Thompson’s Tremendous Treble Trumpets Titanic Triumph

Bison 8 Bracknell Bees 1

17/9/16

In Greek mythology, Icarus and his father Daedalus attempted to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Daedalus warned his son not to fly too high or the sun's heat would melt the wax holding the feathers together. Alas Icarus ignored his father's instructions whereupon the wax in his wings melted and he fell to an ignominious doom into the sea. Ayeeee! The moral of the story is over confidence can lead to disaster. Could the Icarus factor have explained Bison’s downfall last weekend with 2 defeats to open the EPL season? Maybe, maybe not. If you are one of my regular readers you will realise I know nothing about hockey, so who am I to judge.

So we come to last night’s game. What better chance did Bison have of making amends for their chunderous first weekend than entertaining the Bracknell Bees, last season’s bottom of the pile team, a team with numerous changes and a load of new unproven imports. And the homesters took full advantage and dished out a sound flagellation.

The game opened and Bison had no intention of hanging around. Early pressure paid off with a goal on 3:37. Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds burst forward on a rare attacking foray over the blue line. His shot was blocked, but Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson picked up the puck wide of the goal and whipped in a wristy. The aristocrat in Block A was moved to shout, “Oh Crickey. Ghastly defending, but a frightfully good goal. Top hole you chappies.” 1-0 Bison.

However, much to the chagrin of the aristocrat, the Bison lead was short lived. Only 31 seconds of play elapsed before the Bees bumbled back with an equalising score. Bison looked half asleep, wide open and out to lunch as Alex Barker centred for Luka Basic to drive in from in front of the net. Oh dear Bison. Icarus, Icarus, ICARUS! Was that mythological birdman rearing his ugly head once more?

Bison had to play fruitlessly for nearly 10 minutes more before retaking the lead with a power play goal on 13:48. Lukas Smital was called for slashing. You would have hoped that the player/coach would have set a better example, but no. He was lucky that the referee was Dave Cloutman not Hanging Judge Jeffries on this occasion and it was only 2 minutes in the penalty box for him. Don’t ask me to describe the goal – all I saw a big bundle in front of the net. On came the red light and it was 2-1 Bison. The scorer was announced as Dan Davies. Had the announcer been Michael Caine he might have added “not a lot of people know that” as I suspect most of crowd had no idea who it was who had put the puck in the net. Long Ciaron Long was declared to have been Desperate Dan’s assistant.

Another goal arrived less than a minute later. The 3rd goal was a completely different kettle of fish to the 2nd. No poaching of mackerel was involved for a start. Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird and Dan “The Specs” Lackey were the lackeys on this occasion. Baird passed to his lackey, Lackey, whose movement forward was presto, pronto, chop-chop, schnell and rápido. He centred to an unmarked Tommo. Shaun “The Sheep” received the puck wide of the goal, picked his spot and rifled home a top shelfer past a stunned Alex Mettam, who clattered into the goal frame and caused it to leave its moorings. “Not soon enough,” said Ref Cloutman as he flat handedly pointed at the net. “The puck was already over the line”. 3-1 Bison.

P1 ended and P2 opened and it wasn’t long before Bison put themselves in an even more commanding position. On 45:56 Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov weaved his magic (silly expression really – you can weave cloth, but how can you weave magic?) behind the goal line and then picked out Kurt “The Scissors” once more marauding forwards. He picked up the puck and sent in a too-hot-to-handle wristy, which Mettam saved, but spilled. Alan “Prairie Dog” Lack was there to stab in the rebounded rubber. His sister Amy resisted the temptation to punch the air in celebration, which was just as well as she was one of the linesmen (should that be linespersons?) and it wouldn't have looked appropriate. 4-1 Bison.

It was looking like a hopeless cause for the Bees, but they didn’t give up the ghost and, with defending more concrete than wet paper bag in character, they kept Bison out for most of the rest of the period. However, all good things must come to an end, just as everything which goes up must come down (just ask Sir Isaac Newton about that one) and their resolute Great Wall of China-esque resistance terminated in a most ignominious fashion with a Long Ciaron Long wrap-around goal in the 38^th minute. Petr Polodna’s shot was saved by Mettam, but Long Ciaron picked up the puck, passed around the back of the goal and prodded it in between Mettam and post. The goaltender may not have been homeless, but he was hapless, helpless and hopeless on this occasion. 5-1 Bison.

So we moved into P3 with the Bees on the wrong end of a chunderous scoreline. Let us consider a scenario. Would the Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block A sell his Chippendale chairs for a tenner a throw? He might if his house was on fire, his contents insurance had run out and his neighbour was offering him £10 for each. That would be what we call “damage limitation”. And that’s exactly what the Bees had to practice to avoid being on the end of an embarrassing flagellation. They failed. Damage became more damage and, as the Rabble Rouser’s chairs burned, just like Rome did as Nero fiddled, so the Bees chances of keeping the score respectable smouldered, caught fire and ended up burned to a cinder. Blistering Biriynais!

5-1 became 6-1 on 45:46 as Polodna’s pass enabled Stuart “The Cat” Mogg to burst forward and feed Matt Towlaski. The man, who sounds like a Russian import but isn’t either Russian or an import, proved he is more than just a corner grinder by whipping a wrist shot past the luxuriantly bearded but follically challenged Mettam. Another former Bee to join Thompson and Lack on the scoresheet.

6-1 became 7-1 some 3 minutes later. Fed by Moggie, Long Ciaron fired a shot goalwards and there was Shaun “The Sheep” to direct it home past a startled Mettam. It was a wacko-the-diddle-o moment for Tommo – a hat trick to his name and against his old team. His brother Carl resisted the temptation to leave the Bees’ bench and join in the congratulations. That wouldn’t have looked good.

7-1 became 8-1 on 49:21 with a Karpov special. The Czech chap picked up the puck from Desperate Dan Davies and, as Shakespeare might have said, …. “didst moveth f'rward with the elusivity of a slipp'ry eel”. Well he would have slipped through the defence like a slippery eel had there been any. Alas the Bees’ D were conspicuously absent and no slippery or eel-esque qualities were required by Karpov to move into a scoring position. This he did, picked his spot and whipped in a top shelf wrist shot past Mettam and his beard. 8-1 Bison and the Bees facing a bigger calamity than Calamity Jane herself.

Could Bison go on to record double figures? A couple of goals past a woeful Bees team looked possible or even probably, but it was not to be as the Bees, although caught with their trousers down, were not going to allow themselves to be spanked. At last they jumped on the damage limitation wagon and kept Bison at bay for the last 10 minutes. In fact they pressed very hard in the last few minutes in an attempt to bag a second goal. And why not? An 8-2 defeat would look better than an 8-1 defeat, albeit not by much. However, to breach the Bison defence was proving as difficult as it would be to cut through the crust of a two-month-old British Rail pork pie using a plastic knife and fork. They failed in the former and it must remain a matter of speculation as to whether or not any of them tried the latter.

The final buzzer sounded and it was all over. Bison’s Top Banana was, of course, Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson with Josh Tetlow picking up the MoM beers for the Bees. A resounding win for Bison and no sign of Icarus.

RIP Alex Collins

Sad news received on Friday that Alex had died suddenly at the age of 87. Alex was a stalwart of Block C for many years, supporting Bison through thick and thin. He appeared in my reports as The Man from MI5. He was a great sport and had no problem with my creating this absurd imaginary persona out of him. Dressed as always in his mac he reminded me of someone from a John Le Carré spy novel and this inspired me to write nonsense of this sort:

“The puck flew high into the net. “Not even the Berlin wall could have stopped that,” thought the Man from MI5, observing incognito from Block C.”

“The Man from MI5, observing incognito from Block C, needed a drink to calm his nerves, but alas the Planet Ice refreshments counter could not serve him a Martini (shaken not stirred).”

Cheerio Alex. We’ll all miss you. I’m sure you will be observing incognito from somewhere else.