Una Cervaza Por Favour!
Despite knowing the hassle I've had, and despite having to help me through the pain-in-the-ass problems of scratching a side together every week, you would think my second in command would know better. But incredibly, after the usual Monday night slating of all the absent players, an email drops on my desk Thursday morning from the vice-sub-underling-by order of the royal garter-second in command, saying:
“by the way , forgot to tell you , Im on holiday next Monday and cant make it”
Terrific, here we go again.
I'm starting to think that there must be a pool team abroad that they are all playing for instead! I've got Kev in Spain, Lee still in Spain , Leo was in Spain last week and Brad is supposedly in Falaraki! Did we qualify for some sort of European UEFA cup of pool and no one told me about it? Have they all sloped off and are playing for the Thatched Cottage?
So off we go again on the phonecalls. Fortunately John ‘Crucial’ Cornell was available but not on time - he wasn't going to be there until nearly 9PM. Leo was going to be there around the same time once he had finished his dinner.
Of course we had our new signing, the all singing and all dancing James “he’s our hero” Harness. Doing the decent thing he abandoned his child to her grandparents in order to make Monday night pool (You other ‘holiday’ monkeys could learn a thing or two!).
So we had six!!! A round of applause please……
Neil and I got to Racks around 6:30pm and it was empty. We tried to get the middle table but the barman said “Sorry, Dom Taylor has pre-booked that for him and his team. You’ll have to take another one.”
“Cant you give it to us anyway, he’s not here and we wont tell him or his team.”
“I'm ON Doms team!”
Oh good grief!
8pm rolled around and we started our top of the table clash with the Golden Cross of Twyford. That catweazle fella who is always at their pub hadn’t made the journey.
We were off and running and I made short work of the first frame thanks to a nice split off the break. James took the second and JY raced through the third and we were 3-0 up. Unfortunately it was only 8:20 and Leo and ‘Crucial’ Cornell hadn’t appeared. We were in danger of Neil winning the next one too quickly and then having to forfeit two frames because of only having four players!! Unbelievable.
Some fine captaincy had to come into play. I hid one of the balls claiming that one was stuck in the table and Neil ran off to toilets saying that he needed a dump and that may be some time. Finally after ten minutes we either had to start the frame or they were going to call an ambulance for Neil as he was in there so long.
With only a few balls left it was looking dodgy but ‘Crucial’ arrived in the nick of time and Neil cracked in a superb long black to put us 4-0 up.
John went straight on and lost to ‘Flair shot of the week’ as, for the third time this season, one of our opponents somehow hit a trebled black into a corner pocket.
Meanwhile Leo had arrived and he went on to maintain his 100% record by not only winning his first frame , but going on early in the second half and taking that one as well. He wont be available next week as the Racks Pack are going to enter him instead in Chicago Rock Cafe's “Maidenhead's Got Talent” competition.
Back on the baize James “he's only half a hero now” Harness lost his frame but it set up ‘Crucial’ Cornell for the match winner and he made no mistake once his opponent made six of them.
JY saved himself from registering a double doughnut (0 0) by making it 8-2 and ‘Magic’ Cameron made it 9-2.
It was just left to me to make the score respectable, but there was never any danger of that from the moment I went in off on the break and handed it to them. In fairness to myself I did introduce “Larry the Launch” into my repertoire just to get the frame finished as quick as possible so we could carrying on drinking and playing on the free pool table!
9-3, top of the heap, kings of the hills, the top dogs, the head cheese, the numero uno honchos ….etc etc …
It was all finished by 9:40pm and while we played on we were able to watch the match on the other table between Dom's Racks side and Scott Oliver's Cookham Social Club. CSC came through a tight struggle to keep their hopes of qualifying alive. It was played in a fine spirit with handshakes all round at the end – that part of it took longer than the match itself by the time all of Doms team had a shake.
Next week we are at home to those giants of the game – Woodlands Park. Also, it's time to introduce the captain to a whole new experience – having six players available. Neil, Kev, JY, Brad, Lee and myself should all be there.
‘Should be’ but somehow I doubt it...
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