TT No.216: Paul Roth - Sat 22nd March 2008 Kershaw Cambs. League Prem. Div; Waterbeach vs. Hundon Res: 2-1; Att: 60; Prog: 28 pp, 50p; Entry: free; Weather: Snow, rain, sleet, hail, sunshine & bitterly cold too!
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The highlight of my outbound journey today was the discovery of the 'Son of Sid's Brewery' at the Chequers in Little Gransden. Their 'Back to Black' Porter is quite magnificent. The lowlight was getting hopelessly lost in the new town of Cambourne. What an odd place this is! Add in bucketfuls of snow, rain, hail and sleet and I've set the scene for my day out in Waterbeach, situated just North of the city of Cambridge itself, off the A10.
The Recreation Ground, home of high-flying Waterbeach FC, is exactly that.....the small village's recreation ground, and when the goals and rope- surrounds are taken down at the end of play, swings and roundabouts again predominate. There's a small car park here and a cricket pavilion (the game of cricket seems about as far away as the planet Pluto today) which houses changing rooms and from where welcome hot drinks and food are served. A bucket on a table has the colourful and newsy 28 page programme for sale.......drop your 50p into said bucket and take a copy. A proper social club is found along the Cambridge Road, in the village centre.
The match is a clash of the Titans, 3rd versus 1st as the league table stands, and ultimately the result will go a long way to deciding where the championship trophy will end up. In truly appalling conditions at times.......bitter cold, snow that settled for a while, and sleet.....both teams did a fantastic job entertaining the 60 or so souls that braved the Arctic conditions. Two scrappy mix ups in either penalty area had the teams level at one a piece, early on in this crucial match. That's how it remained at half time when everyone to a man decamped to the shelter of the pavilion, for a much needed warm drink. More snow made both play and spectating tough, but the homesters snatched the vital three points by virtue of a superb looping header from their centre forward, 5 minutes from time.
Today, I was joined by fellow 'hopper Keith Aslan, and I think I owe him an apology for mispronunciation of some of my words as we conversed during the second half. The truth is Keith, the muscles in my face had all but frozen solid, like the rest of me!
As I mentioned before, I would like to pay tribute here to the two teams, the referee and groundsman for producing a game of football and pitch that had all present fully absorbed and diverted, if only just, from the horrific weather conditions.
FGIF Rating...............Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
contributed on 23/03/08