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'Ammer Comes Down
Damian Ainsworth9 Mar - 16:25
Menston Maintain Title Charge on Good Day at Roundhay Park
"There's never been a better time to be alive!"
The time? May 1945. The place? Roundhay Park. And the person making that statement? Josef Stalin. At that seminal moment in world history, Stalin could be found in a paddle boat in the middle of Roundhay Park lake, taking potshots at a gaggle of geese. Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were squeezed into the paddle boat that day alongside the Russian Bear. The trio had just concluded the Roundhay Conference, where they had been discussing Europe's postwar reorganization. It was on a napkin in the Tea Room that Stalin had roughly outlined the four sectors into which Berlin would be divided, a division that became rougher still after Roosevelt nudged Churchill's elbow during a particularly ribald anecdote about Charles de Gaulle, the spilled brandy blurring the demarcation lines.
The trio took to the lake post conference, but their joy descended into chaos as they very nearly sank the paddle boat after getting into a fist fight as Stalin began shooting the geese, Churchill being a noted devotee of the waterfowl beast. The local boatman, ironically nicknamed Mussolini due to his heavy jowls, was scrambled and eventually hooked in the warring duo. Peace eventually broke out over a marathon game of Risk in the Education and Visitor Centre.
Similar sentiments of joy were expressed almost 70 years later on a temperate spring day in the park as Menston took on Yorkshire Amateurs for the first time. The 'ammers were coming off the back of a 'ammering from Ripon and must have feared a similar rout when Macauley opened the scoring with 64 seconds on the clock. But they proved resilient, with the uneven grass surface once again interrupting the game's flow. It took a great strike from Machell to make the score 2-0 and there were to be no more goals before the break. The home side began to assert themselves more as the half went on, but the back line were more than enough to see off the threat.
Menston dominated proceedings in the second half, though the surface meant fluidity was elusive. A well worked third, finished by Ainsworth, sparked a great period of play for Menston. Bates was pulling the strings at this point, at the heart of everything. Macauley added a fourth and Boughan finished well to make it five. Texel was given temporary release from his goalkeeping responsibilities and came alive on the left, feeding Macauley for his hat trick. In a deja vu moment, the opposition gained small consolation with a wonder goal in the closing moments, and it needed to be a wonder goal to beat the genial Holliday-Gomes between the sticks.
As the players left the field of play, one of the geese, returning from foreign shores, was heard to observe, 'I'd rather be shot at by Josef Stalin than one of Euan Machell's thunderbolts'.
The time? May 1945. The place? Roundhay Park. And the person making that statement? Josef Stalin. At that seminal moment in world history, Stalin could be found in a paddle boat in the middle of Roundhay Park lake, taking potshots at a gaggle of geese. Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were squeezed into the paddle boat that day alongside the Russian Bear. The trio had just concluded the Roundhay Conference, where they had been discussing Europe's postwar reorganization. It was on a napkin in the Tea Room that Stalin had roughly outlined the four sectors into which Berlin would be divided, a division that became rougher still after Roosevelt nudged Churchill's elbow during a particularly ribald anecdote about Charles de Gaulle, the spilled brandy blurring the demarcation lines.
The trio took to the lake post conference, but their joy descended into chaos as they very nearly sank the paddle boat after getting into a fist fight as Stalin began shooting the geese, Churchill being a noted devotee of the waterfowl beast. The local boatman, ironically nicknamed Mussolini due to his heavy jowls, was scrambled and eventually hooked in the warring duo. Peace eventually broke out over a marathon game of Risk in the Education and Visitor Centre.
Similar sentiments of joy were expressed almost 70 years later on a temperate spring day in the park as Menston took on Yorkshire Amateurs for the first time. The 'ammers were coming off the back of a 'ammering from Ripon and must have feared a similar rout when Macauley opened the scoring with 64 seconds on the clock. But they proved resilient, with the uneven grass surface once again interrupting the game's flow. It took a great strike from Machell to make the score 2-0 and there were to be no more goals before the break. The home side began to assert themselves more as the half went on, but the back line were more than enough to see off the threat.
Menston dominated proceedings in the second half, though the surface meant fluidity was elusive. A well worked third, finished by Ainsworth, sparked a great period of play for Menston. Bates was pulling the strings at this point, at the heart of everything. Macauley added a fourth and Boughan finished well to make it five. Texel was given temporary release from his goalkeeping responsibilities and came alive on the left, feeding Macauley for his hat trick. In a deja vu moment, the opposition gained small consolation with a wonder goal in the closing moments, and it needed to be a wonder goal to beat the genial Holliday-Gomes between the sticks.
As the players left the field of play, one of the geese, returning from foreign shores, was heard to observe, 'I'd rather be shot at by Josef Stalin than one of Euan Machell's thunderbolts'.
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