Yes I think its good that there are more games thus giving the management a chance to look at the players over a longer term. There needs to be balanced view though, are we really going to get a proper test against Thamesmead etc, (no direspect intended to Thames mead) at the standard of player we want. It looks like the srerner test ie the likes of Grays may have gone and no suprise there.
I would also like to see a few more league clubs there. Purely from a budgetary point of view as these would pull in more money as you may have the occassional rising star/old pro in the team. I guess the trouble from the West Ham game last year also diminishes this route.
I dont know if we have the contacts anymore. Graham (RIP) seemed to have a few but I would hope that we could pull a few strings with our new team and some of the players. What about Brighton for example?
A few years ago I went to a pre-season match with my mate Bob.
He had terrible haemorrhoids and he brought along a pillow to sit on. It was a nice evening; Bob smelt of the cheap aftershave he was given by some Belgium based hooker he hooked up with and married during a booze cruise. She had magnificent mammories too, by the way, and quite frankly I was at a loss as to why he did not bring them along for some comfort.
Eddie drove the car in his usual fashion: Audio German pornography on the car stereo while he spanked the back of a monkey in the car park of Little Chef. Bob and I didn't like to discourage him from doing this, so we went inside for one of their glazed all day breakfasts. This was before the mobile phone revolution took hold, so we despatched a carrier pigeon to tell the two Thai gilrs arrving at Dover that we would be a little late.
Well, by the time we got to Dover, they had eaten the bloody thing and were in the process of turning tricks in the cabin of an Eddie Stobart. Fortunately, there was enough left over for us all to enjoy a fish supper.
I don't recall much about the game itself; I had an enflamed testicle and it was giving me some grief. For some stupid reason I accepted Bob's generous offer of the use of his ointment that was generally for the sole use on his Farmer Giles'. It did not help in the slightest: The haemorrhoid cream had some sort of dodgy chemical reaction with the cheap Thai lipstick and I had to sooth my aching gonad in a pint of warm IPA. No sooner had I dipped my aching gonad in said plastic pint container, John Parry sent a screaming shot wide of the goal cathcing my Thai lady in the face. In an effort to rescue her, my hands were covered in shandy.
In the Magistrates' court on the Monday morning, Bob and Eddie hooked up with two working girls due before the beak after they were arrested themselves for an incident with a lawn mower and a Percy Sledge CD. The four of them absconded before the miscarriage of justice that was my nine month custodial sentence could be handed down.
I spent most of my time in Ashford nick because there was a shortage of beds in HMPS. I'm not complaining, there was plenty to do. During the days I was allowed out to work on the railways as a Coolie. During the evenings I would serenade duty officer WPC Flick who was entrusted with my duty of care.
Strangely, for the last three weeks of my sentence they sent me to HMP Brixton in south London. HMP Brixton was ostensively a remand institution, but there were a few lifers' there trying to do a quiet bit of bird. I made a special friend and we became lovers. I was his "hope on a rope" for fourteen hot nights.
I never caught up with Bob and Eddie. They now run a Launderette in Cheltenham together.
For my own sins, I travelled the world as a shoe-shine boy, topping up my existence with the meagre winnings I would make singing in pub karaoke competitions.
Barbara and I met in a sex-change clinic in Bangalor (india) and now run a small B&B in Dudley, West Midlands. Often while Babs and I are shaving in the morning, I think back to that useless effort by John Parry and thank my lucky stars.
