Your Attention Please

We the Bangkok Kokbangers. You hear us. We have your man here. He try bring drugs in our patch. Now you pay. We run all bets too. He say we bet RAFA Stingers win league again. We make large bet, 1 million pounds of your money. We do not lose ok? We lose and Zared be our ladyboy to pay half. Then we find you. Have nice day.

The Story Continues on our new blog: http://rafastingers.blogspot.com/

Every woman, Every Man, Join Dog’s Caravan Of Blood

It could have been me. It could have been Blogger.com. It could even have been a hacker from The Cricketers. But whatever happened – we’ve lost all but 6 or 7 posts. And some right corkers too. Grrrrrrrr. I’ve salvaged some stuff from the google cache and could post it again. But I might save it for our first book “Franks for the memories”.

This whole episode means that all the recurring jokes are a bit redundant. Unless you’re a regular reader, in which case I can recommend a good psychiatrist. It’s probably a good thing as I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about that bloody Rottweiler. Where shall we begin then? Since the last update there’s been:-

1 x new Junior Stinger. Can we keep it in our pants?
1 x away defeat. McGoogle is currently reviewing the chapter of the Stingers Handbook entitled “What happens when you have your opponent by the balls and let him off (twice)”. It’s a long chapter and involves breaking cues, orifices and pain.
1 x away win. Although only days ago I’ve forgotten all the details. We had to rope in an emergency last minute reserve (due to aforementioned Junior Stinger dropping on a Tuesday). His name was Craig Webster. It might as well have been Rosy Webster. Or a pint of Websters.
2 x hospitalizations. Ooops.
1 x peaceful weekend by the seaside. Details of which (the non-incriminating details) are below:-

There are times when a blogger goes dry. He can think of nothing to put in his update yet feels obliged to type aimlessly to appease his many readers (Hi Mum!). Yet at other times he has so much material that he doesn’t know where to begin. Champion of Champions weekend. Hmmmm. One hour into the journey and Jody has more than provided enough soundbites for a series of articles. If only I had a pen and wasn’t the one driving. If you’re going to go on a bender, what better way to do it than the Stinger way!

You know that insurance advert? “That’s more than lucky”. I think they wrote it about us. Putting a chunk of self inflicted bad luck aside of course! From the very beginning it has been more good fortune than skill. Mark fluking a ball in the qualifier decider was a good start. Jody’s missus NOT dropping the sprog before the finals even better. Fast forward to match one of our mighty campaign and giving two frames away to a decent side is not so lucky. Them failing to kill us off though is a right result and a 7-7 draw courtesy of their last man being unable to pot a dolly kept us alive. Could we push our luck and win the subsequent toss? You bet! Could the other group match possibly end at 7-7 and give us the lowest target to chase with our 6 sober players? Indeedee. Could the unthinkable happen and the previously comatose Jody rise like a phoenix from the flames to meander in mid match and propel us towards our target with two dishes? Errr, he did and I’m not making this up – 1 hour earlier he couldn’t stand up, didn’t know what day it was and could barely speak. Could we somehow win the final frame to avoid a play-off? Even when the bloke had an easy finish? Could Zared punish them? Check Check and Check again. Group winners. And that’s where our adventure ends.

Or It should have… but in true Stinger fashion we decided we’d actually like to win another one. 8-0. Eight fucking Nil. Lets just put that in perspective. We had one player who had done more Vodka than a Russian submarine crew. One player who was sprinting between the Ladies comp and our matches. A couple who were out of form. And we won 8-0. So we made the Sunday.

Beep Beep Beep. “I’ll just put the alarm on snooze and get up in a minute” thinks the Dog. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. A pretty reliable indicator of how lucky you are would be whether you could do this:-
Wake up at 9.05am when your match starts at 9.00am. Find 4 more players had done the same. Find only TWO in the hall. And still not lose any frames. How? An admin error delayed the start, Dog sprints to the hall. Three players now. We need two to play and two to ref… borrow a ref… take an eternity over every shot… players start arriving. Surely we couldn’t get away with not forfeiting a single frame? Well that’s what happened. Everyone of us got there in time for their frame. But of course, a bunch of drunkards who have just woke up are not going to win a Last 16 game at Yarmouth are they? Are they? ARE THEY? You fucking bet they are!

Now if I really was making all this up then I’d have had us going on to win the thing. But we didn’t. Quarter final losers to the team that won it. A nice plaque for the wall of the RAFA and more than a couple of stories for Merv and the crew.

That’s more than lucky!

This episode of Stinger Street was brought to you by the letter “V” (for Vodka) and the number “8” (as in Last 8).

Trick or Treat?

T’was the scariest night of the year. Halloween. Nahhhhhhhh, let’s start again. Who the fuck has declared Halloween to be scary? The media – that’s who. Well what do they know? Have the ever been in a car with Jody? No. Have they ever eaten a buffet made by Dog? No. Have the ever put Mark on in a deciding frame? No. Last night also saw that other popular tradition in these parts – Helloween – the night we bash up the Hustlers and make them run home to their mummies. Trouble is, we may be overplaying it a bit as its more than once a year.

The Shack regulars seemed to be wholly underwhelmed by the occasion. Merv ambled in after all the chores were done and scrounged re-tipping advice from the assembled poolheads. Apparently techniques have moved on since he was Welsh Billiards Champion in 1952. For fucks sake Jody, don’t mentioned layered tips. Oh he did. We’re also Frankless, Rangerless and more worryingly ZaredandMarkless. The Zared situation was resolved before the witching hour, but it was touch and go whether Marks regular plane spotting jaunt would overtake him or whether a couple of pints down T’Rafa might appeal more. We’ll leave you in suspense on that one. All of which means its time for a match report. Calm down son, it’s only a pumpkin…

Dog misjudges a safety mid-frame and nearly pays the price. A proper safety later gets two and its 1-0 Stingers. Horace misjudges Jody’s ability to clear a tough finish and its 2-0. Andy has a frame turning foul err, turn the frame against him. 2-1. Jamies clearance is hampered by ‘that pocket’. Aye, we have a pocket which is a more stubborn hole than the rest. So stubborn on occasions you wonder whether its mother has sent it out with a chastity belt on. Anyways, following the hole’s ‘No thanks, I’ve got a headache, you’re not sticking THAT in there” moment, the frame is lost. 2-2. By this time, The Hustlers seem to be growing. There’s like 50 of them sitting in the corner. At least. Deano looks like one of them Radio 1 DJ’s with his posse all gathered round. Chris Moyles springs to mind, but only because he sticks Comedy Dave on next. Zared’s never found him funny though and finds him even less so when his covered the bag shot leaves a tiny gap for Dave to slither his last ball through. 2-3. Jamie’s having none of the losing business anymore. Been there, done that once, much prefer winning thankyou. 3-3. Dog sets a little challenge with a DF and they pass the test. 3-4. Mark decides he’s had enough of Airbus A321’s and Boeing 737’s and puts in an appearance. The little Fokker (See what I did there). A planeload of missed positions and crap shots culminate in Horace jawing a doubled black and the boy blunder finishing with the customary heart-stopping moment. 4-4. Jody’s never gone for comedy. Peter Kay could come in and do his Garlic Bread routine and Jody’s face wouldn’t change much. Unless mushrooms were involved. So when Comedy Dave is back on for them Schmustlers, Jody is not amused. Please bear in mind the availability, cheapness and sheer quaffableness of the John Smiths and you’ll appreciate the lack of detail about these games. Basically, Dave either misses or doesn’t cover a pocket – probably the latter knowing him – and Jody takes out his last, lands perfectly behind the black and deposits it with a dead-pan expression. Apparently he finds mutilation funny. 5-4. And so it was that Mark mutilates frame 10. Makes it his, gets two and hey presto 6-4. I have another sarnie and Andy plays the last. Perhaps we should have swapped roles. 6-5.

The undisputed guv’ners are back. Not that we’ve ever been away, but two league defeats on the trot for the first time this millennium (seriously) would have derailed the season somewhat. Talking of derailment (that got Jody smiling) its Champion of Champions this weekend. We shall allow ourselves some losses there as the quantity of different substances entering our bodies will probably preclude any of that winning shit. Not as messy as Minehead, but likely to spawn some blog moments.

Can I mention Rottweilers yet?

Crash Test Dummies

One or two of you will know that this blog doesn’t really get written on a Wednesday morning. Oh no Yoko, far too hungover for that normally. Its all done on a Tuesday Afternoon. Even the match report is done in advance. I just go in and change it from “Jody played shit and got what he deserved” to “Jody played shit but won convincingly”. Why am I letting you into that secret now? Well, at last nights game we were the suspects under surveillance of Detective Inspector Gee of the Criminal Pool Special Branch. As his findings are published weekly, I’ve had to hold my hands up and say “It’s a fair cop guv” and acknowledge that 99% of this blog is a load of made up bollocks.

And so with the short arm of the law watching our every move, we arrived to play the leagues ugliest team – The Victori-Us. Without Martin in attendance they are not as gay as previous encounters, but boy are they ugly. The first ‘car-crash face’ they put on is Lance. Zared is up for us and gets a reprimand for Inspector Gee for ‘Criminal Pool’. 0-1. Dog only receives a stern look akin to the kind you’d get for making furtive oinking noises. This is because he only gets a couple of safety shots before it is 0-2. Bugger. Luckily for us Andy reprises his famous role from ‘Men in Black’ when he shoots down Terry’s mothership and scrambles communication between said vehicle and Terry’s electronic brain implant. Or was that Will Smith? Anyway 1-2. Now this is where my writing tendencies let me down. I had the old “Jody played shit but won convincingly” line in here, but he actually played a stonking little clearance. 2-2. Jamie jostles for position early doors but one of them little spherical buggers hangs rather than falls when a pocket covering frame clincher is about to be played. 2-3. Dog can only wonder how a player who has a lower IQ than a pool ball manages to call the toss correctly let alone break and dish. But that’s what happens. 2-4. Property letting guru Mark turns up late as usual. He was forgiven as he was actually earlier than when he was running his own business for the last few years – an internet company called Google or something. Anyways, he pegs it back to 3-4.

Frame 8 sees Jamie play some ugly pool. Even uglier than his opponent. And when that man is Dave Morgan you’re probably being violently sick imagining how ugly it was. The shame was that it was a decent frame until the small matter of plopping ol’ blacky in a hole. The ‘encounter’ that ensued meant the Criminal Pool Squad Emergency Reaction Team were scrambled. Both players were dragged kicking and screaming into the back of a Black Mariah. Bail hearing tomorrow. 3-5. Mark’s summary hearing is next week (3-6), Jody has been giving a suspended sentence and warned off using too much gear (3-7) but Andy was freed on appeal (4-7). A first meaningful loss for 13 months. Yes, I’ve been waiting 13 months to include the criminal pool jokes. I almost deleted the ‘Stingers Lose’ template from my blog folder.

It’s the Doubles next week. That comp that Hivesters/Stingers always do well in. That fucking huge trophy that takes an age to polish. That stupid tourney that’s played at The Herald and is only tolerable by drinking copious amounts of alcohol and abusing The Cricketers. Which gives me an idea… This Blog needs some wider abuse. If you know of any player or team that deserves some, then leave a comment. Next week will see the first annual/occasional Stinger Awards. BE SCARED, BE VERY SCARED.

The Highland Fling

Top o’ the morning to ya. “Where’s those silly coloured bits at the top gone?” I hear you ask. Cant be bothered this week. Our Gay ranking hasn’t changed. In fact if anything it’s gone down because we’re the straightest lot in the league, even with Marks current pretty-boy hairstyle. Our ranking in the funny pool website listings is unchanged too due to there being a lack of funny pool websites out there which is a relief really otherwise we’d be falling off the bottom on recent form. Finally, we don’t have a new favourite lower league team. We still lurve the Craufurd Ex-Hive boys. Looking at the rankings though there are some right good names plying their trade in the cities pubs. We’re nominating The Clocktowers ‘Kam Ho’ as ‘Interestingly Named Player Of The Week’. He is also nominated in two further categories: ‘Player Who Most Sounds Like A Korean Dictator’ and ‘Things Jody Says When He’s Pissed’.

So where were your favourite blogerites engaging in battle of ash and ebony this week then? We were up the Cricketers and hoping to use some of our favourite phrases. “Unlucky guys, 9-2 doesn’t tell the real story”, “I thought it was much closer than the score suggests” and “’AVE SOME OF THAT YOU BASTARDS”. We were missing The ChapDog for the first time in about a year and with Kerry Stinger darning Jamies socks, it meant just five of us in attendance.

Dog was first up and was awarded a roll in finish. 1-0. Big Jamie’s only shot in his frame decided it would be as straight as Dean Bolton. The nasty roll off cost him. 1-1. The slack trousered one wasn’t actually in attendance as he’s being a bit belligerent about putting his hand in his pocket for some outstanding reg fees. Zared and his opponent’s balls were also being a bit stubborn in the ‘falling in holes’ stakes. The Cricks won the ‘falling over the line’ stakes though. 1-2. Jody keeps up his 100% record for the season to level (2-2) but Mark cocks up a clearance to lose his unblemished record. 2-3. Mini-crisis time as Jamie takes control of his frame but goes in-off what was essentially the frame winning shot. 2-4. The Magic Hedgehog works his stuff in the next to bring it back to 3-4. Enjoying his night on the lash sooooo much, Dog decides to prolong the evening with a 7 hours tactical marathon which eventually levels the scores at 4-4. Zared’s none too happy with this as he has to be up for work in about 30 minutes. In fact I think he’s still asleep as frame 9 slips away. 4-5. Ooops. Jody is to be our saviour and stands waiting for the miss as Andy Carter dishes from the break…. And misses his last ball. Having missed to a middle, Jody is a bit miffed to see it end up over a corner bag, but gets two shots eventually and clears with one. 5-5. Dilemma time. Pissed but on-form lucky skip Dog or sober but always lucky boy Mark. Hmmmmm. Mark it was. He uses his visits wisely and takes control, eventually going for it and without the slightest hint of a fluke, he dishes. 6-5 and unlucky guys, it was must closer than the scoreline suggests, sorry I mean ‘AVE SOME OF THAT YOU BASTARDS!

So a win and a boring match report. It could have been entertaining had the oaf of a manager been delayed in his quest to shut the pub as soon as possible. He was getting twitchy as it was – I think he wanted to get an early night ahead of his personality transplant. Of course it would have been FAR FAR more entertaining had Dean Bolton been there (warms tonsils….):-

The whole pub comes from the Isle of Skye
And they all know me boxers are white
Me keks are round me ankles Aye!
“Deano, Where’s Your Trousers?”

Let the wind blow high as me keks hang low
I don’t own a belt you know!
All the pool teams have a go
“Deano, Where’s Your Trousers?”

All our trousers hold up fine
So why can we see your Calvin Kleines?
Its not just once, its ALL THE TIME
Deano, pull up your trousers

You Can Get Yourself Clean, You Can Have A Good Meal

Current ranking in ‘funny pool website’ listings: 3rd (down 2)
Current favourite lower league team: Div 3’s The Craufurd Arms (Boom Boom Boom, let me hear you say Denno)
Current number of recurring jokes that can’t be used: 1 (Rottweiler stuff probably off limits at the mo)
Current GAY ranking (Div 1 only): 4th

Yes, you read that correctly, we have a GAY ranking. Let me explain. We have gay icon Meece in our ranks, plus Punter Hunters Mark and Zared. OK, they’re all straight as you like, but that’s why we’re not ranked 1. Above us in the rankings are The Originals – queer as you like – and The Victori-Us – more mince than Graham Norton’s local butchers. Who else could be higher than us? Step forward this weeks opponents… The Village People.

Now as far as imaginative team names go, we have to take our hard-hat off to them. It was with trepidation that we awaited the crew formerly known as R-Social Team to the shack. Visions of Stan arriving with leather cap to accompany his Merv Hughes/70’s porn star moustache struck fear into the heart of the team. We were more concerned for the regular RAFA crowd for whom the ‘Bugger’ causes a raised eyebrow, shocked faces and a rattled swear-box. What would occur if bare chests were to be on display surrounded by PVC. It didn’t bear thinking about.

They didn’t turn up in costume, but you do know what’s about to occur here don’t you? You’re prepared for it? Good…

Young man, there's no need to feel down.
I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground.
I said, young man, RAFA Stingers are in town
There's no need to be unhappy.

Young man, there's a place you can go.
Down the RAFA, we’ll make you our hoes.
You can stay here, and I'm sure you will find
That we spank you everytime.

It's fun to dish up at the R A F A
It's fun to dish up at the R A F A

They have everything for young men to enjoy,
You can hang out with all the boys (and Kerry)


Now that’s out the way we can get down to the serious business of a match report. That’s right – serious business – the laughs stop here. Or at least they nearly did for Dog who missed a few pots too many but saw his opponent fail with a slam down the rail shot that all Rafaites avoid like a Jody break 1-0. Jamie must have subconsciously had ‘Jody Break’ in his head as he does a Jody break and leaves a table of rich pickings that are richly picked. 1-1. Jody doesn’t do a Jody break. In fact he takes so much pace off in an attempt to keep whitey from leaving the stratosphere that it resembles Jan Molby. In his Swansea City playing days. That’s a lot of pace to take off. And so we have a fudgey frame which the boy blunder (Boy? He’s 31 on Friday – Ed) eventually takes control of and dishes with near perfect cue ball position. OK, he was about 6 foot out on every shot, but they all went in. 2-1. Zared, oh Zared. Under the cosh from the off with the worse set he settles in for a session of “Make it difficult”. And difficult it is. Several hours later the tactical turn-around occurs and Zared blasts them out in the open with the first of two shots. Only to miss one in a clearance. But this missing business is catching and a missed black allows Zared back in for the kill. 3-1.

When I was at the doctors the other week he advised me that my blood pressure was bit too high. As a result I’m not allowed to watch any Mark frames for a month. However I cheated and had a quick peak as he was mopping up a simple finish although the lack of opponents balls on the table indicated that it hadn’t all been plain sailing. Thanks Doc, you probably just saved my life. 4-1. Andy is near deaths door with a horrendous bout of man flu – for which the Dogster got the blame (I sneezed last week). Luckily Mrs Andy lets him out to play. Unluckily a split shot in his clearance doesn’t yield a subsequent pot and we’ll skip the other chances he got. 4-2. Dog plays his best game of the season so far. No really, it was pretty darn good. Man of the match clearance material if I do say so myself. 5-2. Meece is chomping at the bit to bag the glory frame and despite miscounting and thinking Dog had already claimed it, he puts 2 pointeroonies on the Stinger total by, err, winning. 6-2. It gets a bit vague around here. Food, Beer, General chit-chat with the local luminaries, More Beer, Stuff, Things. Mark makes it 7-2 – I still wasn’t allowed to look. Zared takes it to 8-2 – must have been good as he was named player of the match. Andy plays the last and we storm to a convincing 9…. Err 8-3 win. More importantly than the win was the monumental moment in frame 11 when Mark refereed a frame. Stick that in your diary and say ‘I Was There’.

Next item for said diary is next week – our regular trip to Scotland to play The Cricketers ‘A’. You just KNOW that we’ll have some material for that one. Hang on a sec, The Cricketers.. hmmmmmm…. New Stinger GAY Ranking = 5th (down 1 place).

Number One With A Bullet

It is a bittersweet day in Internet Pool Humour circles. As regular surfers will know, there are only two funny pool related sites in the whole of internetland. And we’re the second funniest. Not any more though as word on the message board “LaughAtYourOwnJokes.com” indicates the impending closure of the Zeds site. All of which means that there’s a gap in the market for articulately written match reports describing calamitous defeats. And there will forever remain such a gap as we DON’T DO LOSING. Or anything articulate.

Quick nod to last weeks entry (for the confused) – The Robbie song was in reference to our opponents, The Galleon, failing to show and eventually giving the league secretary the excuse that they’d gone to see the aforementioned pop crooner strut his stuff a mere 5 minutes down the road. Bastards. Maybe one day I’ll disseminate the headlines of each weeks blog entry. They’re not that interesting really. You’ll have all sussed the Magnificent 7 reference a few weeks back. Last weeks “Vaminos” was down to the forced viewing of 700 hours of children’s TV whilst one of the Junior Stingers was ill. I can recite all the songs you know. Maybe I should have saved the headline for this week match report. Why? Well, the team we were playing were pretty young. Oh go on then, you’ve twisted my arm, a match report in the style of:

Doga The Explorer

Where are we going? The North Western! Where are we going? The North Western! Where are…. Ahhhh fuck this, you see how irritating kids TV can be?

And so our first visit to The North Western since compasses were invented. What do we find then? Freshly recovered table that is so fast you need to put your seat belt on before playing. As we’re the type of guys that go on the ‘Tea Cups’ at Alton Towers, fast is not our thing. Neither is unlevel. So Fast AND Unlevel it meant that Mark would rather be sat on the M1 (in a car, not literally sat on the tarmac). Anyways, Jody masters the thing by convincingly sinking the black at the 100th time of asking. 1-0. Dog falls victim to the roll and swears off playing anymore slow shots ever. Until the next one which also dips off. Doh. Luckily nothing is left on either occasion and good things come to those who wait. 2-0. Jamie takes out a clearance only to throw in a slow shot on his last ball. Needless to say the table sticks its tongue going “Ner Ner Ner”. Jamie’s oppo cant find the required snooker and that is that. 3-0. Andy takes on the leagues youngest player in frame 4. He couldn’t have played him any earlier as he wasn’t born until the beginning of frame 2. An unfortunate leave on the black by Andy means he cannot pot the black around the afterbirth and the Western take one out. 3-1. Normality returns as Zared wraps up the fifth, Jamie secures the sixth and Dog takes the score to 6-Andy. With the horrific car crash imagery surrounding the possible 9-AndyAndy score-line, the old Chapdog decides its time to buck up his ideas. The sight of sooty plopping home sends the RAFA supporters into raptures. He’s BACK! 7-1 and Zared cannot bear to see a 10-Andy. Playing the leagues youngest player, who has suddenly morphed into a mini Terry Davidson since his first frame, he allows youth its chance to shine. 7-2. Say BackPack BackPack. What we got in here? Now kids, do we want a win from Jody or a 3/3 for Jamie? You want BOTH! Awww man. 9-2. They nominated Jamie as our Man of the Match, probably for his overt display of friendliness (no tongues were involved I think, although the saliva on Jody’s cheek is still undetermined). Man of the Match for them was ‘The Foetus’.

Night Night Children, or as they say “That’s All Folks”

Stinger Blog – Numbero Uno Whacko Bloggo