Visiting team Wigan Ralfs knew they were in for a tough Monday night at The Hut of Dreams. Phil Oakes, Harry Walls and Eric Havard represented the newly promoted Ralfs but they were without their high scoring talisman Paul Redhead. After a disappointing previous match Rainford Spin were a little low on confidence though. Rob ‘Ernie’ Midgley, Mighty Joe Kennedy and Paul ‘mate’ Melling were the Spin trio.
The Spin tactic was to put the big guns on first, so up steps Rob for a full blown, top display of top spin attacking play. Rob 3 visitor Harry 0. Next up Paul with another win for Spin 3/1 ... the confidence was slowly returning ... then Mighty Joe v Eric, another confident display ... 3/0 to Mighty Joe and Spin led 9/1.
What is going on here? Dope tests were muttered by the away team. Ralfs were still coming to terms with the opening salvo and kept looking at each with glazed-eyed disbelief. The Spin boys shared the disbelief, could Spin keep up this momentum?
The answer is yes. The momentum lasted for the whole night with Spin winning 30/4. The Ralfs clearly missed their top performer Paul Redhead. Weakest link on the night for Spin was Paul although he returned decent figures for the night of 9/3. Ever dependable Rob showed a scorecard of 9/1. He also won the doubles with Mighty Joe. But the unequivocal star of the night was Mighty Joe ... played 9, won 9.
Joe rolled the back the years and gained some mojo for the rest of the season. In fact buoyed by this spike in form and with the glint back in his eye he was on hand to give advice to his lesser team mates ... you’ll have to guess to which ‘mate’ this was aimed at ... it went something like this:
“Pull your finger out mate and just hit the ball and stop being a tart”
‘mate’ duly obliged and started winning games again.
Next pearl of wisdom ... “Mate take a Valium butty and use your brains and stop going for everything” ... ‘mate’ was starting to get confused by these conflicting offers of advice. Then ‘mate’ sat down and thought about this during the break before his final match. A light came on for ‘mate’.
Mighty Joe was both Head Coach and Player of the Match. Match over, table put away, banter ensued. Kraftwerk Nick and Ian McFegan turned up to tell wondrous tales of a great win in Southport League 8/2. Rainford Spin were top of their division in Wigan and Rainford Synergy were top of their division in Southport (at least for the next 24 hours!).
Beer was the shout. Off to the Derby Arms ... not for Mighty Joe though ... being the seasoned pro he is. “If you want to be considered for selection next week you better only have one drink mate” shouted Head Coach Mighty Joe as he left.
But the sweet smell of success had gone to ‘mates’ head ... and he had two pints. Mighty Joe won’t find out as he doesn’t read these reports ... does anybody?
Match Report written by ‘mate’
