Dicing with death in the Dale, Teesdale Mercury

Dicing with death in the Dale

Jul 11, 2007

By Barney Liar

HI there sports fans!! Another summer of great sporting achievement for our gallant lads and lasses got under way two weeks ago when the good ship GB gobsmacked the world by achieving yet another world first in the world of world tennis. 

Yes, of 296 men and women tennis stars being funded by the government, not one made it to the first round proper of Wimbledon. 

This is a record to make any proud Britisher weep with joy. Not only are our noble guys and gals not good enough to hit the ball straight, they all failed to fill the entry forms in correctly, so couldn't be entered anyway. 

The Lottery has said it will finance extra lessons in basic literacy to ‘make the creme de la creme of our tennis stars the envy of the form-filling world'. 

It's naked ambition like this which will one day propel us to unheard-of heights, like winning a service game, probably about 2015 (and I don't mean a quarter past eight). 

British number one Randy Mugstrap apologised for the injury which caused his late withdrawal. He tripped over his wallet on the way to a celebrity cocktail party at 10 Downing Street.  "I'm gutted as a fish fillet," intoned Randy and promised he would be back there battling for Britain as early as 2010. 

Meantime, eight times champion Swiss-Spanish yodelling expert Roger Pedro Catalonia beat US star Chuck Harmonica 6-0,6-0,0-6,0-6,86-84 in a nail-biting, tear-jerking, knee-trembling, gob-smacking Centre Court action-packed thrillerama.

 Things have been no less sensational on the Teesdale sports scene. For those who don't like sport unless it's got a hint of violence in it, the local dominoes scene has been one of unbearable tension in recent weeks. 

Tempers boiled over in the Lamb and Cauliflower when Sid Chill and his wife, the redoubtable Esme, came to blows with van driver Ernie Elbow and his life partner Ellie, who accused him of 'knocking off the double blot when yer knew I'd led with the three eight after you'd had first drop against the lead.'

Sid took exception to this and smashed Ernie with a forearm and followed up with a quick slap from a Teesdale-German dictionary which he happened to be perusing. 

When all four were hauled up before the Doms Disciplinary Committee, the girls just settled it outside with handbags at three paces.  Sid said that he was remaining silent on the matter, but took ten minutes to explain this fact.

Cricket has been up in the air recently, because that was the only place which wasn't waterlogged. Barnard Castle under-9s did at least manage a famous victory against Ingleton WI 2nd XI, because the all the grandmas ‘felt sorry for the bairns' and agreed to bowl underarm and let them slog a bit. The teas were great, with lots of jelly and crisps, which the grandmas find easier to eat without their teeth in.

Teesdale's fastest-growing sport is motor cycle racing on normal roads. This is confined to old blokes from Sunderland with more money than sense,who all drive 2.5 litre bikes with six cylinders at close to the speed of sound. 

The general idea is to ride on the wrong side of the road on Sundays, singing ‘Hope I die before I get old,' carefully ignoring the fact that most of them are (a) old  and (b) very shortly going to die anyway, whilst greatly endangering the lives of several others in the process.  Swarms of these old geezers, most of whom are sales managers, hairdressers or retired schoolteachers, hurtle to Middleton-in-Teesdale, stop, get off their bikes, waddle around in ridiculous leather suits which make them look incontinent, take off their helmets, shake hands with each other, then return to their semi-detached houses. There they clean their motor cycles, wrap them up and settle down to watch ‘Heartbeat.'

News has been filtering through from the Stadium of Magnificence about Real Glaxo FC's star-studded list of summer signings. Top of the list in this year's acquisitions is Jeremiah Ndingoloo, a regular international for the Upper Volta under-21s.

Ron Mangle, Real's manager, is back from a period of disgrace in Kazakhstan. The board decided to overlook his recent indiscretions, particularly certain ‘financial irregularities'. 

Bog Ron, 72, said that Jeremiah would make a real difference up front his year, since he intended to equip his new signing with an AK 47 automatic rifle. 

As Ron so knowingly observed: "There'' not much point goin' ter Kazakhwotsit if yer can't bring back a prezzy fer the lads, is there, like?"

 No, Ron there ain't.