Good Afternoon Everyone,
A very warm welcome to today’s opposition from Blue Hill Lane, West Leeds RUFC. We were relatively frequent opponents of West Leeds before COVID and they have certainly made a better fist of their start to the new season than we have managed, with two bonus point wins from two. Their season opened in the best possible manner as they gave Salem a sizeable thick ear to the tune of 53 points to 24 (at Salem too!). They followed this up with another fine win over Pocklington at Blue Hill Lane. Last week’s win was by 31 points to 10. The two five pointers means that West Leeds sit nicely in second place in the table, just on the coat tails of Old Rishworthian, who followed top their handsome win over us, with a “w” over Harrogate Pythons, 36 points to 29.

Anyway, we began this season only 14 days ago and there was some hope that we might see a return of that spring in our step as we have had a chance to regroup this summer after relegation. The Coaching team of Carl Paterson, Ali Macdonald and the indestructible Robin Kay worked hard over the summer and there was a belief that when we had all our players back from Summer Holidays, Cricket, Rugby League and DIY Projects we should have a squad that can make a decent showing in this division.
Clearly, this has yet to happen, but apparently this is the final week of the cricket season and we are hoping to get Bingley Town Council to bring in a bye-law that DIY Projects and last minute breaks are now illegal in September. At the time of writing this, I have not seen this week’s timesheet, but I do know that Jimmy Nicholas is definitely not available for another week as he is on a jolly in South Africa…but other than him I have no team news to impart.
I believe I said in the first programme of the season I would be listing our leavers and joiners this week, but unfortunately things are still a bit up in the air, so I think I might leave the announcements of new joiners until the next home game, when we face Salem.
I can definitely say Harry Jeffrey has left us. It seems one season on Police Interceptors has gone to his head and he has taken up singing and dancing lessons to further his career in showbiz. No he hasn’t. That’s a complete lie, he has joined Morley.
Another player leaving us for the Bright Lights and Big City is Lewis Brooke who is trying his luck with Cleckheaton.
A third player we know has joined another club is James Morton. “Morts” hasn’t pulled his boots on at the Bees for a couple of seasons as he seemed to continually damage or lose body parts. But…it seems they have the technology up at Baildon and he is back on the field for them in Y2.
We have lost Ben Hockenhull and Alex Hamard as work and travelling commitments make it impossible for them to train and play for us.
We also seem to have lost Ed King, who never recovered from a bad shoulder injury and has apparently hung up his boots.
With any luck and a fair wind, I hope to be able to announce a myriad of new faces before the Salem game.
As well as those new faces I should be able to confirm next time out, we have a number of excellent prospects stepping up from last year’s Colts. A couple of those youngsters had the odd run out last season and one or two have also popped up already this term, and due to our flock of absentees, it may not come as any surprise to see a couple of these lads trotting out this afternoon.

One of the major bug bears at the start of any season is sorting out Membership. We have a a new Membership Secretary this time around, Nicole Lund, who should be able to assist in some small way with your queries. Nicole even has an email address which might help you navigate the choppy waters of Membership:
N.Lund2022@gmail.com
Membership falls into four categories:
Patron Membership - £150 - (free entry to all home games)
Playing Membership - £120
Junior Membership - £120
Member - £80

In an attempt to grease the wheels on the membership wagon, all membership cards will remain “open” until 30 September 23 in order to give all current members a chance to renew their membership.

Any new members without cards will have their card created once you have paid membership on the system.

Please also remember that we play Salem here on 30th September, so if at all humanly possible, can you renew or take up a membership before that game as we are expecting a bumper crowd and it may be a tad difficult to process your membership with 500 people trying to get to the bar!

Which brings me swiftly along to the Salem game. Obviously we are hoping to attract a reasonable crowd for that game, but in order to make the day properly memorable, we will be hosting a Comedy Lunch before the game. The Comedian we have booked is Lea Roberts, who many of you will have seen before and will know puts on a great show.

The price will be £225 for a table of ten, or individual tickets will be priced at £25. There will be a two course meal, sitting down at about 1230, with the bar open from noon. Tickets must be paid for in advance as it is a royal pain in the derriere trying to sort things out on the day.

If you wish to secure your spot or spots, please drop an email or a WattsApp message to Nick Patterson. At the latest count we have sold 126 tickets to the lunch…so, he can be tracked down via email at nickpatt@icloud.com or WattsApp him on the number 07812039277.

So what can I tell you about West Leeds? As already stated they have made a fine start to proceedings this season and lie second only because Old Rishworthians have scored more points and have a better points difference.

Last season, West Leeds finished eighth in this division, winning nine and drawing two of their 22 fixtures. The season before, 21/22, they finished sixth. The start to the season might suggest they are an improving side.

Having a dig about in the West Leeds website, it seems that their danger man so far this season has been number 13, Eliah Chityo, who has already got three notches on the bedpost this season (or wherever he records the number of tries).

Defensively, one man getting a lot of love is open side flanker, Sam Shepherd, who won the man of the match gong last time out.

Of course, with this being West Leeds, there is always a Breakwell in the side and this season’s version is number 10, Keir of that lineage.

On the Bees side of the ball, for those who didn’t make the trip up to Wensleydale, there were a number of very positive things to note about the performance, but unfortunately we had already let the home number seven trot in for his hat trick before we shook off the coach journey.

Perhaps the biggest change in the line up was the appearance at number nine of Dom “Legs” Walker. Having damaged, broken or dislocated a bone in his wrist (depending on who is telling you the story) during pre-season, Dom returned lined up next to Will in the half backs, making a debut for us there. He has obviously run out multiple times in Bees colours, but as far as I can recall, always in double figures on the back of the shirt. Anyway, young Mr Walker hardly put a foot wrong throughout and unless he has also chosen to take a holiday in the middle aisle at Aldi this week, I expect to see him there again today.

Anyway, a big question we are always asked is, did we make any money from the Music Festival? While I am not going to publish our accounts on these pages, I am happy to confirm that in terms of revenue, this was probably our most successful weekend since we started getting involved in about 2009. From that revenue, yes, we made a profit, but I am also not going to splurge that across these pages either.

We are already in the very early stages of sorting out next year's event. We already know it will not be on the first weekend of August as Kendal Calling has taken that weekend and we would be foolish in the extreme to double book with Kendal. Anyway, we hope further and more concrete news will be available in the coming weeks.

As I am typing this, a team sheet has landed and I can confirm we have a couple of debutants venturing onto the greensward for us. They are Thomas Dunn-Birch and Alex Greene. I know absolutely nothing about these young men, so my apologies for not being able to give you a full rundown of their previous playing history. Anyway, welcome aboard, Thomas and Alex.

Next week we are on the road, and we face Beverley, kicking off at 3 p.m. As I have already mentioned we are then at home to Bradford Salem on Saturday 30th September. The week after we are now involved in a Cup tie against Pocklington, here at Wagon Lane, and the week after we face the same opposition in a league match over at their spot.

The team sheet listed for West Leeds is taken from their match report for last week as I have not received any communication from them about this week’s selection.

So, to close this week’s meanderings I was looking around the Googleverse for a Swedish Proverb to set us on our way.

I found the following:

Finns det hjärterum så finns det stjärterum – which translates to “If there’s room in the heart there’s room for the arse"