Match Report - Away Versus The Bear

Week 4, and the good ship rackspack sails on!

Last week was a bye week so no match for the pack. Coach Southam in the person of your truly decided that a hard core practice session in the pool and drinking dens of Maidenhead was not required - frankly this team was playing great and I didn't want them to peak too soon! So with strict instructions that match day three was to to be spent resting cue arms and thumbs, the rackspack split for a week.

This weeks match was a grudge match against "the team formerly known as the other racks team". Following the demise of Racks, TTFKATORT had severed all ties with the past and changed their name to "The Bear". Local bragging rights were at stake, and I needed my best team out to show these boys that it was our patch, and we were number one! The first blow to my plans for world domination was the absence of Mr Walls. To paraphrase The Spice Girls - the favourite girl group of The Wonder - one was to become two; That's right, the Wonder was getting married!

Special Match Report - Keith "Wonder" Walls versus Hannah "Derr Frau" Pieper

Three weeks almost to the day after Keith got down on one knee and whispered those four magic words that would tie them together for the rest of their lives - "you're not, are you?" - we were in Munster for the social event of the year, the marriage of walls and Pieper, The Wonder and Derr Frau, Keith & Hannah!

We had arrived in Munster, Germany Thursday afternoon. There are two things you need to know about Munster. First is that there are some 50,000 students, so it's a very young and vibrant city. Secondly there are more bikes than people. Students can't afford cars so they cycle everywhere.

On Thursday night our first attempt at drinking the town dry had gone well but ultimately failed, so Friday night the wedding party met up for a second attempt. We hired bikes and cycled to a pre-wedding dinner in the forests outside Munster. Four hours and three courses of Tomato soup, Steak and Apple Strudel later the inevitable consequence of cycling too the pre-wedding dinner came to pass - we had to cycle home! Forget flash in the pan trends like inflated tyres, shock absorbers and padded seats, these bikes were as harsh on my stomach as they were on my backside. Luckily there were enough beer stops on the way to break the journey up and we got back to our hotel in one piece.

Saturday was the big day, and the boy Walls was in remarkably good shape. We met in Jim's room at 11AM, where we got dressed, and then got Keith dressed, and once we had "splooshed up" we were ready to send this man down the aisle. Keith's dad met us in reception, and we set of on the short walk to the registry office. It was a boiling hot day and the students were out in force. Needless to say we were the only people in suits so we got a few strange looks as we wandered through town.

As best man my primary job was to get Keith there. Getting him there on time was a bonus, so arriving at the registry office an hour before the conjugals were due to start was a result and job done by me. Keith needed a whisky to settle the nerves, but the first pub we went to was closed. The next place didn't serve alcohol, and the third wouldn't serve us unless we ate as well. As we wandered around the only place we could find to give us a cold beer was a kebab shop, so in true Keith Walls style we we spent his last twenty minutes as a free man in a kebab shop wearing suits drinking beer.

Back to the registry office, and the ceremony went without a hitch. After the well dones, congratulations, and thank god that overs we all headed to a farmhouse to drink the night away in the company of pigs, ducks, ponies, goats and rats - and that was just the buffet.

Keith's speech was a highlight, being as it was in German! For a man who is never seen without an audience, he was a bag of nerves. When he finally stood up to make the speech he was shaking so much he could hardly get the whisky glass to his mouth! Nor the beer glass! Nor the wine glass! However once he got going, despite each sentence being punctuated by a gulp of whatever was in the glass his hand reached first, he was fantastic, and the effort was appreciated by everyone present. It was one of the best wedding speeches I've ever seen despite, or perhaps because, I didn't understand a word of it. We drank and talked and laughed for the rest of the night and, after spending Sunday recovering, I returned to the UK in time to lead the team out against The Bear.

MATCH REPORT - AWAY VERSUS THE BEAR

I mentioned at the beginning that Keith was away in Germany still, so from the six who had won so convincingly in weeks one and two, I was a man down. Lee "Grinder" Greenwood had returned from holiday but couldn't make it, so I had to bite the bullet and ask Craig Wilson to get us out of a hole. Craig is about as useful as a chocolate teapot in these situations and I didn't hold out much hope of him turning up after he ignored both my texts and my voicemails.

I turned up at The Bear expecting to have to tell the team we had to play with just five, but John Young was there and he told me he had managed to get hold of Craig and that he had promised him he would be there by 9PM. Great success! This saved having to ring round and scramble a team together. More importantly than that the Show Boat Jackpot was a roll-over from last week! With £12 in the pot I had five people all desperate to play first and get first crack at the money!

Being the great and magnanimous captain I am I resisted the temptation to put myself in first, and in the absence of Keith I needed equal if not greater flair. There was only one man who fit the bill, and that was John Shiel.

After informing us last week that we should "watch him go" and see how many clearances he would get this season he was obviously the man for the job. My only concern was that after locking them up in darkened room with the greatest super-computer they could build for us, the two NASA scientists we had recruited last week to predict how many clearances he would make this season had gone completely insane and were presently detained under the mental health act. They were last seen mumbling something about "zero point zero" and complaining that the computer was not working properly.

I had to take a chance that John wouldn't do any finishing this week, so in at number one he went and he didn't let me down. 137 visits later and Baron Staples was consigned the pile of players Hokey Cokey Shiel had battered into submission. 1-0.

John Young was up next against Tony Baxter, and it was all one way traffic as John showed us that all the practice he had been doing had not gone to waste. 2-0.

As you might expect from any match between Brad Robinson and Steve Cox it was over in a flash. The showboat challenge was only briefly threatened as brad broke and went for the impossible clearance. He didn't get it, and Steve came in and mopped up. If he had been on our team it would have been worth £15 to him. As it was all he got was Kudos for beating the most hated man in pool. 2-1.

I was on fourth and was in command against Bluey Tatham. In command that is until I botched my last ball. A series of missed pots by both players followed, and eventually I popped the black in the take the frame, if not great applause. 3-1.

Neil was untroubled by Steve Newell (4-1) and in sixth it was Craig's time to debut for the Pack. Except it wasn't. He hadn't turned up. My texts voicemails had gone unanswered, my texts unreplied. I put it to the team, and their feeling were best summarised by a man who shall remain nameless when he said (in a Scottish accent) "Right that's it now. He can f**k off". Well said, the name of Craig Wilson shall not darken our door again this season.

So 4-2 at the break was effectively 4-3 as I knew we had to concede another frame in the second half. Neil had played well in his frame and in practice, so he was up first. He may have been playing a Baron, but Neil truly was Lord of all he surveyed as he won his second of the night for 5-3. I played Steve Cox next and it was a similar story to the first frame, missing a crucial ball as I did. Steve was not as forgiving as Bluey and he got his double for the night. 5-4.

Brad against Tony next, and Tony had a wonderful chance to consign Brad to the double-doughnut hall of fame, but snatched at his final ball. 6-4 after Brad punished the error.

Despite the fact that we were moving through the frames like s**t through a goose, JY clearly had other things on his mind i.e going home to be with his Thai bride, and gave out quicker than a twenty dollar whore (6-5) so it was down to John Shiel to win the final frame of the evening, give us the win we deserved, and maintain our 100% record. With no clearances so far the show boat jackpot was up to £21. John was like a bitch on heat, raring to go - but with a crucial frame to win, the jackpot would have to wait. With John's declaration that he was "fed up playing for the team, I could have gone for it from the off" I knew that the jackpot and the result were both safe, and that we had another week to try and find a replacement for the two scientists. So it proved as John did was John does, and beat John Williamson - former barman of Racks - into submission in under sixty visits. 7-5 the final score, and with us able to welcome back both Grinder and The Wonder next week it's all looking good for the pack.

SHOW BOAT UPDATE

As stunning as it might seem with all this flair on display, the Show Boat Jackpot is a roll-over! £22 in next weeks kitty!

HONK!!!!