Hurricane Coombes and the smell of victory

 

The Burte team was back to the Red Tile at Cossington – the smooth rubbery surface that can sweat and become slippery at the first hint of unfavorable weather. On the last outing the team all wore combinations of cricket shoes,large rubber wellingtons and a rubber stopper on the end of the captain peg. This time the team had thrown caution to the wind and turned up in velvet crushed platforms and cuban heels by order of the captain – damn them and their dashing style.

The landlord had the foresight and lit the substantial woodburner – the alley was warm and dry – it was game on.

The team has enjoyed a few wins of late and the captain had adjusted his apparel to suit. Val Doonican’s cardigans  and cords had been retired to the wardrobe and in their place the captain was sporting a rainbow shirt with a collar so large it blew two hair pieces from players of the opposing team. He complimented this psychedelic regurgitation of the 70’s with a pair of  super flappy flairs and a fringed waistcoat. The captain was ‘walking the walk’ of a winner and knocking off ornaments left and right with various bits of wayward material and dangling jewelry. The pub stopped, time stopped and for a moment the 70’s had re-landed in Catcott.

Back in the real world  the team was preparing – they needed another away win – a precious 3 points.

The home team started and wrote up a very fierce 72 with a strong spare. Captain wafted and wobbled out to the alley, adjusted his oversized necklace and stated “wuddup, Far out score teamos, we need to get real and dig in – you dig ? “ The team blankly looked at each other – they knew what to do and the captain has clearly hit his head again and defaulted to his 70’s programming.

Burtle skittled off with a 61 and 72 – two strong spares from the young fresh faced hopeful of the team and one from “Hurricane” Coombes. For the record our mr Coombes is more South Atlantic Hurricane than Alex Higgins.

Home team came back out and skittled a 56 and 58. Burtle responded with 67 and 76 both spares coming from windy Coombes. by this time the alley was becoming unfit for human habitation and everyone took cautious steps away from ‘windy’ and the naked flame of the wood burner.

Home team skittled 55 and 61 – Burtle responded again with strong hands of 67 and 67 – two spares coming from ‘Wizard’ Captain as he was now referring to himself as.

Home team came out for their final hands and wrote up 49 and 52 – at this point Burtle had secured the win but skittled on and wrote up a final score of 74 with a fine spare from vice captain Nutman.

Burtle had secured the win by 81 pins.

The captain broke out a celebratory ‘Funky Chicken’ on the alley and our own Stevie Disco B responded with a powerful ‘Hustle’  

The landlord put on a fine supper of fish, chips and garden peas. Man of the match was Hurricane Coombes – by the end of the night he had certainly made his presence felt to all members of the team, the other team, locals, pub staff and wilted 3 house plants – he wrote up a fine personal score of 83 and has possibly opened a hole in the ozone layer above Cossington.