By Jake
July 27 2005

Saturday July 23rd, the third year of the International Fat Bloke Sevens tournament and the second year at Abbey RFC. Bristol returned to the tournament fully prepared to defend last years shock "Team of the Tournament" win as the newly renamed "Bristol Bass Heads" thanks to our new sponsor With Chillys Floozies donning their Nurses gear for the
day to become Nurse Floozies. In the end the tournament was slightly
marred by a high number of serious injuries but the partying went on
long into the night and a good time was had by almost all.

The day started out on fine form with Bristol fronting up to the
mercenaries team who had stood in at the last minute for the Cantab
Wasps. A scratch team put together at the last minute might provide
the opportunity for the bass heads to get a score on the board you might
think but it was not to be with Bristol conceding their largest loss of
the day - from here on in it was all downhill! The match largely
consisted of some spirited probing runs by the likes of Spanky, James
Hart and Bramwell Beecroft and some atrocious displays of ball handling
by Nigel, cant see 12 inches in front of my face without my glasses,
Roberts coupled with some classic front row lumbering around the pitch
to cries of "you can't be serious - another scrum" by Stevo and yours
truly.

Next up were Brunos Neros - This match was off to a great start with
the Ref asking if they had to suffer through the Bristol haka again! Last
year this was the only team we scored against utilising the now classic
roly-poly maul so we had high hopes for similar success. True to form
the Neros had once again brought their sprightly, but lightweight team
to the party. After running around us for 10 minutes or so even though
we had the better of them in the scrum and maul the lard oriented
tactics of the bass heads paid dividends with Jim "Hitman" Hart
touching down for a try having been one of the two men with his hands on the
ball when it crossed the line last year [the other being Humpo]. An
attempted conversion using the bass heads custom Jingle Stick went,
predictably, awry.

Having now achieved everything we had last year it was tempting to rest
on our laurels and let the rest of the tournament pass us by but how
could we possibly do that with a match against arch rivals Barf to
come!

Unfortunately at this point lightening struck on our pitch. Unable
to move in a maul situation a mercenaries player was caught badly as a
bath tubs player entered the ruck and suffered a very unpleasant looking
Tibia+Fibia fracture. Both team skippers sportingly called a draw at
that point and let the paramedics do their work. This was not the only
unfortunate accident to occur in our locale on the day and our
condolences and best wishes for a speedy recovery go out to all those
injured at the tournament.

We now faced the Arabian nights in a match where I was advised by the
Ref that the kick I took to start the game was the only time I'd be
kicking in the whole game. This was a rather inaccurate statement as
the nights proceeded to kick restart after restart dead giving us a
series of free kicks from the center and, theoretically, some chance of
scoring. After a few of our attempts had been turned over and we had,
unsurprisingly, conceded a number of tries I spotted a gap in the
center and took the restart and booted it down the middle behind a solitary
opponent and commenced the chase in earnest. It was about this point
in time that I recalled the fact that I was, in fact, a loose head prop
and not, as I seemed to temporarily think, a sprightly halfback. In the
end the kick had about 5 yards too much weight on it and went dead which
meant I had to then turn around and jog all the way back for a scrum
from where it was kicked - this I was not happy about! The bass heads
then put together a quite unexpected passage of play with Hitman Hart
once again looking like crossing the line. So much so in fact that
Bram Beecroft stood behind him under the misapprehension that he had crossed
the line and wondering why he didn't put it down. Upon finally
realising that the broken line meant that they were stood on the 5 yard
line and not the try line Bram picked up the ball at the back of the
ruck and ran sideways across the pitch before darting through a gap to
touch down under the posts - predictably his wife and #2 daughter were
not around to see it having gone for a short walk! A more conventional
conversion followed as I slotted the ball through the uprights to
double my competitive scoring record [having also converted last years try] -
The official record, however, seems to have no record of this
magnificent piece of kicking as it records us as only having scored 5
against the nights, a scoreline I dispute most strongly!

So having overachieved on last year by doubling our try count the bass
heads spirits were running high as we entered the final match of the
day - a match with a long standing rivalry even though the teams had never
met in this tournament before. Bring on the bathtubs.

The barf boys looked a tad lithe and fit for this competition but then
we all know they'll do anything to beat their closest neighbours. This
match had it all, spirited action, the (in)effective use of the ladder
in the lineout where a bath player not only kindly held the ladder for
the Hitman but also caught the ball for him as well, Mr Hart also
earned the Hitman moniker in this match and the match also gave rise to the
sublime comments of Chilly Mick where, at one point with Bristol
threatening the line he cried "Be careful lads - you’re not trained for
this". However, above all else this match had Bernie! Bernie came
into the match goldie looking chain and all [which was promptly removed by
the ref] ran around aimlessly for a few minutes before clattering
headlong into a bath player and leaving a chunk of skin elsewhere on
the pitch. After a probing kick through James chased on and was presented
with a bath player doing a version of the scared rabbit shimmy. Seeing
the chance on a plate the Hitman slammed into the player in what can
only be described as one hell of a munching thoroughly deserving of the
title Hitman. Bath took the match by a large margin but what they
failed to realise was that this was all part of a cunning strategy.
Since this was the playoff for the bottom team in the group by losing
the bass heads had prevented the bathtubs from advancing into the
knockout stages - thus whilst the battle may have been thrown the war
had been won!

Finally the Arse Semi final arrived. An on the day stand-in team by
the Fairies saw Eek the Weeble take the field pint in hand - the ref was
kind enough to hold it for him during scrums! Within the first few
minutes it became painfully obvious that we actually had the measure of
this team and could potentially win - it then became a battle between
the two teams of who could lose without it looking blindingly obvious
that they'd thrown the match. First blood went to Bristol, I stepped
up to take the conversion and fluffed it bouncing it off the crossbar -
this was to prove crucial later. Some end to end action then proceeded
with both teams scoring but the gap remaining those 2 points from the
fluffed conversion. A great moment ensued in the middle of the match
when one of the Fairies more useful players went down and the Nurse
Floozies gave him a sponging down - Bristol style - He was heard to
comment "Now you’ve made me heavier I can't get up" once they had
finished! Then tragedy struck - seconds from the end of the game
Andrew Stone, friend of the Nurse Floozies, slipped whilst turning on a break
for the line and sadly both dislocated and fractured his ankle. We
called time on the game at that point with the Faries progressing.
Andrew had to be shipped off to hospital and has since been transferred
to the BRI and has all of our best wishes for a speedy recovery.
Apparently one of his biggest concerns was that he was going to be
carted off to hospital wearing a Bristol shirt as he is a season ticket
holder at the unmentionables.

Overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable day and thanks have to go to Eek
the Weeble for organising and Abbey RFC for hosting such a fantastic
event. There are, inevitably, some teams that take it far too
seriously but there are enough teams taking it in the right spirit to make it
enjoyable. Bristol did not, sadly, retain their title as the Worcester
Wobblers claimed team of the tournament and were deserved winners.
Worcester had not only come to the tournament as first timers but had
also brought along with them, and played with, a number of players who
had never before played rugby - this is truly the spirit of the FB7s!