Football Recap of the Month - April 2024 part 1

I went to nine games in April, so am splitting the month report over two posts

Game 52: Haverfordwest County 2-1 Barry Town

As I went in to the ground I saw what looked like a filled in bomb crater in the goal-mouth. Haverfordwest's late winner came after the Barry keeper slipped over in the mud. My company for the night was Jon, who I had last seen at the Newport County game I was crazily late for back in August. (The time when the train from Cardiff didn't stop until Reading.) It was Jon's first Barry away game and he said he might well come to another one. 

Game 53: Penrhiwceiber Rangers 3-1 Cardiff Draconians

Penrhiwceiber is at the start of the Cynon Valley. It has a low wall along one side of the pitch that is really comfy to sit on. Company was Scott, my former NHS colleague, whose son plays for the Dracs. The game hinged on a rather soft penalty that gave 'Ceiber the lead early in the second half.

Game 54: Truro City 1-2 Torquay United

This game was played at Gloucester City's Meadow Lane ground, which I hadn;t been to before. It means the "home" team travelled further than the "away" team and the "away" team had to travel further than if they had travelled to the "home" team's home. It was played in Gloucester because Truro's borrowed pitch is unplayable - this was towards the beginning of a terrible schedule for Truro where they were playing four nights in a week, including on consecutive evenings. 

Company was Adam, Cathy's cousin who lives in Gloucester and has been a Torquay fan all his life, his son Luke, and Adam's friend, Nas. We also saw England and Aston Villa star Ollie Watkins at the game because he has a friend who plays for Truro. 

Game 55: AFC Llwydcoed 0-2 Cardiff Draconians

Another game played at a borrowed ground, this time at Rhiw Dar, home of Taff's Well FC. Company was my soul sister Sara, who was impressed by the clubhouse with it's walls plastered in memorabilia, and that you get a biscuit with your half time cup of tea there. The Dracs won with two late goals scored after the 90 minute mark.

 Game 56: Barry Town 2-1 Aberystwyth Town

Two seasons ago Barry lost to Aberystwyth in their last home game of the season and were relegated. This win came after Barry were already safe and left Aberystwyth still in danger of relegation going into the final game. This was Barry's first win in Phase 2 of the Cymru Premier season. I felt mildly nostalgic thinking it was the season was pretty much over. 

April 2022 - a month of endings

April felt like a very busy month, marked by the end of two personally significant eras. I was working my notice in my job ahead of a move into a new role in May. I also spent a weekend in Shrewsbury so I could attend the closing service of the church that my mum and dad joined as founder members about 20 years ago.

It was also a month where I had a birthday, we had visitors at Easter and I went to ten football matches. I will be doing a second post reviewing the games otherwise this post will be too long. I've already posted about Barry Town getting relegated. After the relegation I went to their last game of the season up at Cefn Druids. I took my nephew Zac along for the first time to a game as just the two of us. We stopped at Mcdonald's on the way, which made his day.

At Easter we had visitors. My sister Sarah brought her three kids to see us on Good Friday. We went into the city centre and that meant we got to see some of the Dog's Trail statues of Snoopy. Here's Cathy with her two nieces and Snoopy.

Then in the week after Easter, we saw my sister-in-law ahead of a big birthday for her. We had a family meal out in Gloucester and Cathy and I got to wander around Gloucester Docks which is all done up and fancy now. We met a random egg dude outside the military museum.

There was also a dock crane looking all industrial and cool. I always like seeing cranes.

The final Sunday at Hope Church in Shrewsbury was handled well by the leadership team. It could have easily been a sad occasion. Instead, after a short service, there was a meal out for the people who attended. It felt celebratory with a positive atmosphere in the room. I sat next to my friend Clive, who I spent many church youth group evenings with back in the day, and we talked about fun times we had 30 years ago.

The church's decline seemed to happen quickly. Last summer I went to services with about 50 people present, but there was a domino effect of people leaving and a couple of months back the trustees met and decided the church had reached a point where it was no longer viable. I wanted to go up for the last service because it had been really important to my dad - he expended a lot of emotional energy over the years there, and he had talked to me about it (a lot!) during long phone conversations.

I know it may sound silly, but I think my dad would have wanted me there to represent him at such a historic moment. Just as he was present at the birth of the venture, I was there to see it close.

The other personally significant closing of an era was working the final weeks of my notice as the manager of the paediatric diabetes clinical network - a job I had been doing for almost 7 years. I did my best to finish well and get everything cleared off my desk or handed over to people who can continue various projects. It's stressful trying to document as much head knowledge as possible in a way that will make some sort of sense to the person following after. I doubt I captured everything, but as I have said to lots of colleagues, I'm not going far and they will be able to track me down easily enough if they want. 

At my leaving meal on the last Friday in April, I was presented with a cartoon of myself with various aspects of my work and interests represented. 

The umbrella is from the logo on the network, and the mammoth character in the background is from a book that started as a leftfield dicussion in the kitchen of my colleague Rose and is now a published resource for children with diabetes. The cartoon was drawn by Rich, who I used to work with 15 years ago and who illustrated the book about mammoths. He drew me a bit jowly, but I forgive him. 

So, it was a crazy busy month, but a good one. I even hit a milestone on my baseball card blog, publishing a post with the 1000th card in my collection, in my 500th blog post. That blog then took a back seat for the rest of the month as I was trying to keep on top of  everything else.

Working with the general public

You never know what someone will say when you stick them in front of a camera. That’s the joy of doing vox pops, and today was no different.

After throwing ourselves on the mercy of the lovely Demelsa, we were allowed to film inside the Eastgate Shopping Mall in Gloucester, instead of out in the squally rain and the cold. We got a good mix of people, which was what we were looking for. However, the older generation of black passers-by were very reluctant to participate, which was a real shame. We now have an off-balance collection of mainly white people putting questions to camera.

We did have one star though – a gentleman who approached us (always a winner, those). He was given the question “Why doesn’t my wife understand me?” and was instantly up for it. “That’s my question!” he said.

Then looking at the camera, he asked, while theatrically throwing his arms around:

“Why doesn’t my wife understand me? Whyyyy? What’s wrong with her? Whyyyy doesn’t she understand me? What can I dooo?”

It was all I could do to keep the boom mike level I was laughing so hard. I just hope it gets used on the relationships DVD that comes out next year.