Saturday 8th October 2016 ko 19.45

Western League Division One

CALNE TOWN 3 (Dolman 21p Jones 29 Webb 61)

CORSHAM TOWN 2 (Pring 12 90)

Att 257

Entry £5

Programme £1

If the day started at the cheese of Cheddar then it finished at the Ham of Calne. Every time you’ve eaten a genuine slice of Wiltshire Cured Ham, chances are it originated at the Harris meat processing plant in Calne or until its closure in 1983 at least. Until then the trade in Irish pigs meant that the plant was roughly half-way to Smithfields Market in London. Time and pork wait for no man it seems.

The whole feel of the hop changed from Westbury to here, darkness helped but there was also the spice of a local derby, the reverse of the opening hop game last year. There was also the matter of it being the first game under Calne’s new floodlights, and my camera and several others were grateful for that! I do however think I missed a trick here…

I first visited Bremhill View well over a decade ago, and then the club had clearly been going through a change of committee. The only obvious impact that was having on the casual spectator was that a far more basic programme was being produced, and at a nominal cost. The magazine was described as “Temporary” so perhaps I should have dug it out of its box in the loft, and asked whether I could swap in for the permanent edition!

In the present the game went pretty much the same way as last season’s game. Again there wasn’t much between the two sides, but Calne were just that little bit sharper where it mattered.

It took around an hour to get back to Clevedon, and after that I dropped off two of Robyn’s nephews back in Bristol. I drove under the Clifton Suspension Bridge and glanced in the rear view mirror. There were 2 boys fast asleep with grins on their faces. I can think of no better compliment to our host clubs.