HONEST TOM YOU’VE GOT TO STOP … I CAN’T HOLD IT ANY LONGER

Everyone was looking forward to the trip to Pershore as no-one had ever been before and no-one had the slightest idea where it was. Well that’s not quite true … everyone thought they knew (vaguely) where it was but none of these geographic locations were within 50 miles of each other. Another reason for looking forward to the trip was that Pershore were next to bottom of the league and a rare win for TRFC 1sts beckoned.

Roger was away in Americal visiting his Grandchildren and missing (thankfully as it turned out) the whole of the Six Nations Championship. Pont, knowing that Roger was away, had, the previous week, requested temporary membership of the Supporters Club. This had been granted despite Pont’s refusal to drive. Then, on Friday night, Pont had cried off … his spouse had, apparently, arranged a shopping trip to Tescos. Pont had contacted Ned to tell him of his conversion to New Man / House Husband. Ned had been appalled and asked Pont if he were a man or a mouse and accused him of being a spineless wimp, firmly under the thumb of his spouse. Ned’s diatribe went on for some time and the effect on Pont was to pump more and more male hormones into his blood stream so by the time Ned hung up in disgust Pont was a raging warrior … the Genghis Kahn of TRFC womanhood … Vllad the Impaler of all Tesco stores and ready for battle with his spouse. So Pont went to Sue and said ‘Pretty please could he please go to Pershore with the boys. They could, he said, still go to Tescos on Sunday’ Sue relented and granted Pont permission to travel. Pont’s Sue did, however, warn him that he must not think that he could make a habit of this sort of thing.

Ned had reckoned 1hrs travelling and 1 hour for lunch so it was a 1230 depart time from outside Ned’s house. It was TGGW’s turn to drive and as he sat in the car waiting for the others to arrive he asked Ned if we had got any further in discovering where Pershore was. Ned said not worry because Steve had looked it up on the Internet and got directions and he had (in the absence of Rog the caterer) found a pub for lunch as well. Steve and Pont arrived nearly on time and TGGW asked Steve if he was sure he knew exactly how to get to the pub and the ground. TGGW did not want to be driving round in circles whilst the rest of the occupants argued about which way to go. Steve said it was all under control … 100%. He then gave Ned a sheaf of papers which were step by step directions from t’ Internet on how to get to Pershore Rugby Club via the Pub which was called the Anchor. Steve said the pub was next door to the Rugby Club anyway. Ned said he didn’t like reading Instructions in a moving car because it made him feel sick … but he would do his best. The first set of Instructions on the list did not match at all with anything anywhere in the immediate vicinity. This was because, explained Steve, the Instructions started at his house rather than Ned’s and we would have to get on the M5 and take it from there.

The M5 was gained easily enough apart from a long wait at the daft traffic lights to get on it at Falfield. The Instructions decreed that the M5 should be exited at J07. It was a long way to J07 and TGGW attempted to listen to the radio Wales broadcast on the Wales vs Ireland game. TGGW hoped that Wales would loose otherwise they would win the Triple Crown. But he wasn’t all that worried one way or the other. Listening to the broadcast was more by way of passing the time during the long slog up the M5. It proved, however, almost impossible to hear this broadcast for three reasons. The first was that the reception was not very good on the M5. The second was that the road noise was unusually pervasive. The final, and overriding reason, was that Messers Ponting, Lewis and Pinder were making a Gawd awful racket occasioned by their discussions of the latest rounds of bloody skittles in the Thornbury Skittle League Division 7.

J07 was reached at last and the skittles discussion ground to a halt as the more important business of finding Pershore RFC took precedence. The Instructions said to take the first exit along the A44 towards Evesham and Worcester. This struck everyone in the car as a bit strange because the 3rd exit on the roundabout was marked ‘Pershore B1234’. Steve reckoned it was a good job they were going by the Internet Instructions otherwise they may have taken the B1234 and ended up … Gawd knows where. He permitted himself a bit of smugness when he thought of all the other TRFC supporters, and indeed the team, who had not equipped themselves with a set of Internet Instructions … would be heading off on a little country road to the depths of … Gawd knows where.

The Instructions were followed to the letter and were incredibly detailed …
Leave roundabout 1 exit onto A44.
Stay on A44 for 0.62 miles.
You are entering Worcester.
Enter roundabout and leave at the 2 exit onto??? (didn’t actually say onto what!)
You just left Worcester.
Follow the Swinesherd Way (A4440) for 0.75 miles.
You are entering Worcester.
Enter the roundabout and leave at the 3 exit onto the A44 (why did we leave the A44?)
Stay on A44 for 0.19 miles
You just left Worcester.
Follow the A44 for 5.9 miles.

It was at this point that things started to go wrong. TGGW was fed up hearing Ned intone over and over again about whether we were leaving or entering bloody Worcester. But this was a minor inconvenience when compared to the problem they now faced. The A44 had disappeared and been replaced by the Athirtybloodyeight! This was not good. Had they gone wrong somewhere? Were the Instructions wrong? The Instructions were discarded, they drove into the centre of Worcester. TGGW pulled into a layby, got his road map out of the boot, chucked it to Steve and Pont and told them to sort it out. This did no good at all as by the time Pont and Steve had found the right page they were back at the Motorway exit 7 roundabout. TGGW/Ned knew this would happen as they drove along the road out of Worcester … the only road … whilst Pont and Steve argued in the back of the car. Gollocks to this said TGGW and headed off down the B1234 towards Pershore. A little way down this road, which appeared to be very big for a B road, they came upon another sign which said ‘Pershore B1234 – formerly A44’. This shed a dim light on the problems they were having but it was very very dim. Why had they gone in completely the wrong direction? Why had the A44 disappeared? How could they ever have got to Pershore by following the A44 in the wrong direction. The mystery remained one of those things that make you wonder if we understand anything at all about the world we live in and the nature of space / time wormholes. How for instance does a rope mange to tie itself in knots after having been left coiled up for eons. Why do randomly switched traffic lights lead to better traffic flow than those controlled by a computer backed up by years of trials and research.

Anyway Pershore was soon reached and a left turn taken to some peculiar named place where the pub and the Rugby Club were situated. It (the oddly named village) was well signposted and easy to find but there were quite a few turnings. TGGW attempted to memorize them but was told by everyone else that this was a waste of time because it would be easy on the way back because they would just follow the signs for the motorway … hmmm. The pub had a little tiny public bar and a posh bar with tables and wine glasses and cloth napkins. The Supporters Club followed their leanings and went into the public bar but it was full up with three people and they had to go in the posh bar. Some beer and food were ordered and it was all very nice. The beer was a real ale called Piddles but it ran out before Ned could get his and he had to have 6X. The pub window overlooked the river Avon and had a lovely patio area leading down to the banks of the river. TGGW wanted to go and sit outside but Ned said he was an ill man and couldn’t sit out in the cold wind. The rest of the Southern girl’s blouses just said it was too cold. The food soon arrived … TGGW had sizzling vegetables in black bean sauce which he thought was a description of how they were cooked but they did actually sizzle as in they made a sizzling noise. Ned had Lasagne, Steve had his normal boring sausage although it had, apparently come all the way from Cumberland. Pont had ordered ham/egg/ chips but they had run out of ham so he had another two pints of Piddles which was back on by this time. Ned asked the landlord (who was a bit of an odd bloke) where the Rugby Club was. The landlord said we had to turn around and take the first left by the war memorial and just go down that road for a mile or so. So the pub was not next door to the Rugby Club as Steve’s Internet Instructions would have it. Steve denied that this was another failure of t’ Internet and claimed that 1 mile was, to all intents and purposes, next door to. Steve however declined the invitation to walk ‘next door’.

There was some food at the Rugby Club. Not very much because all the other supporters had come via the B1234 and got there long before the Supporters Club. There was just time for a pint before k.o. Pont had two pints … nobody else bothered. TGGW had a bit of food and talked to the lady who had prepared it and explained how they had got lost. She said exactly the same thing had happened to them the previous week when they had relied on t’ Internet to get them to Chosen Hill. The Wales / Ireland game was on the TV but Wales were winning and Shane Williams had just scored another brilliant individual try so most people went out to watch Thornbury and Pershore. Pont and Steve stayed in the warm and drank some more beer.

The wind howled along the length of the Pershore Rugby field and the whole area was desolate looking. There were miles and miles of barren, flat looking farmlands stretching as far as the eye could see. Ned said that one of the Pershore blokes had told him that when the winter floods came in 2007 the water had got up to within two feet of the crossbars on the Rugby field. This was hard to credit because the flat area must have covered several square miles, there was not a hollow where the rugby field was so the whole area must have flooded to the same depth. There must have been trillions of gallons of water. Where did it all come from and where had it gone to? Another of life’s mysteries. Thornbury were fielding a weakened side due to unavailabilities so a victory was not guaranteed. By half time, however, they were twenty odd points up and even taking into account the gale at their backs they looked well in control. TGGW went to watch England / Scotland on the TV. England were terrible and lost. Thornbury won easily 36-0 and Pont drunk some more beer. So did Steve / Ned /TGGW. The Pershore kitchen had not yet recovered from the floods and the Supporters Club departed just as a van load of fish and chips arrived for the TRFC 1st team. As they left the club TGGW glimpsed a TRFC 1st team player (may have been S Adams) cramming handfuls of chips into his gob … with both hands.

The trip back was not easy as Steve/Pont/ Ned had predicted. They didn’t find the B1234 (formerly known as the A44) and ended up on the new A44 heading towards Evesham. It was, by now, too dark to read the road map so they just kept going. It had taken a while to realise that they were not on the road they had come on because TGGW kept thinking he could recognise some landmarks. He was wrong, on every occasion, but was encouraged, by the rest of the car occupants, to recognise even more landmarks in a doomed attempt to bolster their dreams that they might not be lost again. After a long long time they saw a sign for the motorway. This cheered everyone up so TGGW put a cd on to sing along to. Nobody liked the cd (All time greatest C&W hits) so TGGW changed it for a cd by a Welsh Male Voice Choir. The choir sang some good songs but they sang them so slowly that nobody could sing along. So TGGW switched the cd off and he and Ned sang ‘The Old Wooden Cross’. This didn’t take long because they only knew 4 words of the song. Steve and Pont started to talk about skittles again and it seemed a long long time before they reached the Motorway. Before they did so Steve had started to get an urge for a pee and had made half hearted requests for a pee stop. TGGW ignored him and Ned said if he could hold his pee, after consuming all the water tablets he had to, then Steve should have no trouble holding his. As they got closer and closer to the Motorway TGGW also developed the first signs of wanting a pee. He alleviated the urge by holding the end of his willie between the thumb and first finger of his right hand. Steve’s mild requests became more urgent because he knew once they were on the Motorway there would be no stopping until Michael Woods Service Station. They got on the Motorway (J10) without stopping for a wee. Steve’s pleadings to drive faster were pathetic. Steve said he would have to pee in TGGW’s car if they didn’t stop soon. Steve said he really could not hold it much longer and they just had to stop. They passed the 1 mile sign for Michael Woods service station and Steve renewed his pleas. Ned pointed out that it was only two miles from the service station to the Rugby Club. Steve said he would never hold out that long. TGGW turned off, at the last possible moment, into the service station. Steve was not satisfied with this and wanted TGGW to stop the car as soon as they entered the car park rather than driving the 200 yds to the café (and bogs) down the other end. TGGW compromised, mainly because Steve was now becoming incoherent and more than slightly unbalanced. The car stopped next to a camper van. TGGW got out and wandered off towards the bogs. Behind him Ned got out of the car and followed obeying the Supporters Club rule that you should never pass a toilet. Behind him Steve unzipped his flies and started to pee against the front of the camper van which afforded him at least a modicum of privacy. Behind him Pont remained in the car, incredibly unaffected by the 8 pints he had consumed that afternoon. TGGW had got about half way to the bogs when Ned came sprinting after him. Ned was pissing himself (metaphorically not literally) because he said that as Steve had pulled his plonker out and started to pee a great big bloke, eating sausage and chips, had appeared at the window of the camper van. Ned had run quickly away and TGGW now joined him in the run away from trouble and towards the bogs. Steve joined them in the bogs and said that the great big bloke, who may have been Henry Cooper, had got out of the van and asked Steve what the f*** he thought he was doing. Steve had ran away shouting over his shoulder ‘sorry mate’ whilst frantically trying to do up his flies. Pont had been left to face the music because, apparently, the great big bloke could not run even as fast as the tortoise that Steve had become. Steve/ TGGW/Ned waited at the entrance to the café until the camper van drove away the they strolled back to the car to see how Pont was getting on. Pont was snoring softly, had noticed nothing amiss and still did not need a pee.

TGGW got safely back to TRFC, they had another pint then everyone went home.