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Blaster Bates
Damian Ainsworth25 Feb - 14:11
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Stalking Sniper Takes Out 2 With Stunning Strikes
Our return to Catterick Garrison was fraught with potential hazards. Our boys had spent too long in the trenches, battle-weary, haunted by incessant bombardments. Low on rations; living off bully beef and salt pork had reduced them to gaunt faces peering beneath helmets of lank hair. Their threadbare, mud-caked uniforms hung off emaciated frames. Once burly recruits had been reduced to hollow-eyed shadows. But a core of unbreakable resolve still smoldered within their withered bodies. The enemy may have ravaged their lands and almost taken their sanity but they fought for something greater than themselves. Rising from the putrid muck of their bunkers, they hurled their carcasses into the teeth of the enemy's onslaughts.
And so it began. Match 19 of the campaign. Alarms set for dawn ahead of the mighty journey. The first 30 minutes on the rugged foreign terrain saw both sides strive for an advantage that refused to come. The fight was gruelling, the rewards seeming distant. But Menston eventually began to get to grips with the surface and a fine passage of play ended with a great strike into the net by Bates. Half time came, '1-0 to the Menston' the traditional war cry.
In the second half, Rangers exerted their superiority. Any opposition forays were expertly cut out by an excellent defence, martialled by man of the match Hutchinson. Bates made it 2 when expertly finishing off another good team manoeuvre. As the opposition wilted, Menston kept coming forward. Exhaustion and injury meant nothing and the air was thick with the coppery haze of a hard-fought triumph as they were rewarded with a couple of late goals; the first an own goal and the second a neat finish from Boughan.
When the final whistle blew, the troops unleashed a triumphant roar that threatened to bring the very sky tumbling down.
Wearied and gasping, they fell to their knees. Tears streaked their dirt-caked faces as they gazed up at the horizon, a new sunrise of liberty and promise unfolding before their rheumy eyes. They had won. After so much sacrifice, so much suffering, they had won.
And so it began. Match 19 of the campaign. Alarms set for dawn ahead of the mighty journey. The first 30 minutes on the rugged foreign terrain saw both sides strive for an advantage that refused to come. The fight was gruelling, the rewards seeming distant. But Menston eventually began to get to grips with the surface and a fine passage of play ended with a great strike into the net by Bates. Half time came, '1-0 to the Menston' the traditional war cry.
In the second half, Rangers exerted their superiority. Any opposition forays were expertly cut out by an excellent defence, martialled by man of the match Hutchinson. Bates made it 2 when expertly finishing off another good team manoeuvre. As the opposition wilted, Menston kept coming forward. Exhaustion and injury meant nothing and the air was thick with the coppery haze of a hard-fought triumph as they were rewarded with a couple of late goals; the first an own goal and the second a neat finish from Boughan.
When the final whistle blew, the troops unleashed a triumphant roar that threatened to bring the very sky tumbling down.
Wearied and gasping, they fell to their knees. Tears streaked their dirt-caked faces as they gazed up at the horizon, a new sunrise of liberty and promise unfolding before their rheumy eyes. They had won. After so much sacrifice, so much suffering, they had won.
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