From the Dugout (Launceston Home)

It was lovely to grab a late winner down at Wendron last weekend. It was fair to say we were second best for large parts of the second half, we really didn’t get to grips with the wind at our backs after taking a 1-0 lead at half time playing into a gale.

I think we were owed one. There have been a few times we’ve come away from games with nothing this season, when we should have won, so a scrappy last minute win is fine by me.

It was great to see debutant Noah Holmes get the winner.

Ironically, when we played today’s opponents Launceston, earlier this season. It was debutant Rhys Hooper with a stoppage time winner in storm force winds.

They will provide a stern test today and will be bouyed by a 6-0 win over Bodmin last time out.

We are finding a bit of form and now we have got ourselves into the top 4 I’d like us to continue picking  up the points to stay there. It feels like we have cleared our heads a bit after a disastrous October and have picked up points regularly.

We welcome Jacob Smale back from suspension after he picked up 5 yellow cards without making a tackle.

Jacob Rowe misses this one after accumulating 5 of his own. At least he will be there on Boxing Day!!

Enjoy the game everyone.

This is our last home game before Christmas and nearly the end of 2023. Each of us will have our own ways of celebrating Christmas, for some it will be the celebration of the birth of Christ and all that that means for those who hold a Christian faith. For others it may be more about a family celebration, or a chance to party with friends. Some may have traditions that we’ve grown up with that are particular to our families or social groups. Growing up everyone in the Betteridge family had the same thing for breakfast on Christmas Day because that what my Granddad did, and it got passed down the generations. It was ham, eggs, and sometimes included pork pie, I seem to remember my sister having salad cream on hers!

In the past there was a tradition of professional football matches being played on Christmas Day, I’m not sure Rower would get a team out if we played Bodmin on Christmas Day instead of Boxing Day. Whatever our traditions or ways of celebrating it all comes back to a refugee child born thousands of miles away, a couple of thousand years ago. Why are we still celebrating His birth in Cornwall in 2023. His public career only lasted three years, He never wrote a book, didn’t do any TV interviews, He generally broke a lot of the rules, and famously created the best wine in abundance.

There has been a lot written and spoke about Him since, some helpful and a lot of it rubbish that misses the point of why He was born in the first place. Those who claim to write about Him are often like football pundits, they like to tell everyone why they’re right and why everyone else is wrong. Like much of human life the behaviour of those who should set an example is far from the grace and compassion that the baby came to share.

So, most people reading this will have made up their mind about the baby a long time ago, but who is He really? Some in a survey thought that he was Jose Mourinho, or maybe Jesus who now plays for Arsenal. They won’t have a celebration to mark their birth in 2000 years’ time, but we probably know more about them that is true than we do about the baby. When we meet celebrities, it can be a disappointment to find out who they really are, for the baby though maybe it’s worth finding out who He really is.