Saturday 22nd July 2023 ko 14:00

Pre-season friendly

YATELEY UNITED 3 (Westell 49 57p 61)

ROMSEY TOWN 3 (Moreno 36 A Trialist 60 B Trialist 83)

Andy Samuels (manager) sent off 38 (foul & abusive)

Att 32 at Sandhurst School 3G, Greenfinch Road

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It does pay to have a back-up plan. I’d woken up expecting to watch Glyncorrwg AFC, but they were kind enough to let me know their game had been lost to overnight rain, so I changed plans and headed to Wiltshire League club Ludgershall Sports. But the A34 was blocked at Abingdon; I waited an hour before being slowly shepherded off the main carriageway on to a diversion where a working knowledge of the North Berkshire League was handy.

That meant that I’d never have made a 12:30 ko in Wiltshire so it was on to Plan C… Now can I be completely honest with you? The last ground I wanted to visit was a caged 3G with no cover at the back of a school with the rain hammering down. That of course is precisely where I ended up at, but I did see the positives in it, over and above the new ground to add to the count!

The first was Romsey Town who were so supportive when I tried unsuccessfully to get a Wessex League Hop up and running back in 2015 and I’ve never forgotten their committeeman who made a point of thanking me for my efforts when I saw his club at Hythe & Dibden a few weeks later. If we ever see a Wessex League Hop in the future, they’ll be at the front of my thoughts.

I’d seen Yateley a week or two earlier in Leatherhead when Metropolitan Police won in no small part to them having two teams worth of players- it was far from the thin blue line! But Yateley really do interest me, as a team newly promoted to the Combined Counties League, and I’ll look for a midweek fixture to explore Sean Devereux Park.

But as uninspiring as the surroundings were, the game certainly was exciting. I’ve long opined that for some there is no such thing as a friendly and this match was a case in point. Both sides lost players to the sin bin for dissent, but the real talking point was the dismissal of Romsey manager Andy Samuels for use of the word “Cheat” in the direction of the referee. Now I didn’t hear the exchange of views but having sat on enough disciplinary sub-committees over the years observe that if you use that word anywhere near an official you are likely to be on fairly dodgy ground.

Notwithstanding that, both sides will have see plenty to give them optimism for the new season, and that Yateley have a real gem in hat-trick hero Charlie Westell. I half trudged, half squelched my way back to the car; any cage in a storm…