We have long suspected The Hall to be haunted and on Friday evening evidence of this manifested itself in the most curious fashion. We were sat, cutting up old copies of the Times into quarters for the downstairs loo (these season passes don’t pay for themselves you know) listening to repeats of “Two Way Family Favourites” on Crusty FM (their call sign is “Hey Wrinkly, don’t touch that dial”, given the geriatric audience Crusty FM has, I would opine most of us couldn’t pick our own noses let alone shift the dial on a Dansette). Anyway Jean Metcalfe was just going to play Matt Munroe for a Bombadier in BFPO 17 when someone, or more specifically ‘something’ moved the dial along to 95.9 FM, Radio Humberside. By jove, there was a right shinnanigans going on. Now don’t take my account as gospel as 1) my ear trumpet is playing up and needs a service and 2) the Dansette’s batteries are on their last legs.

Anyways, the gist of this was Shaun McCrae had sent 7 or 8 first teamers into West Yorkshire to bring back his pre-match takeaways and by kick off they hadn’t returned. By now the Bradford coach had arrived and they had had the journey from hell and where in need of some sustenance themselves. So a Mexican stand off between McCrae, now ravenous and the Bradford team and officials took place. Who was going to get a curry? Who was willing to share a pizza, who was prepared to go halves on the spring rolls and who the hell ordered the vegetarian option? Things became so fractured the Rugby League had to get involved. It was apparently very tense. The referee suggested they boil up a couple of the seats and make a stew just to keep people going until the takeaways arrived. Then of course it was pointed out the food, when it did arrive – it was by now under police escort apparently – wouldn’t be hot. So the game was postponed. Folk aren’t happy and I don’t blame them. There’s Spinzarnia just down the road………..

Now I would urge our dearest friends across the river to not take this too harshly. Bradford have previous for food based malarky. I vividly remember Jeff Grayson leading a Bradford team off the pitch at Craven Park in the 70s due to the quality of the post match Vol-au-vents. Oh yes, terrible it was. It had been a fractious game from the off with Bradford players mercilessly sledging Rovers players about the quality of the fish paste spread, allegations the sandwiches curled up at the edges and that the quiche wasn’t ‘all that’. You know there’s no place for this type of language and insinuation in professional sport. I think the RL brought in a by law after this insisting sledging was kept to personal hygiene, close relatives and parenthood issues. Finally, in the 2nd half, Grayson snapped. He screamed at the referee “I’m not happy about the fairy cake situation, we’re going”. And we waved his payers off. A quite remarkable event. At Hull KR / Bradford games for some time, the East Stand would chant “Are you staying till the end...”. But Rovers had stopped using Earl de Grey catering services by now and future fixtures went off without a hitch. Well, apart from Keith Mumby’s well documented canape addiction, obviously.



Our ageing Bentley is called Edith, because she is big, old and silver. She was named after Edith Evans, a much vaunted and popular actress when Lady SJ and I were courting. Ahhhh, halcyon days. She has been in the family many,many years and no-one is quite sure how old she is. We could have called her Stanley Gene, but we didn’t.
Sadly, on Saturday lunchtime, Lady SJ wrote off Edith by attempting a handbrake turn on the Winestead bend. This was a particularly tricky manoeuvre to pull off as Edith has no hand brake or indeed any other form of brakes. We stopped putting her through MOTs some years ago as these proved most stressful for her. All those greasy men in overalls sucking their teeth and making voluminous air noises into the side of their mouths. No, the old girl couldn’t cope with all that, so we stopped taking her. When her brakes finally failed, we invested in an anchor and tied this to the back bumper, the anchor itself sitting in the passenger seat. This proved a most amicable way of stopping and was, according to Lady SJ, “Very green”. It could also be very haphazard and it caused quite a stir when we deployed the anchor after entering Hedon market place too quickly. Thankfully an old lady clutching a trug made a marvellous capstan and, once over the initial shock – and blow to her head – she got some real purchase going. She was much stronger than she looked and after some slewing and skidding, brought us to a halt. Marvellous. Physics in action you might say. I can’t remember much about the law of Phsyics but there must be a table somewhere, it’s possibly called Colombo’s law constant. It’s like one of those questions on exam papers, your driving at 19 mph, you throw an anchor at an old dear with excellent tread on her orthopedic shoes, how long does it take you to slow down?

The upshot was, of course, no trip to Wakefield. Drat and double drat. We spent a silent Saturday afternoon in the library with no-one mentioning the elephant in the room. This spooked the elephant as he had just come to get away from the hustle and bustle of the circus. With Lady SJ cleaning her Kalashnikov and muttering what sounded like “I’m gonna take you down, I’m gonna take you down to funky town” , I raised my eyebrows , signalling for the elephant to leave, which he duly did, tip toing out of the room with a handful of cucumber sandwiches ensconced in his trunk. I did fear it was going to have one of its Rwanda flashback episodes. They’re a devil to clean up after.

Then the phone rang. It was Rupert Murdoch. I knew it was Rupert as there was a great deal of swearing going on in the background and I’m pretty sure I could smell gin. Rupert wanted to know if I would sell my shares in TL Enterprises. I told him I had no idea what TL Enterprises was, or if I had any shares in it but I would ask my lawyers, Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel (right, kids?) as they would know. “Hey, you sound down, sport” enquired Rupert and I explained how I was going to miss the game. “Hey, no worries, I’ll put it on Sky – 5.30 sound ok?”. Ruddy marvellous.

I was going to listen to the game on the wireless. This has its drawbacks, the most dangerous being the Chris Parkes factor. Our insurance for contents at the Hall has risen quite dramatically due to the Chris Parkes factor. I have no problem with the man but Lady SJ’s heckles rise like a demented meerkat when he utters his trademark mispronunciation of the town Huddersfield, “Huddisfield”, Lady SJ runs amock. Picking up anything throwable, she rages as she pitches and I once witnessed her wiping out our best china in a tirade of such venom, I was powerless to intervene. “That” (smash) “damn” (smash) “man” (smash) “cannot” (smash) “pronounce” (smash) “Huddersfield” (smash) “correctly” (smash). “It’s” (smash) “HUDDERSFIELD” (smash) “for” (smash) “pity’s” (smash) “sake” (smash). And her mother bought us that. And this was just the warm up. By full time there wasn’t a whole cup to be found in the house or a vase and the windows in the library had returned to their world war 2 state of being held together with tape.

The Greg Eden signing saw my Mozart bust and best whiskey glass go wall ward and fixtures against the Giants are now damage limitation exercises on an epic scale. The loan signing of Dale Ferguson does not bode well here at the Hall, well, what’s left of it. Benson, our faithful old retainer wears his old Fire Wardens steel helmet on Sunday’s as one is never quite sure when Parkes will let off a sly one. Your enjoying, say, Salford v’s Rovers when – bang – “So and so once had trials at Huddisf…”. Lady Sj’s stiffens, her eyes bulge and it’s every ornament for itself.
Imagine, if you can, the 26 – 44 win at the Galpharm . Us in the larger of the greenhouses, a Dansette out of arms reach and Parkes in full-on mode.

So, I settled down in my favourite chair, a glass of Paul Mas Sauvignon blanc to hand, the day was turning positive, very positive indeed. Marvellous. What old Rupert Murdoch had failed to factor into his underhand effort to gain my TL Enterprises shares was how cunning an old fox I am. I know these fetch at least 2 goldfish, a balloon and 4 fruit salads so Rupert bumping Manchester United v’s Bradford Park Avenue (It’s ALWAYS Manchester United on the goggle box) or some such in favour of Wakey v’s Rovers was pulling no wool over this old sheeps eyes. I felt a desperate need to stroke a large white cat, see Peter Gentle tied down on an operating table with a laser beam heading towards his jaffa’s and I did actually say out loud “Come Mr. Bond, you get as much pleasure out of killing as I do, so why won’t you admit it?”. This prompted a “How many have you had Egbert?” from her Ladyship. “Just the one dear, just the one…..”. Pre-match snifters, marvellous.

The referee was Steve Ganson. I pretty much doubt there is a ‘man of the people’ in amongst rugby league referees but Ganson would be the nearest to it. A cheeky chappy with a neat line in running backwards whilst admonishing an aggrieved player (and women say men can’t multi task, tch, tch, watch and learn girls, watch and learn). His games generally run much quicker than other referees. This is no doubt due to the unfinished pint, pie and chips waiting for him back in his changing room. I would imagine he’s good value for a few post game anecdotes, then he’s probably off home to rattle of a few chapters of the latest John le Carre. He doesn’t look the type to get involved in any off colour incidents in taxi queues, the bane of our inner cities off a weekend apparently.

However, he had clearly left a book mid chapter and and was very, very angry. After the 2nd half Con Mika collision that left a Wakey player crumpled and dazed, Ganson had an angry exchange with Dobson, who has extolling the virtues of his current read, “Lady Don’t Fall Backwards”. Ganson clearly said “I can end this another way if you want me to”. Blimey, he re-writes books? Who knew.

So, a curates egg of a game. 12 seconds in Lincoln Withers is counting stars and the interchange plan has become toilet fodder, bish, bash, bosh – it’s 18 – 0. It’s little solace but we did make a game of it and looked good ball in hand. Craig Hall seems to have less and less “Ooooh, look, there’s cloud” moments and his offload for Pattersons barnstorming try was a thing of pure joy. The momentum for finding him a place within the starting 13 rightly gains weight. This was a game that was a try too far and by the end, several tries too far. Credit to Wakefield, they didn’t look like side that had been taken to the cleaners the previous weekend.

Us? Well, we win together and lose together and there are better times than this around the corner.

Belle Vue is a grand old dame of a ground but she has a flinty heart.

Toodle pip.

Brilliant

Genuinely funny.

...and 2nd...

and a nice little diversion from last nights shenanigans, although i did have the "pleasure" of standing behind our own resident cockerel, what's the monkey mask all about?

Brilliant!

Good that.