The Rubber Cidermen of the Red Tile
The captain was nervous. This was the first away match of the season and it meant precious extra points for a successful win. To add to our captains nervousness it wasn’t our most favorite alley to play on. The Red Tile at Cossington has an alley with a nice smooth almost rubbery surface which seems to ‘sweat’ in certain atmospheric conditions, this causes the alley to become a little slippery and on more than one occasion our players have fallen foul to the slippery surface and ended up with a bruised coccyx or worse…
But the team had become prepared this time. The majority of the players had ditched their winkle pickers and now sported sparkling white daps. The captain also wise to the pitfalls of the Red Tiles alley wore an extra large welly on his wizards peg and a cricket boot on the other, yes his gate was a little more lopsided than normal but he was damned sure he wasn’t going to fall victim to this alley.
The home team opened with a fine score of 68, the visitors clumped and thumped their way to the alley and answered with two hands of 66 and 69. A promising start and the captain happily wobbled off to sample the cider in a little more depth.
The home team came back with 63 and 69. Captain surveyed the scores and instructed the team that two good hands were needed to cement our lead. In turn each man thumped and clumped up to the pitch board and took their turns. Two hands of 57 were written up.
The captain was not happy, not happy at all. The home team returned with scores of 56 and 60. Any lead they had was now eroded. Oh woe was the captain. He faced his team. A captain’s speech was in order, and 35 minutes later the team well and truly knew how unhappy the captain was and what was required of them. 79 was written to the board, the captain beamed with pride.
Next hand a score of 58 was written up. The captain scowled and proclaimed the team had the attention span of a goldfish which had recently banged its head against the front of the tank and forgotten the last 15 seconds of its 30 second memory.
The captain stamped and clumped off to the bar, the team trailed behind.
The home team returned a score of 64 and a final hand of 63.
The captain was nervous The last time he was this nervous he accidently stepped on William Hartnell’s cloak and tore it whilst filming ‘The Tenth Planet’ for Doctor Who. Hartnell’s blind wrath was so great that he stumbled and fell through the set. This all happened in 1966 when the BBC was looking for extras to play Cybermen, the captain misread the advert thinking it was a BBC documentary concerning Cider and he arrived onset having already done far too much homework. The result was a damaged set, a torn cloak and 30 meters of BBC canteen baco-foil ruined that made up the majority of the captain’s costume.
Harnett proclaimed the captain would never act again and the captains career as a BBC extra ended.To date this episode is incomplete and missing from the BBC archives.
Back to the story;
The team needed a good hand to win. It was touch and go but the team thumped and clumped home with a score of 62 – winning the game by a mere 5 pins.
Victory. The pub laid on a victory banquet of Chilli, rice and chips. The captain consumed the weight of his good leg in red wine and the team returned to Burtle.
Man of the match was Stevie ‘Disco Dude’ B with a score of 72. Stevie B rose to fame in the late 60’s and is rumored to have brought 70’s funk and grind to Sedgemoor, to date his flairs are legendary.
