When Reality Bites !!
I was at a family wedding in Northern Ireland recently. As Mrs Wonder and I sauntered into the reception to begin a 10 hour session of singing and binge drinking I caught up with a few relatives and friends that I hadn’t seen for a while. At the back of the bar was a pool table and after I was caught glancing at it my cousin piped up with “are you still playing”.
“Yep, when I can.”
“Do you still have that summer team with the dopey blog?”
“Yes and it’s still going strong!”
“Cool, do you remember I was over when you were writing the first one, I think I was about 5 months pregnant?”
“Yeah, how is the kid by the way?”
“Doing great, just finished the first year at school.”
“SCHOOL??”
And then it hit me like hammer – WE’VE BEEN DOING THIS GUFF FOR FIVE YEARS AND WE STILL HAVENT WON IT!!!!!!
RACKSPACK V – The Empire Strikes Pack
This time it’s personal, and we’re starting to need Roman numerals to count it up!
Brief recap - yet another glorious failure last year saw us plummet new depths with a 7-6 loss in the semi final to the eventual winners Heinz 57. What followed was our first youtube entry with the Hitler parody, followed by me receiving an email threatening a lawsuit over the video and some other copyright infringements and the banning of the said video. At the end of four months of Showboats, piss taking and slating our own players (plus most of the opposition) we had zip, nada, zilch. We had even lost our home as The Bear closed down not long afterwards. Trophy-less and homeless, the men of Rackspack were entering some dark times as Winter drew in.
It was a time for men to be men, and women to be men (more on that later) so we regrouped (again), did a bit of counselling (mostly in Smokey’s) and vowed that, by God we will win this damn tin pot league even if it takes us the rest of our lives to do it!
With the Bear closed down we needed a new home. The tender process had began in late January with many of Maidenhead‘s finest establishments fighting for the right to have the Rackspack call their venue “home”. After much deliberation North Maidenhead Cricket Club (NMCC) won the juicy contract and we recently signed on the dotted line. The clincher was the fact that they have the best pool table in the league and, as you all know, we have the best players in the league, so it’s surely a marriage made in heaven. The Showboat challenge is back and we expect the records to tumble this season on a table where even the Wonder Walls would be hard-pressed to come up dry on the break.
Last week was the Rackspack AGM. Messrs Walls & Southam were locked in talks for five gruelling hours in front of the Rackspack shareholders and board, but at the end of it had managed to come up with a foolproof plan on how we are going to win this thing.
The strategy of previous years has varied from the incompetent to the non-existent. First up we played in Racks, feeling that the practise tables would put us in better shape than most teams – we failed. Next we hand-picked eight players that were the best in the league – plus John Shiel – but we failed again. Season three saw us going into the season with the bare minimum of six and scrape help when we needed it. This meant that the six were guaranteed to play two frames in the knockout stages and wouldn’t have the incredible burden on their backs of playing for their place – we failed.
So what is our strategy this time around? It’s controversial, but I think you’ll like it. Basically we’ve signed up anyone we can find who can hold a cue because at least that stops them playing elsewhere.
So into the maelstrom of Rackspack pool talent comes Rob “White” Walsh and Pat “The Fudger” Phelan. These two players are the finest of additions, both having honed and toned their cue actions over years of hard graft over the green baize. Add these two to the existing Rackspack roster of Keith “The Wonder” Walls, Kevin “Slugger” Southam, Brad “The Bear” Robinson, John “Houdini” Young, Neil “Magic” Cameron and Maltese John Shiel, and for the first time in five years we have squad capable of winning this damn thing. By the beard of Zeus, how can we possibly blow it this summer?
Common Sense
Hats off to the Maidenhead League committee who continue, in my estimation, to exercise a common sense not often seen in a pool organisation. Having delayed the summer league because of the World Cup they have shortened it to six groups of four. This leaves us with only 6 matches to try and qualify, with the six group winners plus best two runners up making the quarter final line up. I like this very much, It’s a sprint and you can’t afford to mess up and I think it will give ‘lesser’ teams a real chance of an upset.
Mailbox
As Kev and I opened the doors to Rackspack towers this week there was 8 months of mail on the doormat. It was all firebombs, lawsuits, Anthrax envelopes and copies of readers digest, but in amongst the manure a few flowers had grown.
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Dear Rackspack…
So here we are again, five years on and we’re still waiting. As a Rackspack fan I want to see you win the title! Every year my hopes are raised and every year they are dashed. You guys are like my brothers 1978 Ford Capri. The group stages are like the test drive – it ran smoothly with just a few blips here and there but it looked so good. The guy selling it mentioned that there could be a problem but my bro didn’t care – this Capri seemed to be perfection and it looked beautiful. But every season the knockout stages are like when the deal is done and we drove it home. We would end up broke down on the hard shoulder with a wheel rolling off into the distance across the motorway into oncoming traffic and making us both realise one horrible thing – we’ve been suckered. Suckered by lots of blinky flashing lights and sex appeal that blinded us from the whopping problems that really were there all the time.
What can you say to assure me and the thousands like me that this isn’t going to happen this year?
Dai Hard, Rackspack Fan Club, Welsh Division.
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Dear Rackspack…
Have you noticed that in four years of pool you have only ever played in two venues and both of them closed down? Racks – liquidated, The Bear – sold. Are North Maidenhead Cricket Club aware of this ?
Anon.
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Dear Rackspack…
I read back over your old blog entries and found the one about the Tranny bar. I was on a stag-do last week and we ended up in the exact same bar! After telling the rest of the stag posse that “The Racks boys have been here” me and my mate Ray drunkenly stumbled in for a laugh. For future reference if any of your legion of fans end up there too, can you advise them not to say any of the following :
“Bottoms Up”
“Toss you for the next round”
“Excuse me , can I push your stool in”
Is dat u no.
Andy Brant.
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So it’s the first league game this week, and we’re away to the Rose – we are ready but are they?
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