In Which Reality Bites Fantasy And The Premiership etc Have To Wait For A Match At Ton Pentre FC

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well let's set the scene. I'm in the bath. I've explained before how I'm a fan of a good soak and won't bore you with it again. Listening to a season preview of the Guardian Football weekly podcast. Of the three football podcasts I listen to this is my favourite. In my comfortable relaxed state am jolted by a sentence from the show.

"Defoe is injured".

Defoe? Jermain Defoe? The Jermain Defoe that's on my fantasy football team? Clearly have to change the starting eleven.

So I get out of the bath,dry and go onto the Daily Telegraph fantasy football website.....but for some reason my team wasn't there. Was confused but was in a rush so I decided to create the team again. Exactly the same as before except that Berahino of West Bromwich replaces Defoe. So the team is set up and ready to go when.....the Telegraph Fantasy League website crashes.

I try,try again but it's down. Too late to do anything before the first match begins my fantasy team dies in this initial week.

Whose fault was it? Well I suspect did something wrong initially but then it was compounded by the website crashing. And of course the biggest irony is that not only did Defoe actually play against Manchester City he scored as well.

I had to go to Bridgend Town today. Was in a bit of a rush but went into the other Polish deli there for a look around. Because of my lack of time really couldn't make a considered decision so got these.

I shopped Polish

These barring the packaging are probably about as Polish as I am but that's not the point. The point is that in these post Brexit dark ages we should support the Polish shop against those racists happy to denigrate those Poles who have moved and have set up lives/businesses here. Next time I'm going to Bridgend Town I'll ask on Twitter to recommend some Polish food (meats,cheeses etc) to give them a try.

And one more thing on Bridgend Town. Noticed this building.

Does Have A Certain Style

Twitter tells me it's a church. It does seem worth investigating in the future though I'm not sure when.

Wife/daughter had no real plans for Saturday. As they hadn't I had.Penybont FC were playing at Ton Pentre at the first match of the new season for this, the second tier of Welsh League football. I was going to spend the afternoon in the Valleys. You remember I had a day out in there in May to wallow in the views. Yesterday though it was going to be mainly football.

One quick digression though. As was going out I noticed this.

That bird is big

Had thought that I knew where the Ton Pentre ground was but I'd overshot and what turned out to be an empty ground was in the nearby village of Pentre. To digress for a moment Pentre I was told later was once a longer name than that. It makes sense to me. Pentre in Welsh means village so essentially this is a village called village.

So got back to Ton Pentre to ask where the football ground was. It turned out that I was not that far away.

View number 1

So followed the instructions to the most well hidden ground I know. Essentially park in a nearby street.

View number 2

Across another street.

View Number 3

Cross a bridge.

Bridge

View from the bridge.

With added finger

Turn right by the industrial estate.

Industrial Estate Action

And here you are. Still doesn't give you any idea of what's inside.

Ton Pentre FC

It cost £5 to get in. This included a programme which though more cheaply produced (hence the price) is far more readable than anything else I've seen in this league. It included an application to be a part owner of the club for an annual fee of £10. Must admit it's tempting and will think about this,but I won't decide for a while yet. Working next Saturday and the following week will be driving to Essex (which I'll explain then).

So then I've properly entered the ground. This is the view that awaits.

Quietly stunning

Thing about a Welsh League football game is this. If the match has it's dull moments you can always wallow in the views. This is from the other side of the pitch.

Yes I know

Before I forget let me claim now to be the first man to read an H E Bates novel during the interval at a Ton Pentre FC game. Already I've made history in this club.

The proof

The sole seated stand is in the centre - To the left is the clubhouse

You know football is often described as a game of two halves. Well this was a game of two quarters and a half. The first quarter belonged to Ton Pentre. They started the match attacking the Penybont FC half and were rewarded with a goal in just 8 mins, a perfectly placed header by the number 10.

Relatively soon after the number 9 despite falling down during his run into the box scored another. Two-nil then and it looked bad for Penybont FC

Ton Pentre have a manager and his assistant. I'm assuming that the guy wearing the baseball cap Pulis style is the manager. But it was his sidekick who did most of the shouting in the first half.

The assistant's calls did occasionally go to the bizarre. This was a conversation to the number 8 of his team.

"Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Well done".

The number 8 had a look of a man who did not understand what was been said to him, He was not the only one.

The Dynamic Duo

In the second quarter things seemed to change. Rather like the friendly against the Newport AFC youth team Penybont seemed to get their act together when things seemed to be at their darkest. They scored in the twenty ninth minute (can't tell you who) though how the Penybont player was able receive a cross that went through various defenders and score despite a flapping oncoming keeper is a mystery. From a Ton Pentre view the goal was described by those around me as sloppy. That seemed the best description.

Nothing though sloppy about the second Penybont goal. A cross from the right and a straight volley by the Penybont number 8. It was pure skill.

Two all then and that is how it stayed until half time.

The second half was mainly Ton Pentre. They had chance after chance but were seemingly unable to score. They weren't helped by the match officials. Being young they seemed unable to count the correct distance of a wall in a free kick situation, the offside law or that a throw in is not taken at a spot preferred by the thrower. I blame the education system.

Must admit though have an older man's dislike for officials who are not only younger than you but also have the confidence to wear fashionable hairstyles. Though in this case the assistant referee's hair seems to have been cut using a garden implement.

Shawn by shears

With every wrong decision the Ton Pentre management were by degrees angrier. I heard from the manager what seemed like "forty grams of shocking"after one decision. Not sure you understand but it sounded good.

The next photo shows where I was watching the game from. The men coloured in motorway maintenance are the Penybont FC managerial team.

The brightly coloured dynamic duo

A draw was where this match seemed to be going until in the thirty fifth minute the Ton Pentre number 11 was able to out run a number of Penybont defenders and score. Three-Two to Ton Pentre which turned out to be the final score and. given their second dominance, deserved.

After the match was finished went to see some friends in the nearby village of Llwynypia. As I arrived they were about to take some garden rubbish to the local tip. They suggested that I relaxed in the bench they have in front of the house whilst they disposed of their stuff. This I did. A pleasant few moments reading the H E Bates book in front of this view.

Imagine seeing that in front of your house every day. Even if the building below is an ASDA

It was certainly pleasant. Would've been even more so if I liked the book. That though is for when I've finished it.

Had pleasant chat with tea and biscuits when they returned. Soon though it was time to go. Six pm. Time flies when you've had a good time

Thankyou Ton Pentre FC, Penybont FC and the Rhondda Valley.

It was fun

Until the next time.

Football:In Secret and In Fantasy

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Finished the book Tales From The Secret Footballer by The Secret Footballer. The first thing that needs to be said is that I've not read the original  I Am The Secret Footballer  by the secret soccerista. However what this sequel seems to be is some sort of mixture between gossipy autobiography, more personal accounts and his opinions on various aspects of the game that his experiences have led him to.

Given that this is it's selling point the worst parts were the gossip. There was no tale that surprised me. Secrets but no revelations. Of course the secret that could change all of this is the one our author keeps to himself. Names. Players,clubs,managers and of course him, one detail is studiously avoided I presume at the insistence of lawyers. It makes this aspect, for the reader, unsatisfactory

But the Secret Footballer is an intelligent man. His opinions are far more deeper than you would normally expect from a sportsman and the chapter on depression is worth a read by itself. If I was to give it a mark out of ten it's that chapter that pushes it to a seven.

So the library books are now read and the earliest I can possibly change them is Monday. Which means I need to get a new book from the great unread which turns out to be......

Breaking Vegas - Ben Mezrich

This is one of those books where a geek takes on the gambling house at Vegas. This time though the game isn't poker but the less sexy blackjack. Bought this book many years ago attracted as I was by it's cheapness being ex library. Didn't know about the rules of blackjack then and I still don't now. But that doesn't matter. I've found that not knowing the rules of say, poker, doesn't harm your enjoyment of  the game if the writer can tell a good story. Victoria Coren being an example of this.

When I was looking through the great unread to get the next book to read I noticed a few fantasy football books (the football here being of the American variety). Realising that the Premiership season was just a week away I suddenly thought I'd give it a go. Have tried it before. Rarely with success though. Only once,in the nineties, did it go surprisingly well thanks to Alan Shearer,a few Manchester United defenders and Dennis Wise (very quickly here I'd noticed - not analysed - that every other goal Chelsea scored at that time was either by, or assisted by the minuscule saged one).

Anyway I've made no pretence of winning for this team picked from the Daily Telegraph's Fantasy Football. Wanted to go as random as possible. Originally I'd thought of going all Dice man but that didn't work out because too many players were not assured to be in the first eleven. So instead I've deliberately picked a team that consists one player from the top eleven teams from last season with two exceptions. One is West Ham because I've a superstition that picking any man from the team I follow turns their form to mush (it's happened - trust me). So in this case I've deliberately picked a player from the team that came twelfth - Swansea City. The other is that just for fun I've picked one player outside that first eleven/twelve so another higher placed team was dropped completely.

The team called of course Sopra La Luna (which means over the moon in Italian) is:

Butland - Stoke City

Bellerin - Arsenal

Lovren - Liverpool

Stones - Everton

Morgan - Leicester City

Toure - Manchester City

Sigurdsson - Swansea City

Willian - Chelsea

Tadic - Southampton

Defoe - Sunderland

Ibrahimovic - Manchester United

The missing team here is Tottenham

No player is going to be changed whatever happens unless they are for whatever reason out of the team. In these circumstances he will be replaced by a player from that same club.

As I said before this team won't win. I will however have the comfort of knowing that it will beat at least one person who picked a team through logarithms and computer programs

We shall see how well it does. I'll probably be looking at it properly every Tuesday.

Until the next time