… has been “old cars”. I don’t mean the Merc and the Cortina and the old Transit, that have graced these pages just recently – I mean the real stuff.
If Nerina were here right now she would tell you of our holidays in Europe during which I spent most of my time scavenging around in hedgerows for the real old stuff, like this … errrr… Studebaker Champion from about 1950.
This (or rather the first model for this one is a type two) was the car that saved Studebaker from bankruptcy. A big straight-six sidevalve engine that was phenomenally economical for its day and during the petrol rationing in the USA during World War II this car sold like hot cakes.
So what is it doing here in St Pardoux? Especially as it is sporting California licence plates.
Talking of sporting, I was in St Pardoux on my way to somewhere near Maringues to watch Pionsat’s 3rd XI play ES Thuret. Pionsat had 10 players and Thuret were complete but Pionsat still gave them a good run for their money and the game finished, surprisingly, 0-0. It’s the only game so far that I didn’t take any action photos, for the simple reason that there was no action.
Well, there was – in the second half a Pionsat defender whalloped the ball into touch (they’ve been clearly reading my notes) and a girl – and a girly girl at that – who happened to be walking around the ground – she caught it fully and completely in a fashion that any goalkeeper would have been proud of. And the cheers from the crowd were encouraging.
And not to be out-done, a high clearance into touch fell just nicely for me and I headed it back on the volley into play and into the arms of Xavier who was running up to take the throw-in. Again, this was greeted by enormous cheers from the crowd.
But this has got me thinking. This was a basement clash between two of the worst clubs in the entire Puy-de-Dome league. The standard was appalling and I’ve had enough of this so I spoke to Jerome, the organiser of the team, and he’s agreed that I can come and join in the training on Wednesday evenings. And I spoke to Terry when I got home, and he’s coming along to the training too. We probably won’t get to play at all, but at least it’ll get us both up to a decent level of fitness.
You would think that we were both old enough to know better.
