Tadley & The Smelly Kit

It was another new ground for Miss & I this weekend, when we made the short journey up the M3 to Tadley Calleva.

Despite it being so close to Winchester, I’d never been before so it was nice to go somewhere new.

On the journey up, Miss decided she wanted a ‘coffee’ ☕️ - translating to a chocolate babychino. We visited Costa Drive Thru at Basingstoke Leisure Park and went on up to Tadley.

There was loads of parking. Some cars parked down the side of the field and others in the middle, but there will certainly not be any parking concerns at Barlows Park.

Daddy’s name was ‘on the gate’ translating to I was a ‘freebie’ for this match. The kind man on the turnstile opened the gate so Miss & I could enter with the pushchair. The pitch is raised up so as you go up the hill on entry, you can see the stand on your right.

We spent the first-half stood by the away dugout talking to Pete and waving at Reggie. Miss found a gate to play with and she had her paw patrol ball too - so she was well entertained.

At half-time, we went into the clubhouse and got some water as it was getting warm in the sun ☀️. Miss had some ‘pink crisps’ as well (Prawn Cocktail flavour).

We need a nappy change, sadly there were no baby changing facilities - unless we missed them, please correct me if I’m wrong anyone from Tadley. So we were back to the old-school nappy change on the toilet floor in the men’s cubicles, not pleasant but apart from Daddy getting damp knees, it could have been worse 🤷‍♂️

We played in the clubhouse during the second-half (typically missing both goals in a 1-1 draw 🤦‍♂️) and also roamed around playing hide and seek.

After the game, we had agreed to drop the kit off to the Club Secretary. Miss and I walked back to the bar, whilst Pete bought the pushchair and ‘Blackie’ bought the “smelly kit” as Miss shouted to everyone! All car journey home was “Daddy, smelly kit!” 😂

That’s probably pre-season wrapped up for us already. But we’re on holiday in Devon next week and the FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round starts… Daddy has spotted some games already 👀 (sorry not sorry Mummy 🤷‍♂️)

As for Tadley - ample parking but no clean sheet and a dirty nappy 🤷‍♂️🧷 Volunteers were all lovely though!