Princes St C 6 Crosby D 4
Mini Match Report

The postman , looking a lot like Tom Cruise , strode purposely up the driveway and handed me a card.

It was beautifully embossed and with lovely handwritting . " better read it quick " was his cryptic comment .

The card was from the Princes St TTC committee and said " Your mission , should you choose to accept , is to write a humourous match report without offending anyone. " and as soon as I had read it it disintigrated - exactly as I had against Francois the previous week.

"Bloody hell I thought , talk about mission impossible fat chance of that!"

And so Monday night I found myself at the Hall of Happiness to report on the match between Princes C and Crosby D.

I was priviledged to be allowed into the home dressing room prior to the game.

Captain Josh was fired up. " Bouncebackability , that's what I want! We may have lost 10 nil last week but we need points tonight , big points"

Josiah looked up - "Why don't we have some walk on music like they do in the darts - that might get the crowd going ".

Josh - " Great idea but something better than the B team , they had Shania Twain "That don't impress me much".

Mick Winder suggested "Simply the best " , "No " said Josh - "that's reserved for Jack Dempsey - maybe Rhys next season".

Eventually the boys settled on Uncle Ray's old school suggestion " Ain't no stopping us now "

But there was a problem , a really big problem. As Josh picked up his bat it broke in 2 after his daughter had stood on it an hour before. Fortunately he just happened to have his dad's bat

The crowd were duly whipped up by the walk on music - well Mrs Gresty looked impressed. But where were the opposition ? Marcus Doyle and Daniel Gresty were there but no signs of their illustrious team mates Lee Madin and Tony Dixon.

Frantic phone calls were made and the rules were consulted as the cut off time for appearances loomed.

The Hall DJ was requested to play some further music to ease the tension and didn't help the sitution when he spun the Paul Simon classic " Late in the evening" followed by Carole King " It's too late ".

Eventually Lee and Tony made a dramatic entrance - rumours they had stopped off at the Les Dodd snooker centre for a quick frame before the match are surely untrue.

Crosby were caught cold as the Princes raced into an early 4-0 lead. Josh's team talk was obviously paying off .

However the optimism turned to despondency when Josh tried to play with his dad's bat. It turned out to be almost as dead as Dave Mullan's and completely unsuited to Josh's spinny topspin game.

Josh went on to lose to Lee and Tony who won both their singles matches.

Uncle Ray won his 2 singles matches and Mick and Josiah won a singles each and teamed up to win their doubles.

That left the doubles between Josh and Ray v Lee and Tony. This was the only really close match of the evening and suprisingly the only match that went beyond 3 games.

Fortunately Darren's dead bat was not too much of a hinderance as Josh and Ray tightened their game to record an excellent win over their quality opponents.

The game finished in a 6-4 win for the Princes.

Prior to the season all the commentators suggested that relegation was inevitable for the C team and that it would be mission impossible to avoid relegation.

Interviewed after the game Uncle Ray said " As long as Josh gets rid of that bloody bat we have a chance of staying up"