Swat'em Bulbeck
Rare victory for the Beck's in three goal thriller
Bit of luck, don't you know! I'd travelled up to Cambridgeshire in the hope of covering some fen racing, only to find the ice wasn't thick enough, so I took the opportunity to drop in on the annual Boxing Day battle between two ancient rivals, the adjoining villages of Swaffham Prior and Swaffham Bulbeck.
Rumour has it the feuding between the two Swaffhams goes back centuries to the time when every village fattened its flock of geese for Christmas in the days before turkeys. Bands of rustlers from either village would try to steal the valuable birds and so deprive their neighbours of a Christmas feast. At some point the practice died out but the sense of rivalry did not and is today represented on Boxing Day by a kind of hockey match played on a (usually) muddy, sloping recreation ground.
The game, full of passion and all-out commitment, is recognisable as hockey, though it would not be difficult to imagine the villagers wielding clubs rather than sticks and the head of some hapless mutual enemy rather than a ball. Neither sex nor age appears to be any bar. If you're up for risking life and limb you're likely to get a game.
Bulbeck in shirts of motley hew, looked the heavier and more mature. By contrast, the white shirted Priors seemed, for the most part, more youthful and agile, swans rather than geese you might say. Despite any difference in physique or experience, honours were even in the first half. With the aid of the slope the Priors kept Bulbeck at bay and even made forays into enemy territory. In the second half, the hard-hitting Becks, now with the slope in their favour, drove the Priors into often desperate defence. Time was running out. A draw looked inevitable. Then the Beck's finally broke through Priors valiant rearguard and scored twice in quick succession.. But it was not quite over. Drawing deep on their dwindling reserves, Prior created a flowing move in the dying seconds which ended with a fine shot to narrow the margin. The match had barely restarted before the umpire's final whistle brought the struggle to an end for yet another year.
Bulbeck just about deserved to cook Prior's goose!
If you're in the vicinity of the Swaffhams next Christmas why not join the band of enthusiastic supporters on the touchline (dogs welcome) and sample the mulled wine and spicy sausages. Then retire for a pint in one of the local hostelries and enjoy the post-mortem.
Next week I'll be reporting on the annual grave-hopping competition from Deepdown-under- Sod in Dorset.
The Sun Sports"Editor writes:
Damian joins us from his part-time job on the Maidenhead Examiner as our Special Reporter on rare sports. We can look forward to lively accounts of dwoil flinging, welly hurling, cheese rolling and pancake tossing. Quite a change from the posturing of the prima-donnas of the Premiership! Damian was educated at Eton and Oxford (a half-blue at boules ) and his appointment is entirely consistent with the Sun's decision to back the Tory toffs. In similar vein, a girl now needs an A and two B's to have any chance of appearing on page three.