Apologies for what I believe the youth of today refer to as a “spoiler alert” in the title, but as it’s my last ever match report, I pray for your indulgence.

And so it came to pass in the year of our Lord 2024, the mighty Chew Valley 3’s found themselves with a winner takes all showdown against Keynsham 3’s.

Selection proved unusually tricky for Matt “40 years of senior rugby” Flannigan, as Steve “try scoring phenomenon” Penfold had chosen to go and watch Bristol City!

In addition, James Ryan faced an unusual fitness test, which hinged on him being able to find factor 50 sunblock

Matt Curtis recovered from a nasty bout of gout, meaning that the 3’s could continue with their innovative tactical nuance of playing with 4 props in the starting pack. (1’s and 2’s take note for next season).

Following a lengthy warm up, where yet again the 3’s proved that no other team in the Northern Hemisphere can pass a ball around in a circle quite like us, the 3’s returned early to the changing rooms.

Some felt the early return was to get James Ryan back into the shade. Some felt it was to hear some Churchill esque words from the skipper.

However, there are unconfirmed reports that the early return was to enable Matt to arrange a baby sitter for his “green card” as his brother in law Gav English had stolen his sitter

(We shall return to Gav later….)

Spurred on by a crowd of approximately two thousand, the mighty 3’s raced into a 17-0 lead, which included a try by Pete “I score one every 5 years” Thorne.

A break in play to enable JR to apply more sunblock, also brought a message from the club’s executive committee, to allow Keynsham back into the game, in order to allow the 4 thousand strong crowd to buy more cider!

During half time, some strong words from Matt “this is my last ever game” Flannigan, clearly galvanised the troops.

Unfortunately, due to a sponsorship agreement with Clinton’s, Chew conceded 2 yellow cards in the space of 2 minutes.

The first was a tad unfortunate for James “devilishly handsome” Jackson. The second was for Gav “the babysitter stealer” English.

At 17-12 to Chew, the game was perilously too close to call.

George “cannon foot” Mitchell following 3 practice attempts, finally knocked over a penalty to put Chew 8 points clear.

With a minute to go, Matt, our intrepid skipper decided to tactically run down the clock, with a cleverly disguised drop goal attempt.

Cue, the final whistle, cue lots of excellent singing and emotional outpouring from all concerned with the 3’s.

Ladies and gentleman, it has been an absolute honour and privilege to play for Chew Valley. It has been an even greater and humbling honour to captain such an amazing bunch of men.

But, all good things must come to an end.

During a family photo shoot, and interview with the nice gentleman from The Mendip Times, retirement for this report writer was confirmed.

VENI VEDI VICI

“We came, we saw, we conquered

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS