The herd gathered, and numbers appeared lower than usual.........perhaps a bit chilly, or some shopping needed doing (or vacuuming inTony Nash's case). Except for brave Al who had been busy fighting off 31 armed intruders with his bare hands when they attempted to steal his adult collection in the middle of the night. Rumour has it they were wanting to 'violate' him...........so he was busy with the police yesterday trying to find out their addresses and phone numbers.
 
Undeterred we soldiered on minus a few wussies.
 
What a day for a wallow! Ideal weather for Hippos. Wet and muddy. Very muddy.
"Mud, mud, glorious mud nothing quite like it for spilling some blood..........especially at Redditch."
 
On seeing the slope on the pitch our request for high altitude oxygen masks and mountaineering boots was declined by the ref. On the plus side it was rather novel to have clean toilets and changing rooms along with plenty of hot showers. Somethong most Bournville players are unaccustomed to.
 
The first half was very close and Jim Frost scored our opening points with a penalty. We continued to pile on the pressure until they scored a lucky breakaway try to leave the half time score at 5 - 3. Sadly Richard Desousa had to leave the pitch with a nasty injury to his hand - luckily after a trip to A&E and x rays the diagnosis was he had chipped his nail varnish.
 
Unfortunately Redditch did not seem to understand the concept of vets rugby as a large number of what appeared to be their Under 15s were brought on after half time.......including Hussain Bolt's twin brother who scored another 2 lucky breakaway tries, watched by those on the touchline and the players on the pitch.

The pink outfits their rent boys were wearing were very distracting.
 
The hippos put on a magnificent performance with loads of running rugby, solid scrummaging, excellent rucking..........but did not get much in the lineout. Stevie Franklin has been studying hard from the Harry Tempest book of throwing in.
 
Man of the match was Tallie whose performance should instill fear into the hearts of the Taliban who he is going to be visiting after Christmas. He will be organising our next hippo tour to Helmand province so we can sort the Afganistan problems out on the rugby pitch - provided they check the ball for IEDs. We wish him the very best of hippo luck and look forward to his safe return at the end of the season.
 
Final score in the match teas:
73 sausages, 42 yorkshire puds, 17 platefuls of chips with gravy to hippos
vs
2 portions of low fat tofu and lentil quiche to Redditch
 
A fabulous moral victory to our boys who were genuinely old, fat,slow and ugly and looked like real hippos covered in mud when they came off the pitch - especially our very own hippo of the year and captain Mike who led the boys so bravely into battle.
 
Technically points were 15 - 3 but when we include the hippo factor, effort, match tea victory and age handicap we ended up with a final match score win of 23 - 0.
 
Well done boys.

cheers adam