good, I headed off back for my pizza and garlic bread.

I deserved them.

Saturday 3rd November 2012 – I’M NOT HERE.

Well, not all here anyway, and that shouldn’t surprise anyone, should it?

I’m in one of these cheap unit-hotels in Clermont Ferrand, having a weekend away from home.

There is in fact a very good reason for this.

This evening FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI have a night match at Ceyrat, way out the other side of Clermont-Ferrand.

And I can’t believe that I’ve never been to a Pionsat night match away from home.

Tomorrow, the 2nd XI have an away match early afternoon at Miremont, just outside the north side of the city.

Seeing as it’s almost 100kms back home and then back 80kms at lunchtime tomorrow, it was hardly worth going home. And a little break would do me a world of good too.

So just by way of a change, I set out this morning to visit all of the shops at Mozac, the big shopping centre outside Riom.

It’s nothing special compared to Montlucon, but it’s different and at least all of the shops are right next to each other and not scattered across the town.

My luck was well and truly in too. There’s a bankrupt-stock kind of shop there and I found exactly the wire netting that I need to make my bean and pea frames, after all this time of looking.

And I also found a set of three decent tyre levers. I only have small ones for things like wheelbarrows and pushbikes, nothing suitable for motorbikes and cars.

The NOZ though is much smaller but they did have a decent selection of DVDs and so I treated myself to 5 for these long winter nights. At €1:95 each it’s cheaper than the cinema.

At the football, FC Pionsat St Hilaire could only muster a scratch team – it’s not easy travelling all the way down to Ceyrat for a 20:00 kick-off if you’ve been working until 19:00.

As for the game, there is no denying that the Espoirs Ceyratois were technically a much better side.

However FC Pionsat St Hilaire rode their luck, especially with François brilliantly saving a penalty late in the game.

But the team hung on and the score ended up a lucky 2-2 draw. And they all count as we know.

What was even more interesting was that I was not the only supporter to have come to cheer on FCPSH. A couple from Riom who have a weekend cottage in Pionsat and who attend almost all of the home games were here too to follow the team.

This is becoming infectious, isn’t it?

Finding food was the next difficulty. I cant believe that even in Clermont-Ferrand everything closes at 22:30. I had to drive for miles until I found something.

Eventually though I did manage to persuade someone to rustle up a vegan pizza and now I’m sitting here and eating it.

Then I’m off to bed.

-6

Sunday 28th October 2012 – BRRRRR!!!!!!!

It’s absolutely freezing outside. And I mean that too. Minus 1.6°C outside when I took the stats just now.

And it’s been cold all day as you can tell by just looking at this photo of the Puy-de-Dome that I took from my usual haunt – the birdwatching site at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne.

Winter has arrived, early as we predicted exclusively on these pages just 10 days ago, and we are still in October too.

And just look over there at the Puy de Sancy and the Mont Dore. It’s more like Mont Blac over there right now. And those heavy clouds are threatening more punishment

And the snow isn’t just scattered over the high ground either. There’s piles of it in the middle distance too.

When that lot was unleashed last night, we were still on SUMMER time would you believe. The weather has gone totally crazy.

So this morning with the extra hour in bed, I was up and about at 09:20 and after breakfast and the usual paperwork, I spent a couple of hours doing some housework, cleaning and dusting and the like.

It’s certainly been such a long time since I’ve done any, and I can actually see some floor now.

This afternoon I went out to Terjat to watch AS Terjat play Neris les Bains’s 2nd XI.

An Allier Division 1 match, theoretically the same level at which FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI play, but there wasn’t a single player out there whom I would chose for my team. The quality really is quite poor in the Allier.

Neris-les-Bains are quite high up in the league and AS Terjat are mid-table, yet you wouldn’t have thought so from watching this match.

The first half with AS Terjat kicking into a howling wind, the match was played mostly in the Terjat half, but Neris-les-Bains were to all intents and purposes clueless in attack.

In the second half, playing with the wind, AS Terjat scored 2 goals in quick succession and as the wind dropped, Neris-les-Bains scored late in the game, due to a defensive howler in the AS Terjat penalty area.

fter that I went to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse our Radio Anglais programmes for the coming week. Liz made a lovely tea and I had a nice warm shower for which I was grateful.

Back here though it’s freezing and I was sorely tempted to light the fire up here. November 17th was the first fire in 2010 – November 27th was the first in 2011,but the first fire in October is just crazy.

If it’s as cold as this tomorrow and I’m in all evening it will definitely be lit.

-6

Saturday 27th October 2012 – WHO WAS IT …

… who laughed when I said the other day that winter was on its way here and that it would be snowing before much longer?

Well, there you are. This was what greeted me this morning.

It’s the first snow of the year and it’s still October and we’re still on summer time here here.

I was up nice and early with every intention of going to Montlucon as I told you yesterday. But the main reason for going was to go finish off the day with a swim in the pool at Neris-les-Bains;

But if anyone thinks that I am getting into a swimming pool anywhere in weather like this, they are mistaken.

Instead, I stayed in this morning and did some more paperwork.

This afternoon the weather changed slightly and we had an hour or two of glorious weather – hardly a cloud in the sky – and so I nipped into St Eloy-les-Mines.

In this weather you have to go and do the shopping when you can, so there I was, doing a quicka dash around LIDL and Carrefour, spending a grand total of €18 on the weekly food shopping bill

The other day coming back from Nan’s, I noticed that Caliburn seemed to have his brake lights stuck on.

An investigation revealed that it was the driver’s side bulb showing both filaments at night, so I went to have a closer look.

I took out the light units and saw that the nearside lights worked as they should. On the offside though, a close examination of the bulb revealed that the bulb’s shaft had fractured.

As a result, the two internal wires were twisting and the current for the rear light was passing through the touching wires, lighting up the brake light as well.

Pressing the brakes, the current for the brake light was simply running to earth down the fractured shaft of the bulb.

Anyway, a new bulb has resolved that problem and we now have rear lights and brake lights like we are supposed to. My first guess of an earthing fault wasn’t so far out.

This afternoon I watched some footy on the computer and then prepared myself to go to Marcillat en Combraille to watch the footy. It’s cup weekend in the Puy-de-Dome and as you know, FC Pionsat St Hilaire were eliminated a couple of weeks ago by Clermont Foot Auvergne.

But to cut a long story short … “hooray” – ed … there was an inch of snow on the ground and it was falling thick and fast.

That put an end to the plans for going out, and I shan’t be moving now until it warms up again.

See you in April.

-3

EPIC HALL

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