From the Dugout (Penzance Home)

This will be our first outing since we let a two goal lead slip against local rivals Camelford.

We seem to be able to get ourselves in great positions, in control, yet manage to hand the initiative back to our opponents.

It’s something we speak about at length, we are all desperate to find a solutions to this generosity, but every time it happens, you feel it seeps into the mindset the next time we are in a similar situation. Even writing these notes about it, probably won’t help!!

I think it’s fair to say there is a bit of a hangover around the place, after finishing top 4 and not going up last season. The intention was to go again but it’s apparent that we are going to be quite a bit short of winning the league and getting promotion this season.

I feel that the lads need a lift, some new energy to the group and Jude Tripconey joining us is the start of that.

I had seen Jude a couple of times last season, most notably in a showcase 18s game against Truro, where he was very impressive.

I’m hoping a couple more lads will be in the door before the Christmas decorations go up.

We played Penzance in the senior cup last month and it’s widely regarded as our worst performance of the season. I only got there for the last 20 minutes due to work, but the text messages coming through on the way down made grim reading.

That should be all the motivation we need to put things right today

Enjoy the game

Are you someone who judges the nature of another person fairly quickly? I wonder what your criteria is? Clothing, tattoos or not, how someone speaks, physical attraction, do they smell nice, I’m sure you have your own. I wonder if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a ‘Pretty Woman’ scenario. “Can I help you”, asked in such a way that says, “what is someone like you doing here, we don’t have your sort here!” When I was younger, I played one game for the first team of a Cricket Club that had a high opinion of itself. My wife and her young brother where not allowed in for tea with the other wives in their floral dresses, apparently denim skirts and a Liverpool shirt where not acceptable.

The truth is that we all do it to some extent, I recently met an elderly-ish couple who looked a bit rough round the edges. Before I spoke to them, I was trying to work out their story and what was going on for them. I had made a judgement which turned out to be miles away from the reality. It isn’t appropriate to say anything about them as I now know they live locally, but I was embarrassed by my quick judgement of them.

A Christian Writer called Philip Yancey wrote in one of his books, ‘there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less’. However, we may judge other people we are not judged in the same way. I often battle with what others think of me, if I’m liked, looking for others to tell me I’m good enough. The reality is we’re all good enough, we’re all loved uniquely as we are. My son spoke to me recently about his experience of being a dad. He had reflected on how he sometimes couldn’t understand why I showed him so much love and support when he probably didn’t deserve it. What he’d come to realise when he looked at his own child was that he could never do anything but love her. I appreciate that is not everyone’s experience of parents and that can be painful.

Parents or not though, we can all offer others that unconditional acceptance and value that enables others to grow and flourish rather than feeling like they don’t matter. God has that love for all of us and whether we have a faith or not it is how we make for a better club, community, and a better world.