The Bees travelling roadshow, Wilberries and all, is scheduled to call in at North Ribblesdale this Saturday. Although it’s the best part of 30 miles to North Ribb from The Hive, our opponent’s ground remains inside the Bradford Metropolitan District (BD24) so we are lucky that most of the regulars will be on the supporters charabanc or allowed to travel unsupervised on public transport, without any of the fuss associated with getting the ankle bracelets temporarily re-calibrated.

We are close or even closer to claiming the title as we venture north in to the Badlands beyond Skipdale. However, we still need to pocket six points from the remaining three games to definitely, absolutely and undisputedly claim the Yorkshire One tiara for our own.

Should our only rivals, Malton and Norton, stumble along the way, we will obviously have to trouser fewer points to be crowned. If we escape from Settle with a five pointer ourselves this Saturday, and Malton don’t deliver a five pointer in their own dust up, we could actually be listening to young Mr Martin Whitcombe making the teary eyed acceptance speech at about 5pm this Saturday. I believe has had his hair cut as a contingency this very morning.

Malton face a tricky looking fixture this weekend when they entertain the seaside Milky Bar Kids, Scarborough. As the game is at M+N’s handsomely named ground, The Gannock, you would expect them to be nailed on favourites – but will they get a four try bonus point? If I was being Shakespeare, I think that would be the question, and it will be the answer we are waiting for when the old Grandstand teleprinter machine bursts into action after the final whistle.

It is has not been all plain sailing atop the division. There has been a distinct jitter about the place, especially since it became a two horse race. Indeed, over the last few weeks we have all developed a kind of xanthaphobia (irrational fear of the colour yellow) or more specifically bananaphobia as we have seen the path to each game littered with slippery skins. Those fears have proved unfounded so far, but another large piece of fruit with Fyffe written on its side was seen buying a train ticket to Settle this week, so we will not be taking the North Ribblesdale game lightly.

I notice from Social Media as we all now call gossip, that M+N have all but conceded the league title to us, as the word coming from their neck of the woods is that they are now gearing up for the play off with Middlesborough. Is this some psychological warfare the Gannockers are trying to rage? If we both purloin the same return from this weekend’s games, we will have two games left and there will still be 10 league points up for grabs – the distance between us will remain at nine…Heavens to Betsy, surely they will rock up to the Hive next week fancying their chances of turning us over?

Stranger things have happened where the Bees are concerned – the famous game at Kendal where we were twenty points up at half time and contrived to lose or the bizarre game at the end of the season two years ago where Billingham somehow magicked up three tries in the last five minutes away at Huddersfield to send us down…

As you can see I remain, ever the optimist.

We will as ever be organising a pre-match lunch before that Malton and Norton game, for £20 a head. This gets you fed, entry to the ground, free parking, a programme and a chance to admire the new tables we have just bought with the RFU flood relief money.

If you are interested in attending said function, please contact Lucy at the club on 01274 775441, or if you are just wanting to be different, speak to Nick Patterson on 07812039277.

In other news, the RFU have today announced that they will maintain the status quo for First XV Rugby across England, abandoning the proposal they were trying to railroad through for the last couple of years. There will be reforms afoot still, to Second XV structures, Sevens, Women’s Rugby and anything else that isn’t the Adult Male League pyramid in the coming months.

Just to stray from the point ever so slightly, I just googled “April 9” or “9 April” – I can’t remember as it’s awfully complex – to see what other elucidating and intriguing nonsense I could dig up for Saturday’s date. The first thing that jumped out at me was a Danish film made in 2015 called “April 9th”.

Well, I’ll be jiggered a film about April 9th.

I researched further into this celluloid classic and found that the story revolves around the Nazi invasion of Denmark which happened on April 9th 1940. All going well to this point, regular sort of stuff - a film about bacon and lurpak would probably be more interesting, I thought..then...I read further that the film actually focuses on the efforts of a platoon of the Danish Bicycle Infantry to hold off the Hun.

Now wait a minute – Bicycle Infantry? Was this film written by Cleese, Palin, Idle, Jones, Chapman and Gilliam? No-one expects the Bicycle Infantry!

Leaving behind the stream of consciousness, we have had news of our International Ticket allocation from HQ this morning.

Under the new system, called the RFU Ticket Exchange, it should be a bit easier to get hold of International Tickets and also a bit easier for clubs to squeeze an extra soggy fiver out of the racket. The first game we have details for is the Australia v Argentina game scheduled for October 8th – yes it is at Twickers – and the easy bit for that game is that the club can order as many tickets as we blinking well like. If you want to be a Lone Groover, you can order the tickets direct all on your lonesome by venturing to www.eticketing.co.uk/rfu.

If anyone is interested in organising a Junior trip or something like that to the Oz v Argie game, please contact your club secretary, Nick Patterson, via nickpatt@icloud.com or on 07812039277. The Closing date for these tickets is Wednesday 10th August.

Somewhere back there I mentioned women’s rugby and on Sunday May 8th the club will be hosting Yorkshire Ladies v Staffordshire Ladies. The game kicks off at 3pm, but we will be burning some sausages and selling some swilly brown stuff before and after the game. Please come and support Yorkshire!

In a strange bit of linkage, which almost gives the impression I planned this, but I didn’t, the final bit of news I have for you concerns our very own Benji Pickin. Benji has taken on the role of Assistant Manager of the Senior Men’s Yorkshire side for this year’s county Championship – so please feel free to tousle his locks and chuck him neath the chin like your favourite nephew.

We can chat further over a glass of milk stout before kick off in Ribblesdale, perhaps?

Scoop.