Two's Company ( but Freeze a Crowd)

Two's Company ( But Freeze a crowd).

Eat Football, Sleep Football, Live Football.

A great slogan -but given the low attendance today at Polardarren Park, it would appear that very few people left in Merthyr seem to want 'live football'.

True, there was Six Nations Rugby on the television and the subzero conditions meant it was for some very difficult to leave the warmth of the armchair and the outcome of football of the 'live' football match from the Kenyan Premier League on Sky or the Albanian Cup on BT Sports,  rather than supporting our local football team which consists of players from Our Town, neighbouring valleys and of of course Our own Country.

Or perhaps they were all 'happiest at home' reading their Shakespeare?

Now having disposed of the Beast from the East, then the Pest from the West- today saw the return of the ' Purga' for Merthyr.

*Boz note for Ownes: Purga is your word of the week.

A Siberian wind that was capable of freezing goalkeepers eyelashes mid-blink or
St Patrick's Day Guinness urine on English Rugby Chariots of Fire.

Merthyr geographically is set high up in the South Wales Valleys carved out by frozen glaciers and historically is occupied by Neanderthal Man.

Today, on the final day of the Six Nations Rugby Tournament little has changed in millennia.

Except of course that Merthyr people discovered fire (Charbonniers) and of course football.

Now due to the big freeze and enforced match postponements,  just like William Webb Ellis, I had forgotten the purpose of a round spherical pigs bladder.

Having lost touch with the fixture list ( in the same mould as the Solihull Martyr) , I was uncertain as to which side we were playing at home today at our icy stadium just above the
YMCA Steppes.

Looking at the frozen windscreen of the away coach through my frozen eyelashes, I first thought it must have overtaken Sky Spits pundit Jamie Carragher on the M4 motorway down to Wales, until I realised it was St Neots and not Snots thereon.

I half expected to see an orange football on display but was in fact greeted by two of our loyal hardworking volunteers dressed like they were part of the Norwegian Fishing Fleet.

Our ' Fishermen Friends ' are just part of a great team that have adopted the PT Barnum circus credo that the 'Show Must Go On' - proving wrong the saying 'that there is no such thing as the wrong weather just the wrong clothing'.

The same could be said for the fabulous 'Merthyr Noise' brigade, who braved polar bears and killer whales to obtain Taff Water to wash cars, bravely sticking to their task (and to car bonnets in some cases) to help keep our club 'afloat' in these hard times of football austerity.

With several mercenary players having left the club in recent times for financial pastures new, it has left behind a residue of players, who are not just committed to the Club but to each other too.

As one igloo door closes another block of ice opens.

FIFA Walking footballing ambassador Eddie Thomas would confirm that whereas in his schooldays back in the 18th Century, footballing coal was once mined in the Merthyr Valley and it has now been replaced by diamonds.

And he finally can shake off the title Eddie Junior at Merthyr Town too thanks to our latest discovery.

I refer of course to that Koh-i-noor Jewel in the crown keeper Ed Hewitson.

The Ed Boy put in a shift today, despite being dressed today like a miniature frozen muppet frog in a fetching shade of St Patrick's Day green, and proved he was a 'kermitted' Martyr to the Cause by blocking, leaping like Nureyev and getting his positioning correct at every corner and 'puck off' despite his youth and diminutive stature.

'He is one for the future' said Assistant Manager Dean Clarke, as he put manure in the tiny keeper's boots at half-time.

As did the entire Fab Four of Davies, Patten, Harris & Tancock who have had to put up with a lot of the same material all season but yet still remained loyal.

This defensive quartet proved a harder border today than the Post-Brexit Northern Ireland One.

The Cambridgeshire outfit found these 'diamond geezers' impenetrable and the hardest things on the planet to break down.

With the hardest thing of all being the head of our Cwm Rhonddaite Jarrad Wright.

If only St Neots keeper, Finley Irons had been able to peer through the Siberian Snowstorm and done a David Alexander and seen 'the Rhondda one more time'  then he might have had a chance of saving his second minute diamond-bit header.

But then again in Merthyr a once proud Heritage Town built on Iron , no matter how smart his goalkeeping creases, Rhondda Steel was bound to beat St Neots Iron.

With Merthyr 1-0 up in the second minute,  it brought a welcome smile to the wind-chapped faces of the Merthyr faithful in a week that seen the sad loss of geniuses, Stephen Hawking, Ken Dodd and of course Jaye Bowen's great-grandfather Jim.

As to the match itself, the first half was one of attack and counterattack from both teams but with both defences coming out on top with St Neots 3 (Jonny Herd) shackling the mighty
Ian Traylor with a rearguard action not seen since Michael Barrymore first came out of the changing room.

Matthew Harris turned into Bobby Moore for the day and despite playing out of position (as were two of his team mates) had a snow blinder.

His last ditch tackling ( he even had a pat on the head from his fellow patriot Kerry Morgan for one Blizzard Beach slide) and his Harris brush strokes put a gloss on the back line, as he saved Merthyr time and again as the Saints came marching in looking for the equaliser.

To their credit St Neots looked a decent outfit, quick, slick passing and solid at the back.

Their only Achilles Heel being the lack of firepower in front of goal.

The half petered out, with the fifty shades of grey cloud coming from the Abergavenny Sugar Loaf looking ominous.

As Referee Scriven blew his halftime whistle, shards of ice fell from his frozen 'Noddy Holder' sideburns.

As the Merthyr Faithful, now the same colour as the cast of Avatar, headed for the warmth of Romans and Webley's two bar fires.

Huddled around a brazier loaded with Autumn Leaves and unsold Match programmes, I prayed that a Russian oligarch would take umbrage at the tit-for-tat Embassy expulsions and stop their donations to the Tory Party and send some roubles our way to help ease our situation.

After all the City of Hughesovka or Donetsk in Russia was founded by a Merthyr Man (sadly I can't remember his surname) and payback is well overdue.

As the inevitable white flakes started from the Theatre End it was so fine,  it looked like
Daniella Westbrook's morning pillowcase in the early nineties.

It was either that or our young keeper had the worst case of dandruff seen on a football pitch.

Perhaps SuperGav will give him some shampoo advice so he can produce another
Ed & Shoulders performance on the pitch next week.

The game ended with another welcome win, straight out of the George Graham Arsenal Coaching manual and another clean sheet that Dean Clarke so covets, as he too sleeps football tonight.

Best get a double duvet to go with it.

Boz

]Look - it was equally bloody freeing in the Midlands! Watching Solihull v Torquay, I heard the St ... something. And with the Club sec heading off to China (lets start a petition to keep him out there permanently...!)

One of your best, as I sit in front of a log fire in the east.

We all missed your pained expressions at the bad humour on Saturday.

And of course I missed you acting as a windbreak from that freezing Siberian wind.

With all the blue faces and no care for the poorest in society, .no wonder it is called Purga-Tory.

Boz

Solihull Martyr wrote:]Look - it was equally bloody freeing in the Midlands! Watching Solihull v Torquay, I heard the St ... something. And with the Club sec heading off to China (lets start a petition to keep him out there permanently...!)

He has an able deputy!