GONE WITH THE WIND

VALE OF LUNE  5   STOCKPORT  50
NORTH TWO WEST

Vale of Lune's Carbon Footprint and Pollution Officer had his work cut out dealing with the fallout from the Alies who had consumed a cocktail of Steak and Kidney Pudding, Black Sheep ale and mushy peas for their pre match lunch. The filtration plant, which has coped with the cigarette, cigar and pipe smokers, struggled to deal with some unnatural gasses produced and the ozone layer took a real beating causing dyspepsia in the solar wind.

When some of the perpetrators were confronted they replied, 'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!' Or from behind heavily sandbagged toilet doors, 'Great Balls of Fire. Don't bother me any more, and don't call me sugar!'. The closet doors remained firmly barricaded, not because the blue flash club was in training, but the winds were blowing and cheeks were cracking.

It is true that the Vale's thunder boxes lack any serious reading materials; perhaps the award winning Match Day Magazine should be made available.  (Surely not! Ed) So the occupants were reduced to a similar literary exercise to the individual described in one of Alan Bennett's poems
'Here I sit, alone and sixty,
Bald, and fat, and full of sin,
Cold the seat and loud the cistern,
As I read the Harpic tin'

To paraphrase another segment of Mr Bennetts wisdom, he once observed that there are more microbes per person than the entire population of the world and that the whole story of the game could be played out between farts. And so it came to pass for the Alies after the game.
Sitting at the rectangular table, between crunching Rennies and studying the fixture list, they were joined by the heart throb of Stockport, Richard 'The Rambler' Hope. Richard arrived to assist the Press Secretary in confirming the exact scorers of the eight Stockport tries.

After a busy afternoon, Richard, who had been nicknamed Darth Vader by a wag on the East Terrace, perhaps it was something to do with the long black cloak he had wrapped around himself and the fact that his Long Tom looked like a fully charged Lightsaber. He kept popping up in different locations, recording the action; slipping into the dead ball area, lurking on the touchline, the trigger finger was on a hair spring, plenty of pictures for this weeks edition of 'Touchline Ramblings'

He might have captured Vale's solitary try, scored in the tenth minute by Ian Bird, following an uncomplicated twenty five metre charge after a period of intense pressure, but then again maybe not, because the action came thick and fast from Stockport as they repeatedy blasted through the home side's defensive screen.

Referee Simon Makeen had a busy game, as for the second time this season he officiated in a Vale game, his first being over at Chester in October, another high scoring romp.
From the two games his little black book has recorded:
19 tries, 12 conversions and a penalty in the Vale's points against column with only 2 tries and 1 conversion in the points for column.
Get some more lead in your pencil Simon, ready for your next Vale assignment!!

As the Alies ambled into the night burping, belching, and thinking of the trip to Lymm on November 24, Rhett Butler's words played on their puckered lips: 'You go into the arena alone. The lions are hungry for you'    Sorry, pardon.

VALE OF LUNE  A.Miller (Rep A.Macluskie 43), J.Bryan, A.Garnett, I.Bird (Capt), J.Hodder, O.Hughes, M.Huntington, P.Jackson, G.Barton, A.Sutcliffe (Rep L.Jackson 47), L.Acton, L.Farnworth, D.Lin, J.Clarkson, M.Whittaker.

Match and Ball Sponsors:  Harrison, Willis & Moore