Last Saturday, at Port-e-Chee, Isle of Man, the home of Argon Technologies Douglas (you can’t make this up), the 1st XV overturned a 10-15 half time score to prevail 26-22 and to record only the second home defeat inflicted on, ahem, ATD, in two and a half years. Well done, Hillyer McKeown Solicitors (“Expert legal advice for all your business & personal needs”) Anselmians!
We are now dangerously close to a promotion play-off place. The gap, like Max Clifford’s todger, is “not freakishly small and certainly not enormous,” being only one five point win behind (“unbeaten in their last ten games”) Arnold Clark.com/Brio Leisure Northwich. It is to be hoped, in the current jargon, that we can negotiate a “conscious uncoupling” from this unseemly scramble for honours.

The Saint is sure that prodo digital/russell taylor associates/Frank Bather & sons Ltd Hoylake will do their utmost to oblige, feeling, perhaps, that our victory at Melrose Avenue last November was a tad fortunate, to say the least. Relegation threatened Hoylake and Manchester meet in a fortnight, in what our football chums would call “a six pointer”, or something.

Obviously, Anselmians wish that Hoylake remain in the division, if only to continue our annual pilgrimage to visit “our friends in the west” to admire their refurbished club built a few years ago with the substantial quantative easing that was “Tonga Wonga”. Such enterprise has allowed then to expand into the camping business. For this years’ Open at Royal Liverpool (“in the picturesque town of Hoylake with its local sandy beaches”) you can camp, for a competitive £250, on the very spot that Simon Mason scored that last minute try last year.

Optional extras involve being roundly abused by the love child of Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Tamara Press and drinking in the nearby “Ship Inn,” styled a 'gastro-pub' by locals because it serves cheese toasties. As Huw Pearson says, “Sitting in the ‘Ship’ beer garden with a pint of lager and a fag. Is there any better way to watch the sun come up?”

With the 1st XV in the Isle of Man, regular supporters drifted to Thornton Common Road to watch the North One West possible decider between Wirral and Birkenhead Park. Wirral prevailed, but will feel they were lucky to escape after being outplayed in the first half by a much bigger pack. The overt support given to Wirral by Anselmians put one in mind of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s thoughts about a meeting of the Quakers; "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."
When told of this strange situation, confirmed Parkophile Eamonn Malone spluttered, “Fu-quenelle!” reprising Nicolas Anelka’s reaction to his recent dismissal from West Bromwich Albion. In earshot, plastic Welshman, Geoffrey Smith, enquired “Fu? Fu?! Is he the youngest scion of the great Llanelli and Wales rugby family? If so, why have I never heard of him? He must be Welsh. Like me.”

Finally, on behalf of all Anselmians and, indeed, the wider Wirral rugby community, can The Saint wish one of Hoylake’s finest a speedy recovery from recent necessary surgery?
Sam Lavin is a stalwart of Hoylake rugby and epitomizes the spirit of the local game. Fiercely partisan, as one-eyed as a Wirral supporter, as urbane as a Caldy alacadoo, as streetwise as a Prenton orc, but blessed with the generosity and spirit and perennial good humour of an Anselmian, he would, were he some frozen Farm Foods product, “Get a ten from Len,” a man who endured a similar operation and returned to rude health.

Laters!

The Saint.