Absolute Shoe In

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle All The Way, Oh What Fun It Is To See Fleckney Win Away.

Yes Fleckney beat an incredibly hospitable Welford by 29 runs however despite the opening paragraph it isn't Christmas but high summer although they was a certain festive nature to the occasion.

You see on Welford Eve all the good little boys wanting to play had promised Father Scootermas that they would turn up with trainers to play on the Astro turf. After all no-one wants to get on the naughty list on Welford Eve. Sadly though someone did.

You see summer Rudolph didn't make it to Chez Gobshite with the correct kit order and so he decided to turn up with flip flops and no other alternative. Naughty little Gobshite.

Now no-one wanted to ruin the mood on such an occasion so a passing elf (or was it Henry's Dad?) lent Gobshite a pair of trainers. We are not privy to the terms but the deep cleaning fee required afterwards must have been monumental. Anyway with footwear resolved the match started at a scorching Welford with Fleckney batting.

A match reduced to 35 overs because of the heat saw Fleckney amass 141 mainly around a 50 not out ( retired) from Mandeep and useful knocks by Flip Flop Gobshite and Harry in particular. Young Sheldrick for the home side bowled beautifully and deserved his two wickets, clearly a young player worth keeping an eye on.

Fleckney took the field and after a catch by well known gully 'athlete' Fat Boy Fat Jennings catches started going down. 7 in all, 4 to the same player. Each time you could tell it was trying to shake it off but it was clearly upsetting him, so when catch number 5 went his way and he took it the entire Fleckney team (who had shown him nothing but encouragement) went absolutely berko. It was one of those spine tingling moments when you realise the team spirit is something really special. Said player then went onto take the last wicket to round off a mini redemption and his smile returned as the players left the field.

Fleckney had won. They had won with some careful batting and persistence in the field. They backed each other even when catches went down and they had won even though Custard Tit was wearing green boots that made him look like he had gangrene.

What of naughty Flip Flop Gobshite? Father Scootermas was not responsible but some naughty elf had put one of his flip flops on the pavillion roof and it took a broom to take it down. Flip Flop Gobshite was clearly a better sweeper with a broom than with a cricket bat, Roving Reporter Camera Dept caught it on camera.

Welford, you were brilliant and we hope to play you again going forward. We do hope though that Father Scootermas has better luck going forward with players reading messages.

I ho ho hope you enjoyed the report.