| I recall the one evening I spent marking our field last season. No one else had turned up, and the field was unmarked because no one else had bothered. So Littlest F and I started; line up with the two posts lengthwise, two posts sideways, and measure. Jolly fun, and we had done the first few marks. Then Chairman turns up (aka Cakemeister's coach) and starts measuring the shorter distances from the spot where he "knows" the shooting line ends. He is, of course, lining up with a different lengthways mark, so his line nowhere near meets our line. Then up turns Cakemeister's rival, and starts marking up from Chairman's starting point to the correct alignment post; naturally, as chairman's starting poing is wrong, this line also meets neither of the others. Between us we have only one measure long enough, which is constantly being passed between the three marking parties.. Funnily enough, all three lines also develop doglegs.
Meanwhile, former chairman (aka Longdoc, I think) and Mrs FC arrive at other side of field, set up a target where they think it should go, fire a National set of twigs, and go.
Perhaps I should mention that we started at the side of the field we did because, over the winter we had built a fence across the end of the ground, and hidden the mark on the tree we used for lengthways marking there.
[It was earlier in the season that one member, frustrated at the extension of football usage of our range, had completed his attempts at marking the field by spraying three extra penalty spots, together with the legend "Guess"]
This year, we are begging the groundsman to do it.
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If - Kipling
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