Don't take a knife to a gunfight

Monday 8^th August 2011

To all members, Essex D

Don't take a knife to a gunfight

So, that’s it then. All over for another year.

Shot and shell have ceased their frenetic symphony and the smoke clears slowly from the stage; the red mist of battle lust ebbs, leaving hollow-eyed, bewildered survivors amidst a sea of carnage and desolation. Peace has come among us to lay a soothing hand on fevered brow; to say a kind word to a broken man and wash away the evil stains of war. What are we going to do with ourselves now?

Before our friend War left for other parts (currently Syria and Tottenham) he had one further twist of the knife for us. August 4^th, at Castle Hedingham. A must win match if we were to meet our goal of a perfectly balanced season…

We prepared well, feasting on a champion’s diet of bombast and braggadocio, and picking the type of team which would have many a scrofulous serf running for the safety of the Master’s Keep. However, we hadn’t bargained on divine intervention. I opted for a strategy involving slick players (you know the sort, great in the dry, on a flat surface with no wind) when I should have picked wets. Our team found conditions as much to their liking as Napoleon’s troops found Mother Russia’s Winter. Come the day, it was wet. Very wet. The only time it stopped raining was when it started pouring. It would be fair to say we arrived expecting to re-enact El Alamein, only to be told we’d be fighting the Battle of Jutland.

Having made the trek over to their place we didn’t feel we could return to our home ports without at least engaging the enemy so I ran up the signals for the orders of the day and launched the first broadside (and then sat back in the pavilion). Our brave boys gave it a good go but were sadly out-gunned and out-manned in these conditions. They plished, plashed, slipped and slid to a very credible 4-5 defeat at the hands of the Imperial Hedingham Navy’s High Seas Fleet who had the good sense to wear appropriate footwear and have bigger boats than us.

Still, this was a game, strangely, of two halves. We may have been outmatched on the courts but we managed to snatch a draw when the action relocated to The Bell. Once our brave boys had a toddy of grog inside them we took them apart in competitive bar snack eating and tall story telling. By close of play the opposition were thanking us for going easy on them and offering us “bloody good chaps” one more for the road. They are thoroughly decent people over at Hedingham and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if demand for a place at next year’s fixture far outstrips supply. I may have to auction slots to the highest bidders.

My thanks to all who played.

I think I’ll do one more newsletter summarising the season once all the results are posted and we know where we are.

For now, stand easy.