TROUBLE AT T’ SKITTLE ALLEY AND HARLEQUINS GET THEIR CUMMUPPANCE

It was TGGW’s turn to drive. He picked up Ned and they drove up to Rog’s house to pick up Rog. Rog appeared dressed for Artic weather (it was approximately 11deg C, no sign of rain and quite a nice day). Rog dumped all his Artic clothing on the parcel shelf, completely obscuring TGGW’s view out the back, handed a great big black thing to Ned and told him to attach it to the front windscreen. There was a sucker thing on the big black thing that required the operation of a lever to activate the suction cap thing. Ned accomplished this task but now TGGW’s view out the front was nearly as restricted as that out the back. Rog instructed Ned on how to release the suction cap but Ned was unable to accomplish this task so Rog leaned over the front seat to help him. The car was by now chugging along the A38 and TGGW’s ability to change gear was severely compromised by Rog’s head which was wedged between the handbrake and gear stick. The big black thing was eventually re-positioned, Rog moved his Artic clothing a tad to allow TGGW at least some visibility out the back and all was sweetness and light. Rog then explained that the big black thing was a GPS sat nav device that would enable them to navigate to the pub that he had chosen for lunch. Ned asked Rog what the name of the pub was because he might know where it was thus negating the need for the sat nav thing. Rog refused to tell and instructed Ned on how he was to fix another piece of the sat nav onto the piece already stuck to the windscreen. Ned accomplished this task quite easily but Rog was not finished. Ned had to detach a stylus from the sat nav and use it to set the sat nav going by pointing at certain items on the sat nav touch screen. Ned could not find the stylus so Rog had, once again, to lean over the front seat and do his stuff. Fortunately they were stopped at traffic lights and changing gear was not a problem for the moment. The lights changed from red to orange to green. Ned did not realise this because he is colour blind. TGGW tried to drive the car in neutral, the car made a lot of noise but did not move. TGGW forced the gear lever into first and the car leaped forward. Ned jolted forward, Rog jolted upwards, banged his head on Ned’s knee and dropped the stylus on the floor. Everyone returned to their normal positions, Ned retrieved the stylus and followed Rog’s instructions about which bits of the screen to touch. The Sat Nav sprang into life with a loud beeping noise. Rog said that that meant there was a speed camera coming up … TGGW slowed down. The sat nav said that they had to turn left at the Almondsbury Interchange and go up the M4. But what the sat nav didn’t know was they had to first go and pick up Steve from Bradley Stoke. All the way to Steve’s the bloody sat nav kept telling TGGW to turn around. Rog said the sat nav would correct itself as soon as it realised they were going to pick up Steve. Hmm the sooner the bloody better, thought Ned and TGGW. Steve was picked up, the sat nav corrected itself and they were on their way.

Ned started to tell the story about the trouble at t’ skittle alley. He was continually interrupted by Steve (who was, apparently, part of said trouble). The story took quite some time to unravel and is summarised below ..

The opposition to Steve’s skittle team (Steve is the captain) had arrived with two people short. This, apparently, meant that they had no way of winning unless Steve’s team agreed to let them play two of their players twice. Steve had no doubts to his decision on this … he was going for the win … the opposition would NOT be allowed to play two men twice. Howard disagreed. It should be pointed out that Howard regularly talked to the opposition, clapped when they made a good shot and sometimes bought them a drink. This sort of behaviour in skittles was, before Howard came on the scene, unheard of and was frowned on by Howard’s team mates. A blazing row erupted. Steve swore at Howard in a loud voice. Howard surrendered. Steve had nine players at his disposal but only six were required for a team. The game has two rounds and Steve was allowed to use all his nine players over those rounds. So he picked two teams, one for each round. The first team would be the weakest team (for reasons not immediately clear) and included Howard and indeed Ned. The second team did not include Howard nor, indeed, Ned. Steve’s reasoning, he explained to the occupants of the car, was that the opposition included Pont who was very capable of getting up Howard’s nose and disrupting his game. Therefore Howard would only be allowed to play once. Steve himself would, of course play in both teams, partly becaue he could get up Ponts nose and put him off his game but mostly because he was the captain. Ned at this point interrupted to ask why he too had been excluded because he was the best player in the team and anyway it didn’t matter because they would win anyway because the opposition only had four men even if one of them was Pont who could get up Howard’s nose. Steve ignored Ned and continued his story .. after the game Howard approached Steve and asked, somewhat belligerently according to Steve, how he (Steve) knew who had played which game and who therefore had to pay their match fees twice rather than the people who had only played once and would, therefore, only have to pay one match fee. Steve said that he was the captain and told Howard to **** off. Howard took this the wrong way (according to Steve) and started swearing and shouting at Steve. Steve then admitted to Howard that he had a bit of paper on which he recorded which players had played in which round. Howard said he did not believe Steve. Steve stomped off to the far end of the skittle alley picked up his team sheet and shoved it into Howard’s face. Howard then, according to Steve, apologised. The car swerved and nearly hit a truck because TGGW had dozed off for an instant. Was this, wondered TGGW, what he really wanted to be doing on a Saturday afternoon. The swerving of the car woke up Rog who had dozed off completely.

By this time the sat bloody nav was going full blast. First they went to Hambrook, then Frenchay, then Downend … why were they not going on the ring road everyone asked … what was the matter with the sat bloody nav … the ring road was the easiest and quickest way to get to Harlequins … where was this bloody pub Rog? Rog refused to say but did point out that he used have a paper round in Downend which they were just passing through. TGGW was following the sat nav’s instructions and was getting truly pissed off with it. They were going round back streets, across treacherous junctions, through red lights … continually stopping and starting. TGGW’s mpg figure had gone down from 45.6 to 44.4 since they started the trip. They reached Hanham where Rog, informed the other occupants of the car, he had met Mary in a youth club many many years ago. The other occupants of the car stifled a collective groan as they had heard this story several times before (every time they played Barton Hill at Barton Hill in fact). The collective groan was clearly stifled a bit too much because Rog went on to the tell the story all over again. They reached Soundwell just as Rog finished his story but unfortunately Soundwell was where Rog had had his appendix removed and this prompted another story. Then they passed the place where the Clarkes pie shop used to be and all the occupants of the car (apart from the driver who was now seeing his mpg figure drop below 44mpg) joined in extolling the virtues of these sort of pies. Eventually they reached a place called Hanham and this was where the pub was, announced a jubilant Rog. He didn’t know exactly where it was because it had been twenty years since he last visited but not to worry the sat nav would take them to the door. The sat nav told them to turn down this very very narrow road. Then it told them to go down an even narrower farm track. TGGW protested that this could not possibly be right as the car would not fit down the road. Everyone else called TGGW a coward and urged him onward. TGGW prayed, with little hope, that this was a one way farm track. The high walls flanking the farm track were inches from the wing mirrors of TGGW’s car and the car was skidding about on the farm slime that coated the road. Then, Hallelujah, they came to the pub, the road opened out into a large car park and everything was hunky dory.

The occupants of the car climbed stiffly out of the car all complaining that it would have been quicker on the ring road. Rog was not sure the ring road was on his sat nav but Stev pointed out that he (Rog) had probably asked the sat nav for the shortest rather than the quickest route. Rog pondered this and muttered, in a barely hearable voice, something about this pub (called the Chequers) being a well known haunt of bikers. The Chequers was on the edge of a river in a very scenic location. In fact it was the prettiest location the Supporters Club had ever been to and in the summer would have been a very nice spot for an al fresco lunch. Today though was a Saturday in mid February and the Supporters Club would be eating inside. The pub smelt strongly of damp and decay and was occupied by bikers. Well they looked like bikers but there were no bikes in the car park so it was a bit of mystery. Also two of the bikers had Alsatian dogs with them and they couldn’t have brought them on a bike … could they? But bikers they definitely were … old bikers admittedly but bikers none the less. One bloke had a long grey goatee beard and a biker jacket. His hair was encased in a hair net and he had a pony tail. He wore the sort of sun glasses with mirrors on the outside of the lenses. The biker women had long blond hair that was straggly and greasy looking with split ends. Their faces were … lived in. None of this, of course, bothered the Supporters Club … so long as the beer was warm and the food eatable they would be satisfied … and they soon got used to the smell. TGGW ordered a cheese coated veggie and everyone else a chilli.

Whilst they were drinking their beer, which was warm enough, Ned told a story about how his sister-in-law had gone to some place to have her legs waxed and had seen this bloke in there having his back waxed !! Steve immediately recognised this procedure … it was called a ‘Back Sac & Crack’ waxing and only performed on males of the species. What this meant was that the waxing was performed on the back, the scrotum and the bum!!! How did Steve know all this weird stuff? T’ Internet was his reply. TGGW was amazed that anyone would voluntarily undergo such a process and in any case who ever heard of anyone having hairs on their BUM!!! The other members looked at TGGW a bit peculiar like … it transpired that they all had hairs on their bum and wanted to know how TGGW knew that he hadn’t. TGGW’s answer to this was ‘how did they know they had?’ No one seemed to know the answers to either of these questions but TGGW was absolutely sure that he didn’t and the rest of the Supporters Club was sure they did. No-one would admit to ever having actually looked (it would, after all, have necessitated the use of multiple mirrors and would have, quite correctly, have been viewed as abnormal behaviour bordering on the certifiable). The discussion on annal hair continued until the food arrived after which is was considered to be inappropriate. Steve, Rog and Ned got their chillis and TGGW got a chicken breast covered in cheese. It was now nearly time for kick off and there was not time to change the order so TGGW ate the dead bird … it was very nice. The chilli was very nice as well. So over all the pub scored quite a lot of positive points … it really just came down to the smell … and the bikers … and the Alsatian dogs. Whilst eating their meals Ned said that he had read a story in the Daily Mail about Muir Moffats Ballooning exploits in a foreign country with lots of snow … probably Switzerland. Rog had been on this trip with Muir and reported that the reporter who wrote the story was a complete pillock. TGGW read the story later and it was a very boring story. This showed that the reporter, despite being a pillock, was very skilled because it must be very difficult to write a boring story about ballooning in Switzerland with a mad Scotsman what flew a 150ft balloon in the shape of a Scottish Piper …

By the time the meal and the beer had been consumed the game at Harlequins had kicked off and no-one had any idea how to get to the ground. TGGW went and got an AtoZ from the car but, unfortunately, Hambrook was just outside the AtoZ boundaries. The Supporters Club set off with more hope than expectation … (expectation that they could make the ground before half time). The narrow farm track was negotiated ok in that nothing came down the lane from the opposite direction. They very soon drove over a bridge that crossed the ring road. This provoked a short lived burst of optimism because if they could get on to ring road they were home and dry. Should they turn left here, or right there … nobody knew. TGGW drove very slowly waiting instructions. Steve reckoned they could use the sat nav if they got a map up on the touch screen and then pinpointed their destination with the stylus. Rog leaned over from the back seat to attempt this procedure. TGGW was then (for the reasons explained earlier) stuck in the gear he was presently using … 1st. They came to a crossroads with a pub on the corner and Rog exclaimed Eurika!! He knew the pub, he knew exactly where they were …this was the pub where he had played darts in back in the days when … everyone told Rog that it would be more helpful if he concentrated on directions to the ground rather than indulge in his 50 year old reminiscences.

The ground was reached with 10 minutes left in the first half. TRFC 1st team had already suffered two head injuries due to Harlequins well know predilection for kicking players laying on the ground. Evan Hughes sported a bloody bandage around the top of his head and Karl Boucher was wearing a scrum cap thus making him unrecognisable because his bushy hairstyle was hidden. TRFC 1st team were, however, in the lead by 5 points. The game progressed, Thornbury scored some more tries but the set scrum was a mess with Stuart Massey spending most of his time frantically clearing ball from the feet of a fast retreating second row. Stuart Adams was busy sticking his hand up in the air and appealing to the ref whilst the Thornbury winger was equally busy waving his arms doing creditable impersonations of making a tackle. The news came through that some non league football team were leading the mighty Liverpool by 1 goal to 0 goals. Joe Boucher, stood on the touchline watching his sprog, decided to phone his mate who was a Liverpool supporter so that he could gloat a bit. Joe made the call and asked his mate what the score was because he was out in the sticks and had not heard any news yet. Joe’s mate apparently replied with the news that Yate were drawing 0 goals to 0 goals and then hung up. The crowd (at least the Thornbury portion of it) booed and screamed at the ref as yet another Harlequin boot landed on the head of a prone Thornbury player. It mattered not as the final whistle went and Thornbury won the game comfortably.

The supporters Club went home via the ring road and got home in half the time it had taken to get there.