The Annual Boxing Day Hockey Match
Only Arial Black can truly reflect the doom and gloom which descended on
Swaffham Prior when told ten days before Boxing Day that the Bulbeck pitch was
in such poor condition that only football games were allowed to be played
because the hockey match could seriously damage the pitch. The Bulbeck
organizer also told me that he was quite pleased because he had become tired of
organizing it and that noone else in Bulbeck would take it on.
I knew exactly what he felt and had intended to make this my own last year. For the occasion I had put together a very special and interesting team, with many reserves, and more importantly I had two very good umpires in the hope that the rougher elements could be kept under control. Also we were going to widen the goal to give the spectators more goals to cheer. A shame. I will now have to arrange a team next year.
On the other hand it may not have been a bad thing to give it a rest though the actual Boxing Day morning was glorious and many would have shared the comment of Dr Mark Towriss from Bulbeck:- "I can't believe it. We absolutely rely on a little ritualized tribal violence to redress the balance of Christmas from all this 'love and goodwill'stuff! Seriously I'm really sorry that the tradition isn't to be upheld this year. It's a great event."
Some of the younger members of our team said that Bulbeck were "running scared". This is certainly not the case and if consulted Bulbeck would certainly have played. For those who have recently arrived in the village I give below a little bit of sporting history.
The very first hockey match was on Boxing Day 1988. Bulbeck fielded an excellent team while we turned out the usual miscellaneous rabble you associate with mixed hockey. We did very well to lose 2-4. The same make up of teams met in 1989 and it became very war-like. We managed to draw 0-0 but it was not good news. The longest anyone was off work was two months and there was such bitterness the match was abandoned until 1993. In the meantime Prior had regrouped, adopted a new approach and signed on new players. Below is a complete list of the results with the Prior score appearing first.
- 1988 (2-4)
- 1989 (0-0)
- 1993 (2-0)
- 1994 (3-0)
- 1995 (3-0)
- 1996 (4-2)
- 1997 (0-2)
- 1998 (0-2)
- 1999 (3-0)
- 2000 (3-0)
- 2001 (5-1)
- 2002 (2-1)
- 2003 (0-0)
- 2004 (3-0)
- 2005 (1-0)
- 2006 (0-0)
So, Prior Won 10, Lost 3 and Drew 3. This is quite a reasonable record.