What a difference a week (and two players) makes. After going down 5-1 to South Ettalong in a fairly shambolic performance last week, Barnstoneworth turned up to Frost Reserve to find Andy and Tom Lynch available upfront. Read more
After a pre-season that included four weeks of continuous rain, Barnstoneworth had some fitness work under their belts, but not much in the way of skills training, and no trial game, so it was something of a motley crew that turned up for the first game of the season. Read more
After being rained off several weeks before, the match against East Gosford became D-grade’s final game for the season, having finished fifth in the competition.
As the team had been formed only the year before to play in F-grade, and was composed largely of non-soccer players Read more
Blazing sunshine and a sticky pitch awaited Barnstoneworth when the team finally managed to find Austin Butler Oval Two, about five minutes before kick-off. With minimal warm-up and missing their goalkeeper, Barnstoneworth made the obvious decision to put their star striker Peter ‘Pez’ Miller in goals. Read more
After experiencing some difficulty finding the ground, the Barnstoneworth team welcomed Damien Vane-Tempest back to the centres following a long absence. Despite it being mid-winter in high-altitude banjo country, it was a blazing sunny day, and the sweat broke out within five minutes of the opening whistle. Read more
A very relaxed Barnstoneworth team was manning the sideline at Kariong Oval, when your correspondent arrived, struggling under the combined harassment of children, folding chairs, dogs and an appalling hangover. The team was apparently unconcerned with the need to warm up before the match, being too busy trying to shield themselves from the positively Baltic gale howling in from the west. Read more
Barnstoneworth approached this game against table leaders Umina in a slight state of trepidation, having been defeated roundly at the last meeting. Discovering that the match was to be adjudicated by the same female referee who’d delivered a poultice of penalties a few weeks before at Wyoming didn’t improve matters, but umpires’ decisions are fickle things—as, it’s rumoured, are women—and Barnstoneworth discovered the truth of this maxim five minutes into the first half when Peter ‘Pez’ Miller received a long pass and found himself in space with no-one but the goalie twixt him and the goalmouth. Read more
Whistle-fest is the only way to describe a game between two evenly-matched opponents, that was dragged down to a stop-start affair by a referee who blew more penalties than a Welsh rugby ref with a hangover. Read more
Despite threatened rain, Barnstoneworth turned up to a sunny afternoon at Gavenlock Oval, where a muddy pitch awaited them. Having drawn with Gosford earlier in the season in a game they thought they should have won easily, Barnstoneworth started the game with confidence, despite being short four key players and down to one reserve. Read more
This match started with black armbands and a minute’s silence around the circle in remembrance of Casper Ellis, a Terrigal Under-12s player who lost his fight with leukaemia the previous week. Having all joined this team by dint of being fathers, the Barnstoneworth side wishes to send its condolences to the Ellis family. Read more