At 10pm on Saturday night as I attempted to pour the liquefied mass of the fun bus out onto the pavement outside Racks [Ed. Plus wash off the port coloured stain on the outside of the bus caused by the person sitting on the second-to-last row...], Pikey got aggressive. I know he was being aggressive because he called me Richard. "You are F*****g doing the match report Richard” “Because you have been Best on Ground at Driving this bus”. There was no arguing he was very insistent.

So Saturday started well as I arrived to collect the fun bus only to realise that not only was I driving but also paying. Thanks JD.

The trip up was uneventful. The boys were somewhat thankful initially that K had chosen to go up with Schnollie at the last minute therefore reducing the alcohol fumes, sadly it quickly became apparent that little Jon had consumed at least a K’s worth the night before and may even still be p****d.

Having done our best to drive around Gloucestershire rather than directly to Matson we eventually had to give up and go to the ground. For those who have never been, it is a delight. One can only assume that times are hard on the estate as for the first time in a few visits we didn’t have to usher sheep off the pitch.

A good warm up ensued. JD having nominated himself for the bench told Shane he couldn’t lift his arm above his shoulder and wasn’t fit. I congratulated him on getting changed to run the line. Coates , another bench warmer then appeared and limped his way across the pitch to pull up lame once he arrived at the one handed push-ups.

With the Matson artificial ski slope slalom championship taking place to the latest hits by Dua Lepa & Stormzy, I know my dance music), we wondered whether a slalom comp might be more suited. So it was to prove.

The game kicked off, we dropped the kick off Matson ran it across the backline kicked through and scored. "Where the f+++ing hell was the sweeper" Shane yelled. As we all turned to see the hungover Hill. Still stood waiting for the initial kick off. It was going to be a long afternoon.

A second very similar try was scored within a few minutes. This time our hero TV vet swept dived on what he thought was the ball, missed it completely conceded a pen from which they scored. A third try was then conceded. After sustained OBs pressure an overlap was conjured. Sadly our Hon Sec Marshy decided to ignore the three players outside him & pass back inside to their 9 who ran the length Ed. At least mention the charged down kick as well.

This was actually the story of the day: lots of endeavour with very little luck. In the next move OBs again valiantly attacked Medgar carried into their 22 and in what can only be described as a snow ploughing motion nailed their hooker.
I said to Shane: "that boys in a bad way”.
Shane: “ No he is alright, he is moving”
Me: “That is not moving he is fitting” I said, and so he was. Mangled. This proved quite ominous for the later fun bus shenanigans.

Sadly as we were about to score the flailing of the 2 caught the refs eye and he pulled play back. That would have been 14:14. But

The game then went away from us. If you are interested in the outcome listen to the podcast.

FinalScore 50:17

For those on the bus the night was young. We watched the Scots chuck the game against the Irish. Pikey was happy, K was confused.

As we left the wedding reception about to start at the Matson clubhouse was true eye opener. Was that really the bride? Or was that a boy with green hair, black tape over his nipples underneath the string vest being groped by the middle aged cerebrally challenged man. "Let’s get the f+++ out of here.” Suffice to say, Fis - we know where your next nocturnal documentary should be filmed.

So off we set on our journey home. Pikey master of ceremonies quickly organised the naked sky diving. As all responsible drivers know safe driving follows the mantra mirror, signal, manoeuvre. Sadly this safe practice nearly caused an accident as i looked in the rear view mirror only to see medium Jonny hanging naked, face down from the luggage racks legs spread and everything exposed. Pikey still sober then pulled then master stroke of the evening. He nominated Medgar as weights and measures monitor. This meant that you weren’t allowed off the bus without handing him an empty can and you weren’t allowed back on the bus without handing him an empty can. With Senior Jon hogging the little cans of IPA, this meant trouble for everyone else with the cheap gassy lager supplied by Schnollie. Fresh faced Martin, who would later be asked for ID at the 3rd pub, failed to down his lager. This lead to a punishment at the first pub stop. Three full squats with Medgar on his back. Fair play Martin relished it and knocked the three out without a concern. Medgar then admitted clocking the scales at 140kg. No further incidents occurred. Although 1st Xv debutant Strangy had to be spoken to about urinating in the kiddies playground.

The next pub then incurred the wrath of JD’s trip advisor reviewing as they refused us entry. A simple task was then assigned to the assembled throng of getting themselves into age order without talking to each other. Sadly younger Hazell, thought he was born in 1988 not 1998, and Louis and Little Jon thought March came before January. Pikey demanded atomic wedgies. Senior Jon showed compassion and insisted on a simple clothes swap. Sadly as one of the three was going commando this proved impossible so atomic wedgies all round and the next thing we knew were expensive boxer waist bands were stretched and plunged over the heads of the guilty three.

Back to the bus more naked sky diving and then onto the third pub for Martin to be asked to prove his age.

Then finally onto Racks. By this time the boys were seriously hammered and all tried to spill out of the bus. Sadly for them Mr Weights & Measures was still on duty. can after can was emptied and handed over with one exception. K, he of the story of flaccid penis (ask him he will tell you) tried to hand Medgar a can that was half full. No exit was allowed. K went searching an empty can. No exit was allowed. After more unsuccessful negotiation K sat in the seat by the door pleading not to have to drink any more. Medgar closed the door and told him to crack on. At this point K with tears in his eyes asked me to drive around the corner so he could alight the vehicle. A broken man stepped out and bid me farewell.

The next fun bus adventure awaits.

===

The player's view

The day started badly as my entire world was rocked by seeing the transformation of the much teenage awed sex symbol that was Charlie Dimmock.

Back in the better days of early 2000s Charlie and her chest were truly magnificent, but now, well I’ll leave that to the old boys to seek out how the mighty have fallen (pun intended), whilst the young that are reading this wonder what the bloody hell is going on.

Matson away day is a date that is often viewed with equal measures of trepidation and excitement. Especially when a Fun Bus has been orchestrated to taxi us around post game. RB was thanked for volunteering to drive us home from Matson; he claimed he hadn’t volunteered at all but had been strong armed into it by the resident hard man of the club JD.

The journey into Matson was pleasant, conversations ranged from Charlie Dimmock to Alan Titchmarch and Tommy Walsh. There were also some queries over the whereabouts of the weed jacket Rich had stolen from a previous club. Rich made some vague claim that he’d lost the jacket and burned the weed. In his favourite bong I guess.

Arriving at Matson we were pleased to see the sheep had been cleared from the pitch and the grass had been delicately mown just around the pitch perimeter due to some confusion over who is responsible for the upkeep of the pitches; club, council or sheep. On top of the well-maintained pitch we were also blessed with a warm touch of sunshine and banging tunes and MC really ramping up the “vibe zone” from the artificial ski slope towering over us in the distance.

There were, I will admit, a few sore heads in the changing room prior to the game and I can only assume several people had also suffered from post-traumatic stress of seeing Charlie Dimmock or PTSCD. K especially was looking fearful, full of regret and incredibly guilty of everything. Which to be fair, he probably was.

I was pleased to see that past urban myths of Matson soaking the away teams changing room with ice cold water prior to away team arriving had not been fulfilled and instead we had the great pleasure of sharing the cosy changing rooms with another away team. One of the other away team’s elderly players was rocking a delightful nipple ring and I’ve started thinking perhaps that’s what some of our boys could do to push back the tides of time and eek out some more youth from our aging OB populous.

Whilst changing into our kit, hard man Jamie D had a quick consultation from Dr Claridge and received some bad news.
Jamie “my arm is sore Dr Claridge.”
Dr Claridge “can you lift above your shoulder son?”
Jamie “no.”
Dr Claridge “You can’t play then.”
Jamie “Damn. Strangy you’re up!”

The warm-up was the best, led through with professionalism and energetic consistency. The sumo squats were completed with bounce and vigour. The pre-match huddle was purposeful, aside from the on-going confusion as to whether it was Strangy’s debut match. If this mystery is ever solved, I assume Pete Strang will owe all an apology.

We did then proceed to play some rugby. Although arguably, Matson played more. Berry was optimistic and most likely wrong in his post-game analysis of 50/50 between the teams, 50-17 to Matson. I shall leave it to the mathematicians to work that one out.

After the game whilst discussing fun bus attendees we discovered that JC would not be fun bussing back as he had no intention of further drinking in Bristol. I was puzzled by this as I also had no intention of further boozing once back in the homeland.

The showers would have been an absolute delight if the Matson plumbing had worked out how to combine the 99.9.c water in the first twenty minutes with the 0.1.c temperature water flushing through in the latter twenty minutes. After some toe dipping and hand scrubbing most deemed themselves clean enough for the journey home.

In the club house, as always, the food and service were exemplary and watching Stuart Hogg do a fantastic impression of a Stockdale drop was the cherry on the cake. There was considerable concern over whether Fin’s couch had been received in the day but a collective sigh of relieve was had by all when Fin reported it had arrived and “fuck off anyone for asking”.

There is now an established Fines Account which I am pleased to announce has got the Princely sum of £15.34 in, currently. Anyone concerned over the propriety of the account, it does belong to me, but I have promised to pillage from my God son’s Account before completely stripping the Fine Account.

Not a lot to report for the fun bus. Fun was had, tea was drunk, the Financial Times was read and Martin squatted Medgar three times.

Having arrived at training on Tuesday I was duly informed that I had politely requested Rich to write the match report for being Best on Ground and driving the fun bus (I’d just spent an hour writing the bastard).

Rich had been a terrible bloke and not driven me home after Matson as requested (thus explaining the little blue stamp of shame I was sporting Sunday morning). Rich did not have my kit bag and it was probably in Racks (they did have it and it wasn’t washed)

Next week is Gloucester Spartans if you listen to the ramblings of a mad man, otherwise it’s 1s at home against Midsomer Norton and 2s also at home. Afterwards we can all enjoy a beer and take ourselves home at a suitable hour, avoiding La Roca at all cost.

Final Score: Matson 50-17 OBs
Tries: TBC
Cons: J Hill (2)
Pens: J Hill (1)
BOG: Pikey

=======================

2nd XV: OBs 27-26 Wotton

With best on ground not yet producing a report, I revert to Runkle's match updates:

[14:59]: Half time scores from Fialand
2s 14-19
3s 25-0

[15:07] 2s 21-19

[15:10]: 2s 24-19

[15:16] Hamblett missed a tackle

[15:17] 2s 24-26

[15:41] FT scores
2s 27-26
2s Won-0

Final Score: OBs 27-26 Wotton
Tries: ???
Cons: ???
Pens: ???
BOG: Parkes

=======================

3rd XV: OBs 46-0 Cotham Park

We played Cotham Park.

By Brid Hastie (28yrs, 1 month)

My day begins sat Ed. sitting in my bed, slurping a cup of tea and reading a book with my sunglasses on as the low-sitting January sun bathed my pale, UK-resident body. I got out of bed to make a breakfast of eggs, bacon, tomatoes, and beans with sausages.

As a sensitive, new-age guy but mainly as due to being so astute at poached egg cooking, breakfast is my job in our household. It just so happened that there were four eggs in the fridge, and I knew that today a greedy outsider was going to take much more than his share from the British. All four eggs were poached (perfectly) and after a very one-sided negotiation with my British girlfriend the eggs were distributed at the BMI-appropriate ratio of 3:1.

The meet time was set for 01:00pm, with kick-off planned for the gentlemanly hour of 02:00pm UKT (01:00am NZDST). This worked perfectly if the plan was to see the last 3-10 minutes of the Wales v Italy game and have enough time to sit around talking for over 30 minutes until the Ireland v Scotland game started. It didn’t work well for almost half of our team however, but somehow it did allow Dave Turner not to be on shirts for the first time (citation needed) since he has chosen to set the law of ‘last to arrive on shirts’. This normally backfires as Dave chooses to keep time with a potato and Dave’s potato normally runs 20 minutes late.

Some changing room pleasantries were shared, then Dave (potato) walked in with Young Ollie and told us he was to cast off two of our eight players to the 2nd XV. As Young Ollie came into the changing room, Dave (potato) asked ‘can you play 9 or 10?’, to which Cullen said ‘I have played with him before, put him on the wing, he is rapid’. Cullen was then told by Dave (potato) he would be playing 10 for the 2nd XV and Young Ollie became our 10. Turns out that Ollie is in fact rapid, can pass bullets into tight windows and can step like Benji Marshall (See: YouTube). Also, if you are reading this, please don’t tell Cullen the Wales score.

We warmed up with the 2nd XV with some fast paced touch which it was clear to see stole small pieces of Hamblett’s soul with every moment that passed. Then at 1351 walked into the changing rooms to put our shirts on, ambled to the 3rd pitch, the forwards practiced half a lineout and the backs ran moves with four players. Rugby started after this.

The forwards smashed people and ran excellent pods. Ollie was young and fast. Simon did everything well, including dotting down from one of Dave’s kicks in play. Rob was impossible to tackle for the first five minutes then became very challenging to tackle for the next 75. Dave (potato) kicked poorly in play. We won; Cotham Park lost.

Important things that happened:

- Cotham Park refusing lineouts or scrums from penalties they won. Therefore, taking quick taps with the recipient of the pass from the tap initially running straight, then upon seeing Gareth, turning around and running away before getting hit awfully hard. Each time it was the same recipient of the tap and this happened 3 times. “I much prefer smashing people to running with the ball” – Gareth c. 2020.

- Adam revealed that he is a prop that hates curry, doesn’t eat kebabs, does not drink beer and is gluten-free. Adam told me that none of these things are his choice. Adam played for the twos.

- Tunnel etiquette was observed quite well with a small amount of coaching required for new recruits. Bygones.

- Kirk sung the Neighbours Ed. I hope you mean Home & Away?! opening theme to Cotham Park as they walked through the tunnel. Good tone and pitch by Kirk, but he was poorly supported by the tunnel.

- Dave (potato) and Giddings (potato head) argued about doing the shirts. Classic DOD vs non-punctual policemanofficer schoolyard tiff. DOD fought the law and won.

- Hamblett abruptly showed me his “merkin” in the shower. It looked much better than usual and the wi-fi is still connected.

- Brid cemented his place as the premier, all-time, second-greatest current Kiwi player at OBRFC. With 3 whole tries and one BMI-appropriate try-assist for Trez (doesn’t eat potatoes – good rig, albeit unseasonably tanned). Thus, making me no longer a specialist defensive winger and the early frontrunner to be the real winner of Brexit.

Score: 46 OBs – 0 Cotham Park
Tries: Brid (3), Dave (Potato) (2), Si, Trez, Rob S.
Conversions: Ollie (2), Giddings.
BOG: Brid

Final Score: OBs 46-0 Cotham Park
Tries: Brid (3); Dave (Potato)(2); Si; Trez; Rob S
Cons: Ollie (2); Giddings
Pens:
BOG: Brid