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Josie’s still causing mayhem
Steve Joseph is well known in local sporting circles as the popular owner, with his wife Naomi, of West Coast Printed & Embroidered Clothing, and anyone calling at the shop is guaranteed a warm welcome from the former Milford rugby player, who is known to his pals as ‘Josie’.
But stay too long at your peril because he is well-known as being a bit of a forgetful character since his time at the old Milford Central School, where he was renowned for ‘forgetting his homework- and he might even forget you are there!
Take the other week as a prime example where the local traffic warden, a nice lady (believe it or not!) from the Southern Hemisphere, asked him if she could have a drink of water on one of those awful muggy days we’ve been having.
“Help yourself” said the helpful Mr Joseph, “just pop out the back. There are plenty of cups there so you’ll be alright.”
Our traffic warden did just that and enjoyed a short break, sipping her water, until she tried to leave and found that Steve had locked up the shop to pop across the road with a mate for a cup of coffee! Luckily for the New Zealand lass she could see Steve’s mobile number on a notice and a quick call had him scurrying back to West Coast so he could let her out!
Luckily for him she was able to laugh about being locked in a shop but I bet it will be some time before she asks him for another cup of water – and if I was him I wouldn’t leave my car anywhere near double yellow lines for a while!
Wrong Steve but a similar gentleman
There are two Steve James’s who are well known on local sporting circles – one of them plays in goal for Johnston and is a cricket all-rounder in the village – whilst the other is the late, great chairman of Haverfordwest Cricket Club after many years as a good cricket, rugby and football player in the county town.
Both are known as sporting gentlemen, and our tale also involves another sporting all-rounder in Richard Scriven, who plays prop for Llangwm, cricket for Haverfordwest and coaches Johnston’s junior footballers.
‘Scriv’s’ regular goalkeeper Joe Codd, son of another footballer in Willie and nephew to the legendary John Codd, was unavailable to play and so Gavin Scriven had to fill in the gap but had no gloves – so dad phoned Steve James to ask if he could borrow some from the veteran goalkeeper in Johnston.
But, unbeknown to him, he pressed the wrong button and got through to the other Steve, in Haverfordwest, who answered the question in the affirmative (only because his son Adam plays in goal for Haverfordwest). When asked if he could pop them down to the Glebelands pitch asap Steve James (H’West) said he would be there as quickly as he could and it was only afterwards that Scriv realised his faux pas.
But Gavin had his gloves and this little story not only shows what a great man Steve James was but in general demonstrates what a nice camaraderie there is in local sport!
South Fork Ranch is now in Portfield Gate
Haverfordwest County manager Derek Brazil is clearly a fan of the old ‘Dallas’ television programme because he has vivid memories of a recent overnight stay in Portfield Gate with Bluebirds pal Mickie Ellis so that he could attend the ‘Grill Brazil’ evening at the Bridge Meadow Stadium.
All went well until Mr B went for a wee in the night and after washing his hands and leaving the bathroom was confronted with seven doors, all exactly the same, one of which was his bedroom for the night.
‘It was like being in South Fork,” he told the chairman Rob Summons at the Bridge Meadow, “it took me ages to work out which door was mine – but I got back to bed eventually.”
He was clearly impressed because he has since dubbed Mickie with a new name – ‘Mickie Dallas’ and eventually aims to have such a big house himself when his ship comes in!
I got it wrong!
I have gently laughed with lovely characters in Pembrokeshire’s Sporting Scene for many years and have always adopted the policy of confessing when I make a mild faux pas – and I made arguably my biggest recently at the excellent Haverfordwest RFC’s revived ‘Pork Supper’ where the girls did a wonderful job with the food, traditionally served by the youth team.
Special guests included Ray Williams, former coaching organiser and secretary of the WRU and Johnny Jones, the District H representative on the WRU who does so much for Pembrokeshire Rugby ‘up the line’ – but the chief guest was Derek Quinnell, the former British Lion and Welsh international who is now president of the Scarlets, and who made a cracking speech (one of the three best I have ever heard!) and answered every question with panache.
My role was to be MC and I thought I did a tidy job of including all the top table, mentioning local councillors Charles Davies, Roy Thomas and Peter Lewis, 94 year old former player Ken Howell and current club officers Brian Stephens and Gareth Griffiths – but blotted my copybook when I lost a little focus and I introduced Mr Quinnell as Ray Gravel!
Needless to say, I had my leg pulled by all and sundry, which is fair enough – and I am glad to report that Derek Quinnell was fine about my error, which I put down to creeping old age!
HAVE A GOOD SPORTING MONTH!
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