Tag Archives: xavier semonsut

Saturday 1st April 2017 – CALL THAT A …

… Division d’Honneur match?

I’ve seen more exciting and more competent teams playing down in Division 2 of the Puy-de-Dôme League than what was served up here at Granville tonight.

La Patriote ST Jamaise were pretty miserable – another team that spent far too long hanging on to the ball instead of playing it out wide or over the top. But as for US Granville, they have to be one of the worst teams that I have seen. Far and away the worst at this level.

They had a red-headed guy playing right-back who was thoroughly, totally and completely useless. He was substituted after 30 minutes and judging by his contributions up to that point, he was on the pitch for 30 minutes too long.

But the centre-forward – a big bulky 20-stone guy that would make Akinfenwa look like a lightweight – I’ve never seen anything like it. He was easily the worst player that I’ve seen on a pitch in a competitive match. He didn’t run after the ball – just a leisurely saunter around when he could be bothered to move – and never looked as if he was going to do anything at all. US Granville could have played without him and no-one would have noticed the difference. Xavier, who used to play up front for Pionsat’s 3rd XI will be the first to admit that he was playing up front to enjoy himself rather than in respect of demonstrating any skill, but I would have had him on the field leading the attack any day of the week rather than this guy.

It goes without saying that, being the worst team that I have ever seen, Granville were 2-1 up at half-time. Two free kicks, two shots at goal, 2 goals. But honours were restored in the second half as La Patriote ST Jamaise scored two more goals – one from a dreadful defensive howler where they all stood around waiting for the keeper to come halfway up field to head a ball away. I hardly need to mention that he headed it just as far as a La Patriote ST Jamaise attacker who calmly lobbed it over his head into the net. And the winning goal was … well … I estimated about three yards offside from my perfect position in line with play.

But US Granville can’t complain. They were dreadful.

I’d had a much better sleep today and a steadier start to the day. With a few things to do (loads of files to update) and then I went for a walk around the market. Nothing of interest unfortunately, and the prices are, well, not what I’m accustomed to paying.

But going for a walk to buy bread, I found a notaire with a few letting properties in the window. One looks quite suitable so I have an appointment to see that on Wednesday.

This afternoon I was chatting to a few people on the internet and then Caliburn and I went off to LeClerc for a look around. Strawberries at €0:90 for 500 grammes and cheap soya cream too – that will make for some exciting puddings for the next few days.

There’s an electromenager bit there too and prices seem to be reasonable. That’s one-up on Montlucon.

Afterwards, I headed for the footy and then came back here for tea.

It’s a late night but it’s Sunday tomorrow so no alarm. Let’s see how well I can sleep.

Sunday 27th April 2014 – HA! HA! HA!

FC Pionsat St Hilaire are desperately in need of points to keep alive their faint hope of avoiding relegation to Division 2. And today they were playing against Chatel-Guyon, currently top of the Division and likewise desperate for points to keep the chasing pack at distance.

Pionsat had a very-much scratch team out there today too. Blond Frederic was in goal for only the second time in his life, and with Fabien, Vincent and Kevin out there, they had three players who ply their trade in Division 4. Cedric was playing centre-half too.

As you might expect, Chatel-Guyon had 99% of the play and dominated the match from start to finish. But the Pionsat defence was resolute and I can safely say that Cedric at centre-half had the match of his life. With Julien alongside him and Alex just in front, they were totally inpenetrable and when Chatel-Guyon did manage a shot on target, they found Frederic in fine form.

Pionsat rarely managed to get forward in anything like enough numbers to threaten the Chatel-Guyon goal and for much of the match their goalkeeper was actually playing as a sweeper behind his defence.

But Matthieu Sikorsky came ohhhh so close with one effort and it was only the desperate outstretched fingertips of the keeper that stopped Matthieu from pulling off a shock goal well against the run of play late in the first half.

That would have been oeuf sur le visage of the Chatel-Guyon defence if that has gone in.

It was still 0-0 with just minutes to go and Pionsat, in a breakaway upfield, win a corner. The ball is easily cleared out but the clearance is intercepted by a Pionsat defender who plays it back up to the other Frederic who is about 30 yards out from goal.

He advances on the goal with the ball and as the keeper, who is miles upfield from where he should be, back on his own 6-yard line, tries to stop him, Frederic simply lifts the ball over the top and into the net for probably the most astonishing goal against the run of play that I have ever seen.

The silence in the stadium was overwhelming. All of the possession that Chatel-Guyon has had during the match and here they are, 1-0 down in the closing stages of the game.

But look where the goalkeeper is. What on earth is he doing 30 yards out of his goal? It’s a suicide position for any goalkeeper.

Chatel-Guyon now throw caution to the winds, bring on a few pairs of fresh legs and throw the kitchen sink at Pionsat. And they win a penalty, which they convert to level the score.

But they need all of the points here and they fight for everything, to such an extent that the Chatel-Guyon n°14, who has only been on the field for a minute, makes a horror late-tackle on Kevin which earns him a yallow card.

The referee has hardly put his yellow card back in his pocket before the n°14 does exactly the same thing again, on Alex this time.

This leads to a little unpleasantness on the field from one or two of the Pionsat players which is always regretted but in this case understandable, but the result is that the referee pulls out the red card and the n°14 goes for the early bath. And quite right too, because it really was deplorable.

Just after this, the final whistle blows and Pionsat come off the field having earned a most unexpected point. And if the defence plays like this for the final two matches then anything is possible.

What made things even better was that St Priest, who were at home to Lempdes Sports, were stuffed 7-0. This means that Pionsat are out of the bottom 2 – for the first time for ages and ages. Only on goal difference, it has to be said, and their last two games are difficult, but they have their noses now slightly in front and it’s up to St Priest to try to catch them.

I also saw Xavier there. He used to play for Pionsat but his working commitments nowadays mean that he can’t make the matches. It was good to catch up with his news.

Apart from that, Rosemary is back in the Land of the Living and we had quite a lengthy chat. I’m invited round for coffee sometime, when I can catch up on all the latest gossip.

However, I should perhaps mention that being on the coffee at the footy last night, and having some chocolate when I came home, it was gone 05:00 when I went to bed last night, or, rather, this morning. Something of a waste of my Sunday lie-in.

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Sunday 9th September 2012 – ONE THING …

… about going to watch the footy with FC Pionsat St Hilaire is that you get to go to some really spectacular places.

The 2nd XI were playing at Chateaugay earlier this afternoon and the road up to the football ground has probably the best view that I have ever seen so far.

Way, way, way down there below us is the Michelin tyre testing ground and then over to the right is Gerzat where we record our programmes for Radio Arverne.

And if there had been less haze we could probably have seen right the way across to Roanne. It really was magnificent.
fc pionsat st hilaire fcpsh football chateaugay puy de dome france As for the football though, it was a disaster.

FC Pionsat St Hilaire started with just 9 players. A hasty telephone call brought along 3 more, somewhat late, and after 15 minutes there was something of a team out there.

With a smattering of new players this season it looked slightly-better organised.

But not for long.

Fabien, who seems to have found a little niche playing in the central defence, had to hobble off.

That meant a reorganisation with Xavier, who played up front for the 3rd XI last season, going up front and Bertrand dropping to midfield and Sébastien dropping to central defence.

When the new right-back was injured, Fabien came back on to replace him but was clearly struggling and it was clear that he was just a passenger in the side

Fabien was pushed up front, which is the correct thing to do with an injured defender and Xavier was put at right-back.

Xavier is a big, awkward, ungainly centre-forward – the type that causes a lower-league defence all kinds of problems in the opposition penalty area, but ball-control and tackling are not, unfortunately his strongpoints.

Shortly after this, someone in the Chateaugay side stood on François’ hand and so that was him off the field.

The willing and good-natured Xavier, who had done his best in goal a couple of times for the 3rd XI, valiantly took over there but the result was really a foregone conclusion.

As for the FC Pionsat St Hilaire 1st XI, it’s clear just how much Jérôme animated the forward line of the team and how much they depended upon him for their results.

With him gone, Michael Bucaud suspended and Matthieu Sikorski injured, they had nothing to offer up front which is totally amazing for a FC Pionsat St Hilaire 1st XI side.

I can’t remember if Cedric, the star centre-forward, actually managed a shot on goal. The service he was receiving was non-existent.

Two controversial decisions decided this match.

The referee overrruled a linesman in an offside decision and allowed play to continue.

So while the Pionsat defenders were waiting for the whistle in response to the flag, the Clermont la Glacière forward popped the ball in the net.

I know the referee (we had quite a chat in the interval) and he has a voice like a foghorn and I certainly didn’t hear him shout for play to continue – and neither did anyone else.

Five minutes later an FC Pionsat St Hilaire forward catches the ball brilliantly on his body and then volleys it beautifully from 25 yards right past the keeper into the net.

The other linesman signals for handball – and I was right level with play and if he has his hands there then I’m going back to school to re-learn all my anatomy – and the referee, miles from play, awards a free kick to Clermont la Glacière.

How the ref saw the incident when he was so far away and the player’s body in the way I just do not know, but I’m going to get myself a pair of eyes just like those just as soon as I possibly can.

Back on the way home, I stopped at the fruit stall at Combronde for some grapes and some melon and then I went round to Rosemary’s to drop off some stuff that I had bought for her in Montlucon.

I had a little pause though because just on one of the bends there was a magnificent view right across the Gorge de la Sioule to St Gervais d’Auvergne perching proudly on its hilltop.

That had to be a moment to reach for the Nikon D5000 and the telephoto lens.

Hard to believe that St Gervais d’Auvergne is a good 15 kilometres further on from here, isn’t it? A good purchase, this lens.

Rosemary and I had quite a chat too – more of a gossip in fact. But that’s not important when you are amongst good friends.

But she had a laugh about me and my grapes – that I can sit and eat through a whole bag of grapes at one sitting.
“You’ll be wanting to go to the bathroom all the time” she said.
“Not me, Rosemary. Once a day, 07:30, every morning, regularly as clockwork!”
That’s very convenient and useful, Eric!”
“Not when I don’t wake up until 07:45, Rosemary, it isn’t.”

-1

Sunday 20th November 2011 – WE HAD A FOOTFEST TODAY.

We were down at Montel de Gelat for the whole afternoon watching the 3rd XI take on the 2nd XI of Montel-Villosanges, followed by the 1st XI taking on the 1st XI of the Chimps.

The 3rd XI were a man short and with no goalkeeper either (chapeau to Xavier to donning the gloves) once again, and lost 1-0 to a disputed penalty. For much of the game they were playing as if it were they who had the extra men and they never looked in any danger against one of the worst teams I have ever seen.

With a couple of extra players to make up a decent pool of players, and with a proper goalkeeper, they could – and should – have demolished this side.

The FC Pionsat St Hilaire administration needs to be asking itself a few serious questions about how seriously they are taking the 3rd XI, as I have said before.

As for the 1st XI they lived up to my expectations by conceding two soft goals, one of thmm being an unchallenged header from a free kick.

The second was when a defender pulled up with a hamstring chasing a loose ball, allowing an attacker a free shot at goal, and I don’t suppose you can do too much about that.

And that was all that Matthieu had to do in the game really – to pick the ball out of the net on those two occasions. For the rest of the match he was pretty much a spectator

not like his opposite number who was in the thick of the action for most of the game.

How the Pionsat side only managed to score 2 is one of those things that people will be asking for years to come because the 1st XI weren’t any better at football than their reserves.

They were however much better at punching and kicking their opponents, and collapsing like a sack of potatoes any time a Pionsat player got within 10 yards of them.

And we had a mass brawl in the closing stages of the game, with even the Chimps trainer becoming involved in the action.

Add to that the crowd hurling gratuitous abuse at FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s linesman and with a few other incidents that were just as unsavoury, I wasn’t sorry when the final whistle was blown.

Sunday 6th November 2011 – WE HAD MORE …

… football today of course.

Mind you, we nearly didn’t. If Percy Penguin hadn’t sent me a text message I probably would be still in bed asleep right now.

After a hurried breakfast I shot off to St Maurice près Pionsat to watch the fist half of the 3rd XI’s match which kicks off at 13:00. I couldn’t stay long – only for the first half in fact, as I needed to be off to catch the 1st XI’s match that kicked off at 15:00

It was 1-0 in FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s favour when I left, but it turns out that they ended up by losing lost 2-1. and that makes me wonder what happened in the match because they were well ahead in the game from what I saw.

But then it’s always going to be difficult for the 3rd XI without a recognised goalkeeper and I wish that the club would make more effort to find one for them.

But Pionsat’s goal was a pearler – another absolute screamer from Xavier, 20 yards out.

He’s big and rather ponderous, just like a lower-league centre forward should be, but sometimes he pulls something out that is so unexpected.

And he can be like that when he’s playing football too.

He has probably the most powerful shot of any footballer I have ever seen, and like this one today, many a goalkeeper has put both hands on the ball but it hasn’t done the slightest bit of good.

If there hadn’t been a net in that goal, the ball would have probably made it all the way to the Atlantic without bouncing.

From there I had to drive like hell through the back lanes to the suburbs of Riom to watch FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st XI in the match against E S Malauzat. And that was a hard-fought game that turned out to be very bad-tempered, and what made me happy in one sense was that most of the physical stuff was being dished out for a change by Pionsat.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve criticised the team time and time again for being something of a lightweight side, easily hustled off the ball, but they were nothing like that today.

Pionsat’s rather physical tactics were having the effect of making the opposing players become all wound up and the opposing specattors were baying at the ref to do something about Pionsat’s physical (but reasonably legitimmate) tactics, but it all made absolutely no difference as Pionsat won 2-1

Pionsat’s goals were two of the best goals that I have ever seen at this level of football. The one scored by Jerome was particularly outstanding.

This was what I called a good day out

And so back home in the miserable depressing rain to find out that it has been miserable and depressing here all day and there’s been almost no solar energy today.

It’s still raining now – misty and foggy outside and it’s probably going to stay like this until next summer I reckon. But it’s not important because if it is still raining tomorrow I can finish off the steps and I’ve also bought the boards to make the worktops in the washroom bit.

I also need to work out where I’m going to put the front door. That has come with its frame and so I reckon that it will be easier to fit it before it’s glazed as the door will be lighter and so easy to manipulate. I can then take the door out of the frame and have it glazed.

-1

Sunday 21st March 2010 – One thing that has been missing from these pages …

… 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.

-5

Sunday 25th October 2009 – It was 9:03 when I woke up this morning

I thought to myself that that can’t be right – and it wasn’t.

Well, it was because in fact the clocks went back this morning and we are now on real time, although by yesterday’s time it would have been 10:03 and that is much more like a respectable time to wake up on a Sunday.

So having breakfasted I had to do a CD of footy photos for Xavier. He has some friends who play for Cebazat and I had photographed them the other week so he had asked me for copies of what I had. And as I was meeting him at Beauregard Vendon where the 3rd XI were playing this afternoon I needed to get my skates on.

First stop though was the fete de la pomme at La Cellette. I’d been invited by Marianne so I went along to say hello. Antoine, Liz and Terry were there so we had a good chat and then it was off to the footy.

Pionsat’s luck ran out today – they only had 10 players and not one of them was what could be called a goalkeeper. For much of the match Xavier was in goal and today’s pic features him diving to push a Beauregard shot round the post for a corner. There was precious little else to cheer.

On the way back home I went via the brocante at St Gervais. And what a waste of time that was. Most of the stallholders were Dutch and if you are a keen follower of my blog you will know that the problem with the Dutch is that they have no word for gratis. I was looking for a metal bucket or something similar to take away my ashes (well, not mine, the ashes out of the stove) but there was nothing that would do. Some stallholder had a battered aluminium casserole and he wanted €4:00 for it. It’s not very often I come away from a brocante empty-handed. Mind you, I met Gilles and Heidi there and we had had a good chat.

Back home I plucked up the courage to tackle that wiring job seeing as it was now dark. I took me about an hour to do it, most of which time was spent trying to fish the torch out from downbehind the battery box.

We’ll know tomorrow whether it works properly.

-8

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: xavier semonsut

Saturday 1st April 2017 – CALL THAT A …

Sunday 27th April 2014 – HA! HA! HA!

Sunday 9th September 2012 – ONE THING …

Sunday 20th November 2011 – WE HAD A FOOTFEST TODAY.

Sunday 6th November 2011 – WE HAD MORE …

Sunday 21st March 2010 – One thing that has been missing from these pages …

Sunday 25th October 2009 – It was 9:03 when I woke up this morning

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