Ooo Matron! It’s a Red Raw Flagellation

Bracknell Bees 2 Bison 9

20/10/19

Make no mistake - this was a veritable trousers down spanking that even Madam Whiplash, armed with a bull whip, a horse whip and a cat-o-nine-tails, would have trouble matching. With a performance of purple spectacularity Bison hammered, humbled and humiliated their bitterest rivals to bring their victorious tally to 7 wins against 1 loss since the summer defections of 2018. It turned out to be a tale of three netmen, one stellar and the other two lamentable, a 4-goal Slovak assassin, a Bees’ reject who slammed a hat-trick against his old team and a bunch of raving lunatics – the Bison backers who turned out in massive force to cheer their team on to victory. Let us preamble no further, dear reader, but instead why don’t we move into the first period.

With only 49 seconds on the clock, the Bees’ grim evening began. Coach Tait squared to Pilot Office Paul Petts in front of the net. His attempts to get the puck past Adam Goss failed, but the biscuit spilled loose off the rubberoid custodian and there emerging from behind the net like a ghost was Michal Klejna. The Slovak chap poked the puck over the line. By the way Kat Meszarosova, a native Slovakian known to me, has reliably informed me that the correct pronunciation of Klejna’s name is Clay-na. Now we know. It was a scrappy goal, but it still had more artistic merit than Damien Hirst’s half a sheep in a tank of formaldehyde. The Bison goal celebration was sizeably massive, excessively copious and immeasurably monumental. 1-0 Bison.

On 11:21 Harvey Stead interfered. “Oi you,” shouted Ref Belfitt. “That’s bang out of order.” It was to be a 2 minute stretch of solitary without even bread and water (actually there may have been some water available). But not quite as Stead’s porridge came to an end after 1:27, an insufficient period of reflection for him I am sure. Gordon “George” Norcliffe set it up for Adam “Oh no not Jonesy” Jones to whip an Ooo Mr. Rigsby wrist shot from the slot. Goss diverted it onto the post, but, much to the netman’s very grave chagrin, it fell at the stick of Ryan Sutton, who fired it in. Had Tommy Cooper been present and a Bison fan, he would have thrown his fez into the air. 2-0 Bison.

On 16:12 Ivan and Vanya Antonov were both called for a simultaneous hook. Into the glasshouse went the errant twins and it did their team no good at all, for 39 seconds later Sutton took a pass from Norcliffe from Klejna, and skated in on goal. He wasn’t toting a six shooter, but he was toting a hot hockey stick (equally as lethal) and he proved he was as deadly a shot as Wild Bill Hickok (that’s him below). He whipped a wrist shot across the goal tender and into the opposite top shelf. 3-0 Bison. The Bison backers trumpeted their approbation at an elephantine level of noise. P1 ended without further scoring.

Ooo Betty Bees. 0-3 to the bad. But never mind a couple of quick goals at the start of the 2^nd would see them back in it. Alas that’s not quite what happened. Read on.

On 24:05 Norcliffe hooked and was hooked into the box. Here was the Bees’ chance - a power play would surely bear fruit. Well it did, but not Bees’ fruit. 50 seconds into the PP Jay King passed out (not out cold but out of defense) to Coach Tate who slipped a pass to Klejna. Over the blue line in a most velocious fashion went the Slovak geezer. He bore down on goal and suddenly whipped a wrist shot past the glove of Goss, who by now must have wished he was elsewhere. Soon he would be. The Bison backers volcanized once more. Red Leader was so excited his dentures nearly fell out. 4-0 Bison and strangely enough no assist to Tait. Oh the inaccuracy of official game sheets!

But there was to be joy in the Bees’ camp 28 seconds later. Still on the power play, the Antonov twins poked in for 1-4. Stuart “The Cat” Mogg and Josh Smith assisting for an all ex Bison players’ goal. Damn them. Not to worry, their euphoria didn’t last long. On 28:39 Klejna struck again. And the rubberoid Goss, hapless netminder extraordinaire, must have wanted his Mummy after this one. He saved Tait’s shot, but, now drawn hopelessly out of position, he could only flop around on the ice like a freshly caught haddock on the deck of a trawler as Klenja poked the puck into a vacated net. Oh dear. Suddenly we heard a bell. Was the bell tolling for the Bees? Or was it school’s out? No it was Honest Pete ringing his Bison bell in celebration. 5-1 Bison.

Coach Sheppard must have been very angry by this stage.

The Bison drummers seemed to have more drums than Ginger Baker, John Bonham, Keith Moon and Gene Krupa put together, as they beat out a victory roll. Hang on. Gene who? Gene Krupa, legendary big band leader and drummer from the 1940s/50s - that’s the geezer below.

It was becoming embarrassing for the homesters. But alas for them their chunderous and blunderous evening was far from over. They still had a long way to go before they reached the bottom of their pit of calamitous disaster. On 29:28 Smith hooked and was invited to embark on a 2 minute journey of reflection and contrition for his misdeed in an attempt to find a path to redemption. He may have been well on the way towards achieving this, but alas his introspective ruminations were cut short by yet another goal. Tait squared to King (I think), who found Klejna wide and to the left of the goal on the point. He made his point by snapping an unstoppable (well unstoppable by Goss anyway) shot past the exceedingly hapless netman, who was by now well on the way to needing counselling. Hat-trick for Klejna and 6-1 Bison. Honest Pete’s bell tolled once more. The Man in the Charlestown Chiefs shirt hugged the Che Guevara impersonator in celebration. The Desperate Dan lookalike wanted to devour a cow pie in celebration, but alas the catering faculties at the Hive could not furnish him with such a culinary delight. It was deep joy, as Stanley Unwin might have described it, in the Bison blocks.

Popeye once said, "That's all I can stands, 'cause I can't stands no more!" Coach Sheppard may well have said the same thing. He had seen enough. If the hapless Goss had been a horse they would have shot him to put him out of his misery. But I heard no neighing coming from his direction. Instead he suffered the ignominy of being dragged from the net, not literally mind you, with a chunderous save percentage of 76%. In came Danny Milton supposedly to shore up the goal. He was to fare even worse (with a save percentage of 72.7%), as I shall relate, dear reader.

P2 ended without further goals. 5 goals to the bad, the Bees must have been reaching for the Prozac. Did they have enough to go round the locker room? But never mind, 3 or 4 quick goals at the start of the 3^rd and they would be back in it. Well there were a couple of quick goals at the start of the 3^rd, but, alas for the homesters, they were Bison goals, which pushed the Bees further down into the dark recesses of their septic tank of dejection. They were now well and truly swirling round in the glutinous, steaming mass which is the detritus of disappointment.

Only 49 seconds into P3 a slick move involving Petts and Ollie Stone set up Alex Sampford skating in at the back door. And what of the Bees’ D? Coach Sheppard might just as well have entrusted snuffing out the Bison threat to a team of half asleep down and outs tanked up to the eyeballs on meths and heroin. His D proved just as ineffectual, as an unopposed Sampford wiggled his twig to fox Milton. It worked as the puck looped over hapless netman no.2 and into the net. 7-1 Bison.

Then on 42:32 Edward Knaggs fired the puck into the Bison defensive zone only for Hallam Wilson to chop it down out to Sutton, who didn’t dilly-dally, delay or dawdle. Oh no matron. He immediately fired a stretch pass down the middle to Liam “Square Sausage” Morris. Back in 1969 the Beach Boys told us “Break break shake away, break breakaway, now I'm free to do what I want to do”. Well that applied to Morris also. He was free to do what he wanted to do as he broke straight down the centre and whipped a net rippling shot past Milton glove side. The goal was greeted by a sudden outburst of noise decibelularly (OK I made that word up) equivalent to a herd of elephants stampeding through the Serengeti. Conversely silent pathos pervaded the Bees’ blocks. 8-1 Bison.

Still no peace for Milton. On 46:42 with the Bees defending a power play, Aiden Doughty having been sent down the steps for kneeing, Klejna squared a pass across the crease through a lethargic Bees’ D to Sutton who put lumber to rubber and breached the Milton 5-hole which gaped as wide as a yawning Hippopotamus. A first ever senior hat-trick for Sutts. 9-1 Bison

 

“We want 10, we want 10” chanted the Bison backers. “We want 2, we want 2,” chanted the Bees fans. The Bespectacled Youth was heard to shout “7 quick goals and you’re back in it.” And he was right. But were the Bees capable of bagging them? Well actually no, matron. But they did grab one shortly after. So the fans got their 2 after all. Tom “Wreck-It” Ralph had his collar felt for a hook and in the ensuing powerplay, the Antonov twins swept around the back of the net and poked in a loose puck, which Alex “Mittens” Mettam thought he had covered. Assist to Zack Milton. 9-2 Bison. For the Bees that sounded a lot better than 9-1 Bison.

That was it as far as the scoring was concerned. The game ended and Sutton was elected Bison’s Top Banana with Klejna receiving the Bison belt. A great night for the visitors, but what on earth has happened to the Bees? Last summer when Doug Sheppard, top coach in the league, defected with 8 players from the treble winning side they looked like they had a rosy future. In the game they matched Bison shot on goal for shot on goal, but ended up on the wrong end of a very embarrassing scoreline, looked at times as if they didn’t want to be there and stunned their fans into Guildford library-esque silence. As Yogi Berra, baseball catcher extraordinaire and purveyor of famous nonsensical utterances, once said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”

Klejna Brings Bison Back from the Brink

Bison 4 Romford Raiders 2

12/10/19

Julius Caesar, the Roman geezer, once said of Ancient Britain “Veni, Vidi, Vici” – I came, I saw, I conquered. Since the beginning of season 2017-8, the Raiders have journeyed to Planet Ice, Basingstoke on 7 previous occasions intending to elevate themselves onto the pedestal of  victor ludorum. Alas on each occasion they have sustained an ignominious defeat. They have come and seen, but not conquered. Could they finally break that sequence and bag the laurels tonight? Well actually no. They fell short of Caesar’s achievement. It was to be defeat no 8 - an outcome most chunderous for them. However, at 2-0 up as P2 wound down, it was looking good for the Essex men. Fo-shizzle. But fate was to vomit on the Raiders’ hopes as they did exactly what Bonnie Tyler did in “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in that they fell apart in P3 and had to return to Romford with no laurels at all.

P1 opened and later closed. There were no goals. I shall say nothing more than that.

P2 opened and on 22:48 the visitors bagged a delayed penalty goal. Don’t ask me to describe it as I wasn’t looking and don’t care, but I can tell you that the scorer was Blahoslav Novak assisted by Sean Berry. Added to the list of things that don’t work at Planet Ice must now be the goal light at the bar end. As the puck slid over the line, the arm of Honest Pete, the goal judge, went up. Was he indicating a goal or asking to be excused? 1-0 Raiders.

Bison pressed forward in search of a levelling score, but such proved as elusive as a pot of leprechaun’s gold at the end of a rainbow. And indeed it would be the visitors who would bag another to surge further ahead in the contest. This one was scored by Oliver Alfie C. Baldock (that is how he is listed in the official EIHA records). Jake Sylvester’s shot was saved by Alex “Mittens” Mettam, but, much to his chagrin, the puck squirted to the aforementioned Baldock, who put it past the despairing Bison custodian. Dan Scott with the second assist. 2-0 Raiders.

On seeing their team surge into what they thought was an unassailable lead, the Raiders’ fans were moved to shout, “I say. Jolly good show. You’ve bally well had your chips, you Bison chappies.” Or at least something similar in Essex lingo. And so it appeared. The Man in the Charlestown Chiefs shirt, being a dastardly pessimist was now plunged into a swirling and indeed steaming quagmire of festering defeatism. “Bison won’t win it now,” he said to the Che Guevara impersonator, but what he knows about hockey can be written on the back of a postage stamp with a broad nibbed pen and he was once again proved to possess erroneous judgement and be as wide of the mark with his assessment as a bullet fired from a gun by Ray Charles at a target the size of a dinner plate at 1,000 yards.

Enter Michal Klejna. Every week in my youth I would read with great relish of the deeds of Captain Hurricane in the Valiant comic. Something would happen which would drive the Captain into an apoplectic rage. He would then charge forward, dodging machine gun bullets, and give the Germans what for with his bare hands, as can be seen in the illustration below :

Well, Klejna had a Captain Hurricane moment. He was so annoyed at the concession of the second goal that he threw his stick to the floor. He came onto the ice for a shift. The puck was fed through to him by Coach Ashley Tait. As if he was rushing forward to bang the heads of two German soldiers together, Klejna charged forward in a most Captain Hurricane-esque fashion and shot the puck. Michael Gray in the Raiders’ net was equal to it and saved, but Klejna picked up the rebounded puck and wrapped around before Gray could cover his back post. The goaltender had left a gap between himself and the post, almost as wide as the gap between Terry Thomas’s front teeth. Through that gap the very angry Klejna slid the puck. 1-2 Raiders. There had been only 19 seconds between the goals. Bison now had a straw to clutch at, a dim light at the end of the tunnel to observe, a peg on which to hang their hat, a ray of sunshine to bask in. Could they go on and win the game? Of course they could, as I shall relate dear reader. Suffice it to say that Klejna's goal was the crucial turning point in the game. Had Bison gone in 0-2 to the bad, it may have been a very different outcome.

P2 closed very soon after. P3 opened and it was to prove an utterly dominant period for the homesters, outshooting their opponents by 18-7, scoring 3 unanswered goals, all on the power play, and inducing the Raiders’ to concede 24 PIMs. Things turned from Ooo Betty to Ooo Matron for Bison and in the opposite direction for the Raiders.

On 41:07 up went Referee Matthews’s hands with 6 fingers projecting (actually 4 fingers and 2 thumbs but let’s not split hairs). Too many men on the ice. Off to the house of correction went the Raiders’ bench. Well not the actual bench. Now that would have been an interesting sight to see. On 42:48 Alex Sampford slewed a pass to Adam Jones. “On no not Jonesy,” said the Man with 3 Ear-rings, lamenting the time it frequently takes the D-man to get a shot away. Not on this occasion, however. Jones sent an Ooo Mr. Rigsby wrist shot towards the Raiders’ net and there was Ryan Sutton thrusting his lumber into the path of the puck, causing it to adopt an altered trajectory. Gray was beaten. Have you ever cooked Borsch, that famous eastern European dish? Take a kilo of beetroot, half a kilo of carrots, a stick of celery, 8 shallots and a clove of garlic. Peel and roughly chop the vegetables. Place in a large pan with a bay leaf and 2 tablespoons of caraway seeds. Cover with stock. Bring to a rapid boil. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to a simmer. Suppose you forgot the last bit. The pan would overheat and bubble over. That’s exactly what happened in the Bison blocks when the goal was scored. There was much bubbling over. 2-2.

Bison now had the momentum and on 45:45 Brandon Ayliffe was adjudged guilty of a J.R Hartley-esque hook on George “Gordon” Norcliffe. (J.R. who? See footnote 1). Into the slammer went the errant fellow. It was a heavy price he paid as only 17 seconds later it was 3-2. Adam Harding set up Tom “Wreck-It” Ralph for a shot from just inside the blue line. Wreck-It was about to wreck Gray’s evening good and proper. He delivered a wrist shot. The hapless unsighted custodian remained as motionless as a Norwegian Blue parrot nailed to his perch. (Those under 40 may have to Youtube the Monty Python “Dead Parrot” sketch). The puck sailed past his head and into the stringbag. Up went Honest Pete’s arm – he still hadn’t been excused. 3-2 Bison.

Things were looking rosy in the garden for the homesters and the bell was tolling for the visitors. The Raiders had their backs to the wall and they needed to pull a rabbit out of the hat to swing the pendulum back the other way. But Bison had no intention of giving quarter and turned the screw even further. The Raiders’ discipline was beginning to crumble and on 48:03 whilst 4 on 4 with Bison’s Bayley Harewood and the Raiders’ Ross Connolly already banged up, they once again fell foul of the law. Dan Scott was sent “up the river”, not to a place they call Sing Sing (where? See footnote 2), but instead to the glass house for roughing. It was to prove an erroneous action and folly of the highest magnitude as Bison took full advantage and hammered what proved to be the final nail into the coffin of the Raiders’ hopes, soon to be pushing up the daisies good and proper. Before the liberation of any of the aforementioned miscreants Harewood, Connolly and Scott it was 4 on 3. On 49:27 the puck was passed by Klejna once more to “Oh no not Jonesey” just inside the blue line. The brains of the Raiders’ 3, although presumably present, were clearly not engaged on the matter in hand, as their poor positioning and lack of awareness of the danger clearly illustrated disconbobulation in the thought process department. Rather than close Jones down they allowed him to move forwards as free as a bird, unchecked and uninterfered with. He had all the time in the world to pick his spot. An Ooo Mr. Rigsby wrist shot flew high into the net past a despairing Gray to complete his grey day (well evening actually). 4-2 Bison. Honest Pete’s arm was up again, but alas his long overdue visit to the establishment’s facilities remained unallowed.

But the game nor Honest Pete’s discomfort was not over. Oh no matron. We were to witness a scene of a life threatening variety as Callum Wells did his best to knock Bayley Harewood’s block off with a clothesline challenge when Harewood was in full flight. Blistering biriyanis! The young Bison forward was lucky to escape with his head still on his shoulders. Josh Kelly flew in like a super hero, but Wells saw him coming and he bounced off him in a somewhat comical manner which belied the severity of the incident. The two then came together in a potentially pugilistic manner, but the officials stepped in and prevented an escalation of this most disharmonious affray. The blood lust of the Bison crowd remained unfulfilled and the crowd became ugly. The Howling Man enunciated his views in an incomprehensible tirade. I concede that, as we were not able to make out any of the Howling Man’s words, the content of his haranguing diatribe must remain a matter of speculation. He was clearly very angry and rightly so, as his bald patch turned from pink to dark cerise, a litmus paper type indication of his degree of vexation. This was surely a game penalty for Wells. But no – only a 2 + 10.

The clock wound down and with 2 minutes remaining and with a 2 goal deficit to pull back it was cheerio, old fruit, as Gray was pulled from the Raiders’ net. Scoring an empty net goal is a bit more difficult that it looks as Bison had  4 or 5 attempts to do that very thing, but that aspiration remained unachieved. Suddenly the fat lady was singing and it was “all over now, baby blue”, as Bob Dylan once told us. So it was veni and vidi for the Raiders but no vici.

Top bananas were elected. The top Raider was considered to be the aforementioned Oliver Alfie C. Baldock, whose surname offers a myriad of plays on words (don’t worry I won’t), whilst Alex “Mittens” Mettam took the Bison accolade.

Footnote 1 : J.R. Hartley was a fictional character in a 1983 television advert for Yellow Pages. (Yellow what? Oh no don’t). Desperately going from shop to shop looking for his own out of print book “Fly Fishing”, he eventually finds a copy courtesy of Yellow Pages. OK it was long before the days of the internet, you young ‘uns. That’s how we found things in those days.

Footnote 2 : Convicts from New York City would be sent up the Hudson River by boat to Sing Sing prison in upstate New York hence the colloquialism “up the river”. Come on I’ve told you that before.