Glynis Wright admits her husband's blood pressure is currently under strain having to watch Hereford United and isn't sure if it might be affecting her as well. But she still manages to write a great report on last night's events.
We made the long journey down the M5 on Tuesday night - to watch the Edgar Street lot (hopefully) sort out relegation candidates Forest Green, who hang out in a large village about halfway between Gloucester and Bristol. In fact, if you've ever made the trek to Bristol or the West Country by rail, without knowing it, you've passed the place - it's where that enormously-long tunnel you have to shoot through finally ends. Not that it concerned us much, mind; it most certainly was The Dickmobile for us on this occasion, and the journey down was simplicity itself. Just get off the motorway just after Gloucester, head towards Stroud, pick up the A46 - then just keep going in the general direction of Bath. The best bit, though, is the location of their ground - right on top of a bloody big hill. Strange, that - I'd lived not all that much further down the road for 13 years, passed through Nailsworth umpteen times - and never once twigged the place had a football club enjoying life at Conference level.
Not that they will be a Conference club much longer, the way they're going; tonight's little soiree was just about their final chance of avoiding the drop, so they needed the points just as much as the visitors, if not more. Still, it was quite pleasant to sit in their little social club beforehand, glass in hand, just watching the world go by. And the antics of the poor bloke running a second beer-bar at the other end; The Last Stand at The Alamo, it was, with our rotund curly-haired chum playing the role of Davy Crockett, minus coonskin cap, of course.
It all made for quite a cagey start, and once more, a bit of an Albion Old Boys' Reunion really (yep, our former players don't half fetch up in some strange places!), the former Baggie this time being none other than Des Lyttle, still with that lovely infectious grin of his floating vaguely around his lower jaw. The sheer enormity of what was at stake for both sides led to lots of mistakes all round, but the Bulls were the first to get off the mark courtesy of a textbook header from a corner (a shame for their keeper, as he'd done such a competent job trying to deny the visitors the spoils up till then), the scorer being "Lisa" Stansfield.
And, not long after that, the visitors made it two; again, Stansfield was the perpetrator of the damage, courtesy a lovely defence-splitting ball threaded through to the lad just at the right moment - all he then had to do was smash the thing past their unfortunate keeper and into the net. Not such a good moment for Des Lyttle, though - that "killer" ball left him for dead, completely and utterly. Cue for great jollification among the cider-slurpers, who had come to this one mob-handed, their impressive following certainly spread over two sides of that small ground, and, when you looked even more closely, a respectable sprinkling around the part supposedly designated for the use of the home supporters. How many? Well, the gate was a record one for Forest Green - 2,100, give or take a few, with, I reckon, well over a thousand visitors chucking in their money's worth. No wonder the blasted ground looked so full.
Two goals up come the interval, and poor Forest Green heading for the rockpile, their cause not being helped one little bit by two factors - their insistence on playing Route One stuff, and the many niggling fouls they perpetrated in a gallant attempt to stop Hereford's tap. Time also to grab our usual supply of half-time sweetmeats as donated by our intrepid band of female pensioner Bulls sitting immediately behind us in the stand - and very welcome too, they were.
Come the second half, then, and for a while, it really looked as though the Hereford bid for the spoils might go off the rails a tad. How come? Forest Green changed their battle-plan; instead of slinging balls into orbit every time they wanted to make progress, they started to play it on the ground, and much more effectively, along the flanks, especially the left. Clearly, the boil hadn't been lanced sufficiently well to completely remove the pus. Suddenly, it was the visitors that looked at sixes and sevens; this clearly wasn't in either the script or the job-description, so I wasn?t too surprised when they eventually managed to get one back, from a set-piece taken a little to the left of the edge of the box. Oh, whoops - and as for my other half, by that stage, he'd already run out of fingers to chew, and was now starting on the knuckles.
Time for a few judicious subbings, then, the first of which was former Baggie Carey-Bertram, who replaced the completely-knackered Lee Mills up front. And that was the moment when the entire game swung the visitors' way, as that strike had, unsurprisingly enough, given the Gloucestershire club renewed hope, enough to make the possibility of them getting on level terms once more a not-so distant one, suddenly. And it was Danny The Former Baggie wot won it for them, from a cross emanating from the left wing - and their keeper had absolutely no chance of stopping the shot, delivered from about ten yards, I reckon.
Against the run of play a wee bit, especially after all the hard work those Forest Green players had put in to make their goal happen, but talk about "timely" - had our former Baggie not been in the right place at the right time, I reckon Forest Green might well have gone on to grab another - desperation does remarkable things to people at the best of times, and can be manna to struggling football clubs. As it was, that strike completely knocked the stuffing out of Forest Green, and the rest was a formality by comparison. And, just before the end, The Bulls even re-launched their "secret weapon", the remarkable lad I mentioned on Saturday night, Leroy Williams - and yes, even over the course of that short period on the field, his unusual antics caused complete and utter mayhem in the home side's ranks.
The final whistle, when it came, was music to Bovine ears, and just as well they triumphed; when the other Conference scores that night were read out, it appeared that most of the play-off chasing pack had won also. Not that my other half cared, though - he now reckons that The Bulls only need four points from their last three to ensure they get a welcome (and money-spinning, probably) coda to their season. Thank God; as I said, 'Im Indoors is becoming distinctly schizophrenic these days! Now where did I put those blasted tranquillisers?
Text at top (next game etc)
Next Game: Rushall At Home In The League On Saturday 30th November At 3.00pm