Match Report - Bury Felt

Editor's Note: Why are there no painkillers in the jungle? Because the parrots eat em all ...

They say that Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea. That would probably explain the spate of unsolved arson attacks in Bournemouth the other year. And speaking of all things fiery, it's worth casting our minds back a couple of days to Sunday's excellent gala down at Elton Vale. Astonishingly, given the copious drinking on offer, the only things that appeared to have suffered were skipper Michelle who had turned radioactive, a few players with hangovers, and one broken clipboard ...

With the home side's ground not fit for play, the match was moved to the neutral venue of Clarence Park, Bury, traditionally not a happy hunting ground for Totts; despite monstrous rain throughout the day, a bumper visiting crowd was in attendance, keen to provide great support to the girls. Totts had won a couple on the bounce, could we make it a hat-trick of victories?

Team news first, and Debbie was back in the fold, having missed Sunday's shenanigans in favour of jetting off to the Sun for dwarf-related antics. She looked slightly less hungover than the rest of the team, which was probably a bonus. Meanwhile various folk were receiving increasingly irate phone calls from skipper Michelle "Sat Nav" Handley, who was nowhere to be seen ... these generally went along the lines of:

"It's Michelle, where are you all?"
"We're here, where are you?"
"Who's there?"
"All of us ... Livvy, Sue, Jane, Paul, Wayne, Danielle, Alex ..."
"No you're not. Can you see the footballers?"
"Yeah, the ones with orange vests?"
"No, BLUE"
"What? Where are you?"
"Clarence Park ... in Radcliffe"
"errrr ...."

10 minutes later, Shell arrived with a slightly - if you'll excuse the pun (and you normally do) - shellshocked Byron, Jemski and Chang, who had been driven at near lightspeed from Radcliffe to Bury. Fortunately we hadn't started yet, so the still-angry skipper was able to lead the side out into the field. Much of the game was fairly incident-free, so I'll just throw out a few observations.

1. Trish once again performed superbly at backstop, a position she's commanded all year. The bowler-backstop-first base combo was in fine order, and accounted for numerous dismissals. Both Jane and Michelle bowled really well ...

2. Doherty was fielding at tips, and was quite brilliantly copying every mannerism that Alli has brought to the position this year, right down to the absolutely ridiculous "splayed leg, hands stretched out, swaying" stance. I asked John who had taught her this, he rightfully denied all knowledge, and in the post-mortem later, it transpired that Alli herself had copied this from Fluffy. That's always where the trouble starts isn't it? Sara fielded really well, and coupled with her super display with the bat, rightly took home the Mars Bar award tonight - well done!

3. Debbie finally took a catch ... only for the ref to call no ball. Magnificent!

4. A number of the team are off to the V Festival this weekend. In addition to affording the geeky members of the support to wonder why they're off to a gathering to celebrate a sci-fi programme from almost 30 years ago, it did lead to one of the absolute dumbest comments I've ever heard (and, believe me, with you lot that's quite a task :) ) ... I'll recount the conversation in full.

Jane: "I fancy V Festival next year"
Me: "Yeah, but it'll be W Festival next year won't it, like a car reg it goes up every year"
Jane: "Really? Oh right, I didn't know that"

5. Byron didn't rant. Not even once.

6. We won. By an innings. Bravissimo!

Many of you will already have seen it, but I felt it only fitting to close tonight's report with this video tribute to a group of people I have come to love and admire this summer, and a set of friends I hold dear. Have a wonderful off-season, and here's to plenty more fun and games in 2011.