The water had been forgotten so Jim sauntered back to the distant car park to retrieve the treasure. He returned with about 8 little bottles, enough to revive a small dog let alone a phalanx of players ‘sweating like Gary Glitter in a playground’. Actually the real issue here was that Jim and Chris had brought beers but had forgotten their opener.

Thankfully Macca had spotted a concrete wall that would serve as a ‘bottle opener’.

The Hawks comprised a cosmopolitan bunch. A large gnarly pack, (Fordy wearing his shit Kersal outfit) Thommo as ever at 9, a male model at fly-half (Angus Ramsay) and a child on the wing. ( Guy Pritchard) Watched avidly by his mummy).

And………..another young maverick, Jason New at 15. Clearly a nut-job.

Whilst The Hawks ran through a variety of pathetic line-out cock ups in the warm up the majestic Spartans sauntered through their ‘prepare to battle’. In superbly vivid kit it was plain to see that their maestro at 10 was going to run the show. Flicks, dummies, inside passes and even going to ground to get a bit dirty looked rather impressive. And his hair was pretty special too.

Referee for the day was the legendary Johnny Harries AKA Rabbit. Having lectured each side about the ‘laws’ for about 20 mins the game began! Twenty minutes late.

It was great! Taity was a man on a mission! Every penalty became a ‘tap and go’! (Show pony!) Jason did a kick through with ‘backspin’ and all of a sudden it was something like 15 NIL. It was men versus boys! And have The Hawks found a secret weapon? Lee Percival, a kicking machine! What do points make????? etc
And then, the Spartans came back. Wow! How they tackled! And suddenly they discovered a driving maul from two lineouts. Underweight but undaunted, they drove low and hard against the Hawks upright statues!!!!! Game on! I think they scored, not sure. Twice probably.

And then the immaculately groomed ten started bossing the show with an avalanche of runners speeding off his short pop passes. Hawks looked confused and more importantly pissed off, tired and angry. Scrum time was never easy for Spartans. They faced Sage, Duke and a man from Doncaster who has clearly eaten more bats than Ozzie Osbourne. That, my friends, if you’ve never been at the coalface, is a feckin’ nightmare! Spartans did well in confronting the challenge.
Let’s get back to scrum time! Our feed 5 yards out and hammering to the line………………it’s gonna be a penalty try! No! The referee deemed that Doncaster Man had stood up. Which was true, he’d been holding the Spartan loosehead up all game in an effort to not snap his neck.

The final ten minutes descended into confusion as our esteemed ref decided to even up the penalty count. Sagey was done for ‘holding on’ and Tait for verbals. In fact, The Hawks were marched back an extra ten metres/yards several times as the ‘hissy fits’ kicked in.

Despite almost total darkness, young pup, Guy, managed an awesome tackle, Jason, Sage and Lee slipped to the touchline for a crafty fag and Nick scored a scorcher in the corner. He was promptly replaced by Steve McQueen, AKA Carden, who was denied a try scoring pass by Thommo. Why? I don’t know! Is there some hatred? Slippery Thommo made amends a minute later by scoring from 5 yards as the Spartans were arguing with the referee.

And that was that! 19 – 31, does it matter? Great game in a great spirit.

Finally, a return to the clubhouse, male bonding and the scene of the worst ‘down in one’ pint in the history of everything. Nominated as MOM, Lee Percival failed to quaff even one mouthful of his pint whilst his Spartan rival knocked it off in Daz Lucas style.
Maybe it was the chair??

Great day, well done to all!!!!!!

"The official"