Tuesday 26th March 2013 ko 19.45

Wessex League Premier Division

ROMSEY TOWN 2 (Phillips 41 Harry 90)

FAREHAM TOWN 0

Att 32 (head count)

Entry £5

No Programme

Until I researched this I had no idea why the small Hampshire town of Romsey resonated with me. It’s notable for fly-fishing on the River Test but I prefer my fish in batter with chips so it wasn’t that, but when I saw that Wilbert Awdry was born nearby the pieces began to fall into place. The Rev W Awdry wrote the Thomas the Tank Engine books, and is was him that got me to learn to read as a child. I remember meeting him as a small boy at a model railway exhibition at Oxford Town Hall, and being star-struck for the first time in my short life. You can blame him for what you’re reading now!

The Broadlands Country House is in the outskirts of Romsey too. Variously home to the inventor of Gunboat Diplomacy Lord Palmerston, and Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma, it was designed by Lancelot “Capability” Brown, and was where Prince Charles and Princess Diana spent their wedding night. I’m not sure whether that last fact is necessarily a selling point!

The factor that influenced this tie for me was the opposition. Fareham Town secretary Paul “Splodge” Proctor is a Continue reading →