COWHC Men's 3s vs Purley Walcountians Men's 4s - 03rd Feb 2018

The Operation at Purley, Surrey County, Feburary 1918.

It was about 9am on Thursday, 1st February 1918 when Captain Du pre made the announcement to the boys in the station:
There’s been some lawless stowaways from Purley Walcountains roaming around Purley County, whooping, hollerin, cursin in front of ladies and generally up to no good. We’re gonna have to teach this bunch of reprobates a lesson, boys!”
We knew this only meant one thing; in reality, Purley was one of the Lawless parts of the south of England, and some of the worst folk from Purley were planning to take our position on the county table, and, even more “in reality”, ssh**ttt was about to go down.
The date for the operation was set by Captain du pre for Saturday 3rd February. However captain Du Pre, a slim figured man so tall folk joked he could peer over the clouds into heaven and ask god for a favour when s*** got real tough.., well all that tallness must have meant that his brain didn’t connect to the rest of his body, cos he often got confused and told us the wrong times and dates, but you know, we just smiled along at the captain, he was too nice to argue with.

However, because of “dopey du pre” We went again and double checked the dates for the game anyway, like a good force member should do, and then we set off. This was going to be a big one.

First on the scene on Saturday morning was Sheriff Hutchings. A thirty year veteran to the department, sheriff Hutchings was a man so tough and mean, if you put him alone with a bear in some woods, that bear would still be rollin around playin’ dead the next time you came back to visit those woods.

The rest of our force turned up, one by one full of anticipation, and assembled in the car park, at a safe distance from the enemy. Many folk told us: “you don’t want to go down there without some back-up folks, those guys aint like us, they fight different”. So sheriff Du Pre enlisted the help of sixteen force members! We could have won world war one ourselves with the squad that turned up, let alone put a few reprobates from purley county right in their place!

This squad was a bit different to the usual squad Sheriff Hutching and Captain Du Pre took out on the beat. I mean, there’s a saying in the wild west: Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. And if there’s one man we could rely on for bad judgement, it was our good old pal, Corndog. For one, he’d got himself not only a woman who could stand to be in his company, but through a process we didn’t think he was clever enough to actually know how to do; a baby version of himself with this woman! We were happy for him, but many of the folks on the team hadn’t seen our old friend Corny for a while, while was learning to read so he could try to understand the instruction that came with this smaller version of himself, so when old Corny turned up, our squad was so overjoyed you would’a never known we were standing just yards away from some of the most lawless folk in the south of our great county.

Corny stood a strong 260 pounds, and five foot 9 inches tall, and turned up looking a bit lost, and a bit like a kid who was still trying to impress his mother for his first school photo to earn more lunch money when he turned up for the mission on that Saturday. It hurt me that some folks were mean about him; just because he didn’t learn to talk until he was nine years old, saying things like “He couldn’t track a bed-wagon through a bog hole.” and “he couldn’t teach a hen to cluck”… but this day… this day was going to be different for our friend Corny.
After the initial excitement of seeing our old friend had worn off, a bit like his excitement at not being the only person in the family any more that s***s himself, we got back to business.

“Now Fellas, we know what we have to do today” said sheriff Hutchings, stood at the side of side of some woods he was probably looking for a bear to fight in. “we know these folk. We know they aint nice… but we cant let that get the better of us” “we’ve got to be professional, and do our jobs today” continued sheriff Hutchings.

“yes Sir!!” was the reply from the men, dressed in their white and blue uniforms, defying the cold of Surrey county in mid-winter”.
Captain Du Pre turned, and led the men down the long, wooded path, that so many young men had walked before, and few had come off best the other side, that’s for sure. Many drunkard and lawless folk had used this riverside path as a way of sneaking in prohibited alcohol to folk who gathered there in midsummer to camp out, dress up and drink into the night, all while none the wiser to the danger that lay around them.

Major Corndog had got so excited already started firing his weapon in anticipation at any helpless forest creature he could find, much to his delight, but not to Inspector Steele’s, pulled him over:
“You f***ing tit, Corndog”, Steele said: “You’ll blow our cover!!”.

With that, we thought the mission might be over, and that Captain Du pre would demote us down to the 4th squadron, something he’d been threatening all season.

However, as we emerged from the wooded path into the open, and by the pitch, half expecting to see a couple of purley men appear and front up to us ahead of our examination of the,; we couldn’t quite believe it, there not a soul to be seen in the whole place.
Sheriff Hutchings and Captain Dopey put their heads together and at the same time, whispered, so none of the rest of the boys could hear: “do you think we’ve got the wrong place”. But heck, how wrong they were going to be…

With 16 of the finest force members, stood in a huddle, looking lost and confused, Corny felt right at home, but to any stranger, this would have been a strange sight to see, and certainly not the sight that Major Jenks would have wanted the force to display. “Erm.. Captain Du Pre” sheepishly mumbled Pastor Brookes - we officially took along a church official on missions so that if anyone got real hurt, Pastor Bookes could read them their last rights… although really we just knew it meant he would bring us more wine and bread after at the end of a long day… “you sure you didn’t get your times mixed up agai….”..

But Pastor Brookes was half through highlighting Captain Du Pre’s unfortunate early Alzheimers… And then it came. Out of nowhere, and 5 minutes before the planned confrontation, an army of some off the meanest looking men you could ever see descended on the pitch. “oh s***” exclaimed Officer Woj. And when officer Woj, a man so short he assigned a pony to ride by the force, but so tough he made an ordinary fight look like a prayer meetin’, was scared, we were all scared. This was an ambush. It was about to kick off.

We advanced towards these purley men, and just as I turned to disarm a man who looked like he was older than purley county itself, I felt it, a punch go right to my back. To my discredit, I let out a shriek louder and more terrifying than Corny’s good lady did when she found out she was pregnant. And heck, the fellas thought it was so funny they made me write the sheriff’s report for the day.

The fellas from purley also brought along an enforcer with them, a man they called “the umpire”. Now, the job of an umpire in Surrey County is to mediate any confrontations and ensure that fairness was the real winner on the day. But this umpire was a man so crooked he didn’t even even walk in a straight line, a bit like our old friend Corny, although, that was because he never actually learnt to walk in a straight line, and was normally too drunk to practice.

This umpire definitely didn’t want our squad getting the better of some of his purley folk, let’s put it that way. One by one, Sergeant Cocks, Corporal Chatwal, Sheriff Hutchings, and Cadet Javi “Manuel” Jurado, a man so Spanish when he fell half asleep during a mission, we just assumed it was a siesta and subbed him off, confronted the umpire, and one by one, he showed each of them a green card.. and unfortunately for Corporal “s*** chat” Chatwal, a man about as popular as a wet dog at a parlor social, it wasn’t the green card he’d been hoping for to get him into the great land of America, where he could put to sleep even more folk with his inventive tales of self-greatness and bravery.
Backed up by their crooked umpire, but outnumbered and outwitted, the Purley gangsters panicked. They advanced straight into no-man’s land, and with a puff of gunpowder, and crank of the firing pin on his weapon, and a loud bang, One of their younger members let off a shot towards our squad. We don’t see much trouble round these parts, and we definitely don’t get shot at much, so we were more than relieved when Corny, being Corny, who had wandered off into no-man’s land too, decided to stop this shot, coming right towards us, with his foot. We did feel bad for him, and Pastor Brookes called a ceasefire, took one look, and then said a prayer and then announced it was broken. I think deep down Corny was just excited that he’d get to wear a big leg brace that everyone could sign, cos he sure didn’t seem too fussed, even though he sure as hell saved our bacon with his accidentally heroic act.

Seeing our good friend go down to a bunch of good for nothings spurred us into life and reminded us why we there, facing the danger in front of us. However, in the face of Danger, we all remembered Major Jenks’ wise words: Coolness and a steady nerve will always beat simple quickness. We steadily advanced, and slowly pushed the enemy back. And then it came! S***-chat pinned one of their defenders down, and opened the way for Cadet Cady, a first year recruit on the force. But hell, he defied his young age to slam a shot home, to the relief of the good folk who’d slowly gathered to observe the confrontation.

And then another shot came! Again, Corporal Chatwal advanced on the now weakened Purley men, opened up another hole, and Javi, who’d just woken up from his third siesta of the day, fired home! Purley were seriously weakened, and pinned back. The biggest crook of them all, their enforcer “the umpire” did his best to defend them against us, but even he couldn’t stop wave after wave of attacks.

Finally, just as Captain du pre was about to signal for one last charge to finish them off and arrest the lot of them, they conceded and their umpire blew the whistle.

Off onto the distance we watched them ride, not to be seen again… at least for another year.

Back in the bar, as the victorious officers wound down for the day, Corporal Chatwal entertained young ladies with his tales of bravery, Javi the Spaniard dozed off whilst eating paella, and sheriff Hutchings and inspector Steele chuckled relievedly at the success of the day’s mission.
“Do you think they’re some of the meanest men you’ve ever met”, ironically questioned inspector Steele. “I mean, they beat up Murphy and shot Corny, for one, even though we did put our two “finest” recruits right in the firing line!”.

“Inspector”.. interrupted a serious looking Chief Inspector Hooper, defying the light hearted nature of the conversation “you clearly aint met a man called Mike Ford”.
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(Photo: COWHC 3rd Squadron, Surrey County, February 1918)

We won 2-0
Mom: Wojy
DOD: Jack