Weather
Sort the weather out, Prime Minister (From Times Series)
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Dennis Signy OBE was a former wartime cub reporter on the Hendon and Finchley Times at £4-a-week and became group editor for 17 years in the late Sixties. He was a national press football writer for five decades, is author of several football books and director of Barnet FC. |
Sort the weather out, Prime Minister
5:36pm Tuesday 14th April 2009
Spring is sprung, The grass is ris, I wonder where the boidies is.
They say the boid is on the wing, But that's absoid - the wing is on the boid.
Allow me the indulgence of a belated welcome to Spring. Paul Furlong, a 40-year-old striker affectionately known to his younger team-mates as 'Grandad', scored a trademark 200th League goal of his career to win the game against AFC Bournemouth.
Coupled with Chester City losing at home to Macclesfield Town, Paul's goal ensured that Barnet are guaranteed League 2 status next and ended a period that is known in football as 'squeaky bum' time.
As we rejoiced in a nosebleed 17th position in the table Mrs S told anyone in earshot that I had been Mr Grumpy for weeks and had been impossible to live with.
The realisation has now hit me, following the Easter Monday visit to Aldershot Town, that we now face three end of season matches and no more rushing to the TV at half time or the end to check how rivals-in-distress Chester and Grimsby Town were faring.
The future is straightforward. Clarify the management position, sort out a nucleus of a squad for next season and go on our hols. Mrs S and I set sail from Southampton in June for a spot of sunshine-searching in the Mediterranean.
I have one confession. Before Paul Furlong scored his matchwinner I had intended using this space on a stentorian call to Prime Minister Gordon Brown to protest about the lack of correct information from the forecasters about where the sun was to shine in Britain over the holidays.
With talk of credit crunch and global recession we were advised that more and more people would be holidaying at home from here on in and we eagerly scanned the forecasts leading up to Good Friday.
Mrs S and I, after checking where and when the sun would arrive, set off to enjoy a trip round the picturesque Midsomer Murders countryside and village green of Buckinghamshire. Our target was lunch in a pub overlooking the common.
But, as Adrienne King arrived to accompany us, she reported that it had just started drizzling. "Never mind", we said, "the forecast is for sun".
Every corner we turned around the highways and byways of Bucks seemed to increase the pelting rain. We had a nice lunch and came home deflated. Get a grip, Mr Brown. If you can run the world economy and oust a leading colleague for wanting to run dirty trick messages in a blog,surely controlling the weather isn't a problem. It would be nice to hear that heads have rolled. Meanwhile, I'll just turn down the sound on the delightful lady forecaster on ITV; I can't stop watching her.
Although the sun did not come out at Underhill on Saturday, the gods certainly looked down on the Barnet aces. Bournemouth hit the crossbar with a good chance, had two shots cleared of the line and forced a save or three from Barnet keeper Jake Cole. The Bees could have been four down at half time.
PS. Next stop: Venice in June. Then back to a diet of Accrington Stanley and Macclesfield. Aint life grand?
