Dreamer, you know you are a dreamer….. so sang ‘prog-rockers’ Supertramp on their 1974 album Crime of the Century. It was written by frontman Roger Hodgson. Founded in London in 1969, they were originally known as ‘Daddy.’ After the success of Crime of the Century, they re-located to Los Angeles. Time to wake up to Breakfast in America.
Wirral’s own ‘dreamer,’ head coach Shaun Seddon, aka ‘hop along,’ having seen his dream of getting Eddie Jones’ job fade a bit recently has now shifted his attentions to playing for Wirral’s 4th team. “They’re not that desperate, surely?” I hear you ask. Any referee, worth his salt, would insist upon his substitution before the kick-off, if only in the interests of player safety.
This was the topic of conversation among Wirral’s parents and coaches who had travelled to Caldy’s Paton Field ground early to take advantage of the fine selection of hot beverages and bacon and sausage baps that were on offer in the clubhouse, along with the famous real log burning fire. So hospitable were the surroundings that there was a genuine reluctance to venture outside to watch the rugby.
Outside, the sky was full of ominous-looking clouds that threatened to rain heavily on anyone that dared to look at them. This was the tail-end of Storm Callum that, 24 hours earlier, had done more damage to South Wales than Margaret Thatcher’s government in the 1980’s.
Wirral’s coaches ‘Screech’ Seddon, ‘Fishy’ Chandler and ‘Tin Legs’ Ivory led the troops across Telegraph Road to the lower pitches where they found Caldy coaches Ant and Dec hard at work putting their team through their pre-match warm-up and perfecting their set plays. As usual, the supporters of both teams had turned up in their droves to watch this eagerly awaited fixture on the sporting calendar.
A quick head count revealed both side were short of numbers. Wirral were without Curtis who was still nursing a near-dislocated shoulder and Miles with his fully fractured wrist and would line up with 13 players and Caldy would line up with 14. For Wirral, the front row would be Josh C and Isaac S as props and Ben S as hooker. In the second row, Caleb M-S and Laurie S would provide a pair of ball-carrying juggernauts with Max (the man with no surname) and Christy C as flankers. No8’s and full back would be dispensed with. Isaac N would make his debut as a lean, mean killing machine at scrum half with Peter B at fly half. Evan R and Ollie P would form a centre partnership with Tom P and Sam H on the wings.
Caldy’s Mr Ant would take on the refereeing duties and a Caldy parent was given a flag and was told to run up and down the touchline and wave it at appropriate moments. Wirral’s own Mr N was given another flag and told to do likewise on the opposite touchline. As kick-off approached Captain Josh C was introduced to his opposite number and a coin was tossed. The noise from the crowd rose to a deafening crescendo as Mr Ant blew his whistle and got the game underway.
The home side kicked off attacking from left to right, or for those supporters on the far side of the pitch, from right to left. Wirral gained possession and set off on the attack with Josh C and Peter B and Evan R carrying the ball well as Wirral went through the phases and gained valuable territory. However all the good work was undone by a penalty conceded at a ruck. Caldy cleared their lines and then were awarded another penalty at the resulting line-out. From the penalty Caldy were able to run the ball in for the opening try in the corner. The conversion was missed.
At this point Elliot arrived late and his reward was to be given the second best rugby shirt in the world (the red shirt of Wales will always be the best). Elliot seemed to be quite happy to dump his black and gold shirt on the grass and put on a Wirral shirt. Now he felt like a proper player. Now it was 14 vs 14.
From the re-start Wirral were on the attack with Josh C, Caleb M-S, Tom P and Christy C all making line-break after line-break. In fact, Caldy’s normally watertight defence was suffering more line-breaks than one of Mr Cottier’s fishing trips. He does insist on buying that cheap stuff. Wirral’s ball carriers were always finding supporting players as the visitors put the ball through the hands like the All Blacks. It was almost inevitable that Wirral’s new scrum-half-with-attitude, Isaac N, would burst through the defence to score from 10 yards out. Game on! Conversion missed.
From the restart, play ebbed and flowed as both sides went at it hammer and tongs with no quarter given nor expected. Some of the Caldy tackling was superb and drew applause from both sets of supporters. Tom P led another charge down the field and, as the home 22 approached, he passed it wide to where a marauding Miles H would normally have been to run the ball in, except he wasn’t, and Caldy had a line-out. But Wirral were soon on the attack again and Ben S, Isaac S, Sam H and a rampant Max exchanged passes. The attack was held up by a penalty. From 10 yards out, Peter B took the tap and fed a charging Laurie S to crash through the home defence to score. Not even two Incredible Hulks would have stopped this run. Laurie had obviously been watching his mother’s Jamie Roberts ‘Taking the Crash-Ball’ DVD. The conversion was missed.
Now it was Caldy’s turn to go on the attack. Wirral managed to steal the ball and Peter B cleared with a kick downfield but Caldy soon gathered and a little chip and run took them towards the five metre line. Wirral conceded a scrum and Caldy’s stronger scrum secured ball so that they could run in a try down the left wing. Yet another conversion was missed. Both sets of coaches were now looking at hiring a kicking coach. “I’ll get that Jenkins chappy from Wales” vowed Coach Seddon.
Wirral were soon on the attack again as they drove the ball down the field. Peter B burst through and was only stopped from scoring by a desperate tap-tackle from the last man, but a supporting Christy C was able to gather the pass to touch the ball down for another score. This time the conversion was good.
At this point Wirral led 17-10, having scored three tries and were playing what could only be described as ‘Cosmic Rugby.’ The tackling, running and quick thinking of Wirral’s players to make runs and line-breaks had many of the visiting supporters and coaches dare to dream the impossible dream. Everybody was putting in a stellar shift and your match reporter wrote in his notebook those immortal words:- ‘Wirral dominant.’ Famous Last Words (another Supertramp album).
At this point, the home coaches espied coaches Seddon and Ivory drawing up a contract to sign Elliot on a permanent basis without waiting for the transfer window to open. So they quickly re-claimed their player and somebody else, whose name escapes me (apologies), was given the Wirral shirt.
Wirral claimed the restart and this time Evan R burst through the defensive line and, as he was tackled, a supporting Ollie P took the ball on towards the line. Only a desperate last man tackle stopped another score as Wirral went for a bonus point try. This tackle forced a knock on and Caldy could clear their lines.
Everything was going along just brilliantly and then, out of nowhere, a Caldy player gathered the ball and flew 80 yards down the left wing to score under the posts. Conversion good. Then, from a good restart, where Max got to the ball first, a black and gold speed machine grabbed the ball and shot down the field to score from 70 yards out. What was happening here? Things were unravelling fast. Soon after, another Caldy flyer (or it could have been the same one three times- he was too quick to identify) shot off down the right wing in three passes inside and another try was scored. Straight from the re-start Caldy got the ball and another try was run in from distance. By now Peter B was questioning the meaning of life as everything he touched turned to poo. Wirral managed to steal the ball from another home attack and, having seen four of his kicks run straight back for tries, Peter B attempted to play the ball out by keeping ball in hand. Except his excellent pass to Evan R was intercepted and another try was scored.
By now, Mr Ant was exhausted and was running out of fingers to keep up with the score. In desperate need of a cup of tea and a jammy dodger, he blew his whistle to draw the first half to a close. The players trooped off and coach Seddon prepared to give one of his tub-thumping, ball-breaking, wall-papering half-time team-talks to his shell-shocked team.

Half time score : Caldy - 41 Wirral - 17.

Unbelievable. The visiting supporters stood there completely silent and numbed by what they had just witnessed. Nothing was said. Any discussion on Brexit and the collapse of anchovy sales in Neston market were put on hold.
The second half was heralded by Mr Ant blowing his whistle and Peter B kicked the ball skyward in the vain hope that it would get lost in the clouds and not come down. Sadly it did and, despite Wirral claiming the catch, a black and gold figure flashed past to score under the posts from 70 yards out.
Worse was to follow. Before Coach Seddon could say “three pints of San Miguel and a half of bitter for the Welshman” the black and gold scoring machines had returned two more kicks and intercepted another Peter B pass (by now he was suicidal) for scores. All of Coach Seddon’s half-time team-talk had been blown out of the water in the opening 15 minutes of the second half.
“Come on Wirral, you can still win this” cried Mr A from the touchline which drew disbelieving glances from those nearby and a passing psychiatrist was seen to be on his phone booking a bed at the Countess of Chester’s new multi-million pound secure unit. (There are no beds on Wirral.)
But then, as Caldy went in search of their umpteenth try, Isaac S bravely stood in the way of a Caldy flying machine and, despite the odds being heavily stacked in favour of him being killed at this point, he emerged out of the dust cloud from the collision with the ball. A few phases later and Wirral had themselves a penalty. Before Peter B, who had been receiving in-match psychotherapy, could kick for the corner (some feat from his own 10 metre line) Christy C grabbed the ball and set off down the pitch as a one man attack. Caldy players naturally tackled him without waiting for him to go 10 metres and there was another penalty. Christy C took this and repeated the attack, running straight into the retreating home players. Penalty after penalty ensued as the visitors advanced up the pitch. Tin Legs Ivory was heard on the touchline to be explaining to everybody that this was ‘chaos ball’ and they’d been working on this in training. Mr C pointed out that Christy had got the idea from watching his mother in Sainsbury’s. The home defence were afraid to move let alone tackle as they were being penalised for doing what their coaches had been teaching them to do for the past few years.
As the home team looked around at each other for ideas, Christy C passed to Laurie S who passed to Ben S who fed Ollie P who flew down the wing to score in the corner. Conversion missed. Still reeling from Christy C’s impersonation of a human threshing machine, the home team allowed Christie C to run through them again, even when it wasn’t a penalty, and he was able to pass to Josh C who passed to Peter B, on the overlap, who passed to Evan R who passed to Sam H to feed Ollie P who burst through the defensive line like a gazelle with a firework up its bottom to score another.
0n the far touchline, an ashen Mr Dec was lying down with some Caldy mums applying cold flannels to his forehead. They were soon to be calling for the resus’ trolley as Caleb M-S smashed though the Clady centre before passing to a resurgent Peter B who linked with Max before receiving his own pass to offload to Tom P who drove forward and release Evan R to burst past the last man to score again. Naturally, he converted his own try.
Hardly anyone noticed as Caldy claimed the restart and a home player ghosted through to score a try. (Actually the side-step and the vision to run through the gap he’d created was brilliant- you can’t coach that.) All the visiting supporters and coaches were in a state of euphoric mass-hysteria at their three tries, like someone had put LSD in their coffees, (had they done this in the clubhouse?) and all the home supporters were staring aimlessly into space with shell-shock at conceding three tries.
Only Mr Ant and the players knew what was going on. Mr Ant was having the time of his life as a referee. Lots of tries being scored and no fights to break up- happy days! He had long forgotten what the score was, just as everybody else had.
Before he could call “last play” Isaac N had stolen the ball at the restart and set off down the wing like a human windmill. He passed to a supporting Isaac S and two passes later a Wirral player (I have no idea who) crossed for a try. Evan R converted.
Once again, before Mr Ant could say “last play,” the home team had claimed the restart and gone through the phases to score another try. Conversion good.
At this point, Mr Ant blew his whistle to bring proceedings to a close. He was then able to go and check on Mr Dec who was now sitting up and receiving visitors. On the pitch, it was now time for the players to shake hands and make tunnels and hip, hip hurrah each other in the traditional fashion.

Final score :- Caldy - 83 (approx) Wirral - 41 (approx).

It was one of those games where everybody went away happy. Both teams had scored lots of points and King of Chaos, Christy C, had unleased his ‘chaos ball’ on to under 16’s rugby. Something new for the various coaches to think about.
Thanks to Mr Ant for referee-ing the game evenly and consistently.
“Time for a beer” said Coach Seddon striding (hobbling) boldly towards the clubhouse. “Time for a lie down” replied Mr Ant. “Time for some more oxygen” said Mr Dec who was, at least, now standing up again.

Nos Da!
Ash.