Colonel Mustard recently recovered from a nasty case of Rising Damp, reports on Bayshill CC’s National Chairman Day.
When you’re invited to a Bayshill event, you jolly well better take some serious notice and attend. That’s right, stop that blessed involuntary twitching and affected blinking and looking for all intensive purposes as damned confused as a wretched PG Tips monkey. And, you better cut out that unnecessary fiddling with your yellow silk neck tie. Sit up straight man! God’s teeth! Screw in your Victorian 18 carat monocle as far, as is decent in mixed company, pat that scrimshaw whale embellished snuffbox, fork lift the faux leather wallet into your vast tweed trizers and by crikey you’ll be almost ready for something that you’ll never dare be allowed to forget.
The indoor season as you’ve no doubt noticed is over. Good observation, well done! The outdoor season must surely, due to the current snow and sleet, be as close as is possible to imagine. I can, I promise you, we as a team can almost touch the first game, that has been so cleverly scheduled by the Fixtures’ Secretary, to take place in about five weeks or so. That’s right dear reader, it’s a time for the cricketing calendar to be clicked into motion once more; a time to celebrate the pressing of the button that unleashes Spring in the raw, with its green shoots of hope and ever lengthening lazy days. ‘The button’ I refer to, is of course the Chairman’s nativity celebration. He very cleverly (and don’t ask how he managed it) has arranged this to be the same day each year, possibly so as not to confuse the rank and file members of the esteemed club of the name Bayshill CC, which he founded, quite some time ago, in the early Mesolithic or something. Remarkably, some players from this era or epoch, still grimly arthricket their stubborn and confused forms onto the pitch. I jest not…
Now to the evening itself without further nonsensical tripe. 7 o’clock was the destined start time and the venue was a place unknown to many Bays players. The new and shiny players had never been there before, whilst the old codgers in the team (and there are, for the love of all the saints, far too many!) had frequented the place many times before, but so long ago in fact, that they’d bally well forgotten where it was and even, whether it had ever really existed in the first place. That’s right, the Bayshill Inn; the place, that some say, gave its name to the club. Others though, dare I suggest, in the crepuscular stage of their lives, respectfully correct such a naive and innocent suggestion to boot, saying instead, that the title came from none other than the Bayshill area of Cheltenham. Whatever the real truth, it mattered not a single iota, or even the tiniest jot, as the players, their partners and sundry supporters were back in the bosom of the Bays. Well hurrah to that I say.
Some wit in the team suggested that a bloke called Open Mike would be there at 9. What a ridiculous concept! A band were setting up, I grant you, but this Mike chappie, didn’t have the effrontery to dare show his face, on, in the eyes of the nation, an evening of such gravitas. Two or three drinks in and it was already time to shuffle off, as the geriatric and perplexed band looked like they were nearly ready to Zimmer-thrash their electric guitars to an untimely and unseemly death. The ear wax dislodging torture of the nearby speakers confirmed such an upsetting hypothesis; it was definitely time to bail out. The team were gone quicker than HawkEye could raise his finger, or indeed Father Ted and company, exit a vast lingerie department, whilst a downcast hump-backed band member leaning on his stick, forlornly
stated, ‘We’re not as bad as all that!’ Too late and too bad and more importantly, tough bananas!
The St.George’s Vaults was in contrast, a place of respectability and tranquillity. Strangely though, the old hip-shaker and blue suede shoe wearer Elvis was there in person. Things were clearly going to start to take off. Chris Horner, not quite ‘all shook up,’ daringly appointed himself as indoor cricketer of the season, awarding himself the prestigious Vibe Ring of 23, before remembering that it was the Chairman who was to be honoured’. Why, the indoor Bays captain was veritably buzzing and suddenly vaping away in the manner of the original ‘Puffing Billy’ and why should we doubt him, in such circumstances?
Before the Underbergs (official sponsor of the Bays some ten years ago or so) had been dispatched, time was up as Interstellar Overdrive belted out of the jukebox. The Bays were once more on the move again, akin to the vast wildebeest migrations on the plains of the Serengeti. Nothing could stop them, not even the notice above the bar precluding foul language. The evening finished and the herd dissipated as quickly as the toxic clouds of vapour from Rod’s electronic cigarillo device.
Those in attendance were, in no particular order of importance…
Peter (Chairman & Founder, Ex Capt), Lally (Next Capt?), Nobby Norbert the Nobster (Ex Capt), Alex Bertie Van Dyke (Ex Capt), Elvis Presley (Ex Capt), Tomos Acrhbishop Liley (Ex Capt), Martin Van Dyke (Website Supremo), Rod Come on The Hibs (Next Capt?), Marilyn Monroe (Ex Capt), Steve Scissor Hands Pritchard (Capt), Chrissos Crazy Horse Horner (Ex Capt), Fran on Severn Stirrup (Westbury on Severn Capt, Next Capt), Rachael (Next Capt), & Steve the Abbot Liley (Ex Capt).