Smorgasbord of Defensive Errors Does for the Dumbledores

Bracknell Bees 2 Bison 3

10/11/19

Fo’shizzle the Bees must really hate Bison. They can’t seem to beat them home or away, at the North Pole or on Mars, not that they’ve played at the latter two venues (yet). Last night’s road win for the Basingstoke ice men meant that they have now won 8 games in a row against the Bees. We, the assembled, at least in the Bison blocks, were hoping for a metaphorical smorgasbord (smorgas what? See footnote 1) of purple pulsating plays resulting in a plethora of goals as a result of a cornucopia (Ooo I love that word) of chunderous defensive aberrations, leading to a total demoralisation of the opposition, causing them to reach for a cocktail of Prozac and Valium and to book a team session on the analyst’s couch, as had occurred last time – remember the 9-2 flagellation dished out by Bison on their last visit to Bracknell? (OK the Prozac, Valium and analyst’s couch might be my imagination running wild). Well we didn’t see exactly that. But we did witness a close exciting game, very sadly marred by an opprobrious incident at the death (and it nearly did result in death) involving violence of the most outrageous variety and the spilling of more blood than went down the shower plug hole when Vivienne Leigh was stabbed by Anthony Perkins in Psycho (see below and see footnote 2). The unsavoury particulars of this abominable contretemps will be given at the end of this report.

Suffice it to say that P1 opened and closed with no scoring, so let us move onto P2 to avoid the wastage of paper. It was the Bees who finally broke the deadlock on 25:22. Adam Harding was hooked into the box for a hook and whilst he was giving solemn thought to his misdemeanour, experiencing profound feelings of penitence and contrition as he formulated a plan of good deed doing which would enable him to reach a state of retrospective exculpation, the Bees scored and cut short his meditation. Harvey Stead passed from the slot to wide left and there was Brendon Baird advancing across the circle to whip a wristy past Dan “The Beast” Weller-Evans. Robin Kovar with the second assist. 1-0 Bees.

This was an extremely unsatisfactory state of affairs for Bison. They had to get back on level terms and they were presented with an opportunity which couldn’t have been more golden than if it had been Tutankhamun’s death mask (see below).

First of all Joe Baird had his collar felt on 30:24 for a cross check, such check being delivered while he was cross no doubt. If he wasn’t, the referee certainly was cross and checked him into the glasshouse for a 2 minuter. 21 seconds later Roman Malinik was elbowed into the box for an elbowing offence. 1 minute 39 seconds of 5 on 3 await the inept Bees D. Could they hold out Alamo style or would they fall like a 50 storey skyscraper built on porridge. The answer is …... it was skyscraper not Alamo. The move began with Adam “Oh no not Jonesy” Jones squaring an Ooo Mr. Rigsby pass to Coach Tait, D to D style. Tait then sent a diagonal pass to Michal Klejna at the back door. He had Stuart “The Cat” Mogg between him and the goal. The Slovak chap bypassed Moggie with a pass to the slot and there in between the other two D-men exercising centimeter, nay millimeter, perfect spatial awareness, a quality which bumbling D-men did not share with him, was Alex Sampford. He laid lumber on rubber and the biscuit flew past a despairing Adam Goss into the stringbag behind him, causing the hapless netman to experience feelings of great sadness. Well it had been a moment of immense ghastliness for him after all. 1-1.

One evening in the Summer of 1980 a taxi driver entered the public bar of the Jubilee Tavern in Southsea. He spoke to the barman, who then made an announcement “Taxi for Mr. Sour.” There was no response. He upped the decibels and shouted “TAXI FOR MR. SOUR!” Again no response until a wit shouted back, “He’s gone off.” (True story). Well on 41:16 the Bees’ D did exactly the same thing that Mr. Sour had done that evening. They went off, perhaps in search of Mr. Sour. Who knows? Well that’s not quite accurate. The Bees’ D was there but only in body and not in mind. They proved totally ineffectual as Liam “Square Sausage” Morris received a pass from Bayley Harewood and from the point he drifted effortlessly past one D-man as elusively as a solitary strand of linguini drizzled in olive oil would slip through the prongs of a fork (OK I’ve used that one before). He was now one on one with netman Goss. Morris shot, but Goss saved and deflected the puck off his pads at an angle of 125˚ (OK it could have been 124˚) to the opposite boards where Klejna picked it up. He had 2 D-men between himself and the goal. The first simply got out of the way. The second just allowed Klejna to move past him as he stood as statuesquely as Lot’s wife had been. Goss had failed to mind the gap and through that gap Klejna stroked the puck at an impossible angle. Well not actually impossible clearly, as he did it. On went the beacon behind the goal. A positively beastly moment for the netman. 2-1 Bison.

But the Bees were not dead yet. On 46:09 Roman Malinik stole the puck and drifted across goal before unleashing a speculative lob shot, which bounced in off the glove of Weller-Evans. Bad luck Dan “The Beast”. A bit Ooo Betty that one. 2-2.

Back to parity then for the Bees. Could they go on and win the game? If they were to do this they needed to prove as tough on the D as a plug of chewing tobacco bought in some wild west general store. As it proved they were as soft as a wobbly blancmange sliced in half by a razor sharp Samurai sword forged from the finest tempered steel and honed to perfection. They ended up in dire straits, but not of the Mark Knopfler variety. It took them only 3 minutes for them to fall like a dead parrot dropping off its perch. And once again it was the result of bumbling, incompetent, floundering ineptitude on the part of the out to lunch Bees’ D. Sampford played a drop pass to Harding. He, the latter named chap, drifted past one D-man as if he wasn’t there (perhaps his mind was on other things such as the whereabouts of Mr. Sour instead of thinking about providing a worthy challenge). Harding, the aforementioned latter named, shot, but Goss was equal to it. Unfortunately for the hapless chappie and much to his very grave chagrin, he proved a trifle rubberoid and the puck bounced off him and ended up in front of the crease. Even though there were 2 Bees D-men and only 1 Bison forward on hand, it was the Bison man, namely Marek Malinsky, who was first to the spilled biscuit and he fired home to put the Bees’ out of their misery – they surely knew they were going to lose, as they had on the previous 7 occasions, but now their minds had been put at rest as an 8^th successive subjugation loomed large. Back in 1930 Walter Vinson (that’s the geezer below) wrote and recorded a song with his band the Mississippi Sheiks which was to become a blues standard. It was subsequently recorded by numerous artists including Ray Charles, Chet Atkins, Howlin’ Wolf,  Bob Dylan, the White Stripes and Cream (also see below). That song was entitled “Sittin’ on Top of the World.” And that is what the Bison backers were doing, but metaphorically only as they were all standing at this juncture. As for netminder Goss on top of the world was the last pace he was sitting. 3-2 Bison.

But a Bison victory wasn’t a certainty. On no, Matron, not yet. There were still nearly 11 minutes to play. Could the Bees step up a gear and produce at least one play of purple spectacularity which would give them a second equalising score? Actually no they couldn’t. And as the clock ticked down it became last chance saloon stuff for the dumbledores (that is actually a word you know – it is an old English word meaning bumble bee – now you know). With 1:11 remaining Coach Sheppard gambled by pulling Goss from the net, metaphorically speaking of course – I don’t mean he actually came onto the ice and dragged the goaltender away. Now that would have been an entertaining sight. Goss received the bench signal to vacate his domain. This was not the time for the netman to take 5, hang loose or shill-shally. He raced towards the bench in a bat-out-of-Hell-esque fashion, which would have impressed even Meatloaf, to enable a 6th skater to take to the ice. But Bison proved defensively capable and the Bees offensively incapable in this 1 minute 11 seconds. The threat was snuffed out and the buzzer sounded to signal a cessation of hostilities and a Bison win. But not before ….

With seconds remaining the puck found its way into the corner and a veritable do or die skirmish ensued. Alas I and all around me (and presumably all 4 officials as nothing was called) had their eyes on the scrap and did not see what caused Ollie Stone to fall flat on his face in front of goal and gushing so much blood it took the stewards several minutes to scrape it up. I can tell you that James Galazzi was jostling with him. Was it a butt end to the face, a punch or an elbow? Was it on purpose or accidental? Does Galazzi ever injure an opponent accidentally? I can throw no light on it, so I will have to leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Top bananas were elected. Roman Malinik was thought to be the best dumbledore and Bayley Harewood earned the beers he is not old enough to drink (legally).

Footnote 1 : Smorgasbord is a word which is used to describe an extensive array of something, but an actual Smörgåsbord is a Swedish buffet-style meal, served with multiple hot and cold dishes on a table, sometimes with friendly chefs in attendance, like this …...

Footnote 2 : Interesting fact about the famous Psycho shower scene, which was of course filmed in black and white. The blood washing down the plughole was actually chocolate sauce as the fake blood they initially used didn't look right.