Amateur darts player Malcolm Baggio steps up to the news-oche and aims his footballing dart at the board hoping to score a plethora of Raydon news points – he throws the dart….. Bullseye!
Takings at the new club bar, coupled with the huge success of the recent beer festival has enabled Raydon to acquire sufficient financial ‘clout’ to start construction of their new changing room complex.
As part of the project, Raydon pledged to install a 5 metre tall jade statue of a Raydon player past or present to be chosen at complete random. The name of every player ever to have played for the club was placed into an un-necessarily large oil drum and Chairman Lionel Stubbs picked one out at random. The chosen player was Talbott Wissley who made 1 brief sub appearance in 1945 before going on to make over 500 appearances for Raydon’s fierce local rivals, Wenham Wanderers. Older fans will remember him for his part in the notorious “black derby,” the final match of the 1951-52 season. Raydon needed a point to stay in the top division of the Wurlitzer League whilst Wenham needed a win to secure the league title. Wenham won 1-0 with a last minute goal scored by Wissley who went on to incense Raydon supporters with his over exuberant celebrations. A riot broke out between the two sets of supporters in which 82 people were injured. Wissley was later pictured in the Raydon Bugle, joyously burning a Raydon flag at the team’s end of season party.
Construction on the new complex will be complete by the end of the February. It will mark an end to the rickety balsa wood shack and red-and-white striped workmen’s tents which have acted as makeshift changing rooms for the past few years. In a final ‘twist,’ because the workmen building the new complex are able to use the existing workmen’s tents rather than hire their own Raydon were able to get a 0.0002% discount from the builders.
One of the first parts of the project was the installation of a PA system at Clockton Park for the first time. One of the many advantages this has brought is the introduction of a rousing song to mark the team’s entrance to the “cauldron” or “fortress” if you will, that is Clockton Park. Raydon conducted a vote amongst their fans to choose the song, as well as a track to be played every time they score a goal. The winner of the song to be played when the team enter the field was the live version of “Careless Whisper” by George Michael whilst the chosen goal celebration track was “Sexy Mother F***er” by Prince. The selections have proved extremely popular with fan’s all joining in chanting along buoyantly to both songs every time they are played.
Indeed “Sexy Mother F***er” has been played several dozen times since it was introduced as Raydon have taken the league by storm, effortlessly slaughtering every team they come across with merciless savagery to storm to top-spot in the league.
Raydon also introduced a new half time competition where fans have to kick a football from inside one of the six-yard boxes so that the ball nestles on a saucer placed on the centre spot. Millionaire Chairman, Lionel Stubbs vowed to give anyone who successfully achieves the feat £200,000 of his personal fortune on the basis that it’s impossible. However, he looked on in horror as the first ever participant in the challenge lofted the ball up field and judged it perfectly, the ball coming to a standstill on the saucer. As the person celebrated wildly, Stubbs hurried over to the centre circle and gently nudged the ball off the saucer when they weren’t looking. Before the next participant stepped up, he replaced the saucer with a golf tee.
Away from the pitch, in November Raydon held a five-day charity initiative based on the television programme “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!” Labelled “I’m a Raydon Player, Get me the Flying F*ck Out of Here,” the exercise involved ten Raydon players who had to endure five days living in a small copse in the grounds of millionaire chairman Lionel Stubbs whilst undergoing various rigorous and unpleasant tasks. The charity element was based on a series of randomly placed webcams broadcasting the action live via the Raydon Ramblings website. People following the action could then send texts voting for their favourite player. Each contestant nominated a charity and at the end of the event, 2p from every text would be donated to the winner’s chosen charity.
Here’s a slightly unnecessarily detailed review of what happened:
Day One: Dougie McManahammond, Sid Chopper, Mal Chipaway, Jack Funtingdale, Andy Slipper, Les Candlestick, Dave Mackinackie, George Mnunga, Ian Buffalo and Derek Diffydale were acquainted with their new home at 7am on the morning of the first day (after parachuting in via Lionel Stubbs’ private helicopter which costs £500 to run for every half hour it’s in the air). Sid Chopper was nominated to take part in the first “copse” tucker trial which involved swinging between two tall trees from a rope tied round the neck. A platform between the two trees had ten stars placed on it and Sid had to grab stars from the platform as he swung past. Each star he retrieved would ensure one meal for the camp. Sadly, Sid broke his neck on the first swing and had to be airlifted to hospital (in Lionel Stubbs' private helicopter) ruling him out of the rest of the competition and ensuring that his team-mates went hungry on their first night with nothing to eat but conkers and squirrel milk.
Day Two: Tensions started to run high in the camp when Les Candlestick awoke to find that his stash of random wild berries that he’d collected the previous evening to eat for breakfast had mysteriously disappeared. Candlestick accused Derek Diffydale of taking the berries and a fist-fight ensued which had to be stopped by security personnel armed with CS spray substitute (a tin of Lynx Deodorant). When Andy Slipper later started suffering from agonising stomach cramps, diarrhoea and violent vomiting, the true thief of the berries became apparent and Candlestick fondly hugged Diffydale by way of apology.
Ian Buffalo was nominated for the copse tucker trial which involved inserting his hand into various containers that he was unable to see the contents of and retrieving a star. The contents included mouse-traps, battery acid, liquid nitrogen, dirty used syringes, asbestos, boiling hot tar and polonium 210. Fortunately, Buffalo has a false arm and was able to complete the challenge easily and retrieve all 9 stars without sustaining any physical injury. The camp feasted on a meal of stoat steaklets and acorn fritters as a result.
To obtain an additional treat, Dougie McManahammond had to wade through a 20 metre wide neck-high pool of animal excrement to retrieve a metal chest on the other side. The contestants had to correctly answer a question within the chest to win the treat. The question was:
“How many life threatening diseases could you contract from wading through a neck-high pool of animal excrement?”
The contestants correctly guessed the correct answer of 543 and were each presented with a pipette full of lager as reward.
Day Three The nine contestants had a cheeky visitor to camp in the early hours of the morning when a lion that had escaped from Colchester zoo pounced on Les Candlestick as he slept. Fortunately his colleagues were able to subdue the frenzied animal using a large knife just as it was about to bite Candlestick’s face off. The camp duly spit-roasted the lion and gorged on a massive night-time feast of lion steak on a bed of sorteed nettles.
The contestants were so stuffed that they didn’t see the point in taking part in the copse tucker trial the next day which was just as well as it involved a contestant being strapped to a rotating wheel which stopped with their head submerged in a vat of hedgehogs for two minutes while they fumbled round in the prickly animals searching for the nine stars.
The contestants were also presented with the challenge of strolling the 50 or so metres to edge of the copse to retrieve a box containing letters from their wives but they couldn’t be arsed.
Day Four. All nine contestants had to participate in the copse tucker trial. They were each propelled 100 metres into the air by a giant catapult and were given a large umbrella to open up in order to cushion their descent. To win a meal they had to grab any passing bird. None of the contestants were successful and the umbrellas were woefully inadequate, all instantly turning inside out when opened up. All nine contestants suffered broken legs and other injuries after plummeting to the ground at around 80 miles per hour. However they all vowed to struggle on to the final day after being attended to by a bungling Elaine Funtingdale, the resident first aider.
Day Five. The competition was due to end in the early evening of day five but with all the contestants in dire need of medical attention with some of them having passed out in severe agony, the organisers decided to bring it to an end early to avoid any fatalities. Dougie McManahammond was unveiled as the unanimous winner with none of the other contestants receiving any votes.
He had seemingly won over the hearts and minds of ‘viewers’ with the heroic manner in which he had waded through the excrement, showing true resilience to push on despite pieces of turd splattering against his face.
Dougie chose local charity CONT (Caring for Otters with No tails) to benefit from his success. CONT are a charity who take in otters who can’t swim due to losing their tail, (often through being caught in traps intended for other animals or by being caught in the propellers of passing boats) nurse them back to health and fit them with prosthetic tails so enable them to live a normal life.
Unfortunately as the total number of votes cast by text was only 109 (108 from Dougie’s family and one wrong number), the event actually made a huge loss, particularly after Lionel Stubbs’ helicopter pilot submitted his expenses and Raydon were invoiced for a new lion by Colchester Zoo.
As Dougie had chosen CONT as his charity, Millionaire Chairman Lionel Stubbs had no choice other than to send them a bill for the losses accrued therefore ending their operations and making their only paid member of staff redundant. Everyone enjoyed the experience and agreed they should definitely do it again next year.
Raydon have since had to sign 7 loan players in order to field sufficient numbers to fulfil their fixtures. The ten contestants are not expected to return to football action until the 2008/2009 season. Find out how the loanees are doing in the next Raydon Ramblings!
As part of the project, Raydon pledged to install a 5 metre tall jade statue of a Raydon player past or present to be chosen at complete random. The name of every player ever to have played for the club was placed into an un-necessarily large oil drum and Chairman Lionel Stubbs picked one out at random. The chosen player was Talbott Wissley who made 1 brief sub appearance in 1945 before going on to make over 500 appearances for Raydon’s fierce local rivals, Wenham Wanderers. Older fans will remember him for his part in the notorious “black derby,” the final match of the 1951-52 season. Raydon needed a point to stay in the top division of the Wurlitzer League whilst Wenham needed a win to secure the league title. Wenham won 1-0 with a last minute goal scored by Wissley who went on to incense Raydon supporters with his over exuberant celebrations. A riot broke out between the two sets of supporters in which 82 people were injured. Wissley was later pictured in the Raydon Bugle, joyously burning a Raydon flag at the team’s end of season party.
Construction on the new complex will be complete by the end of the February. It will mark an end to the rickety balsa wood shack and red-and-white striped workmen’s tents which have acted as makeshift changing rooms for the past few years. In a final ‘twist,’ because the workmen building the new complex are able to use the existing workmen’s tents rather than hire their own Raydon were able to get a 0.0002% discount from the builders.
One of the first parts of the project was the installation of a PA system at Clockton Park for the first time. One of the many advantages this has brought is the introduction of a rousing song to mark the team’s entrance to the “cauldron” or “fortress” if you will, that is Clockton Park. Raydon conducted a vote amongst their fans to choose the song, as well as a track to be played every time they score a goal. The winner of the song to be played when the team enter the field was the live version of “Careless Whisper” by George Michael whilst the chosen goal celebration track was “Sexy Mother F***er” by Prince. The selections have proved extremely popular with fan’s all joining in chanting along buoyantly to both songs every time they are played.
Indeed “Sexy Mother F***er” has been played several dozen times since it was introduced as Raydon have taken the league by storm, effortlessly slaughtering every team they come across with merciless savagery to storm to top-spot in the league.
Raydon also introduced a new half time competition where fans have to kick a football from inside one of the six-yard boxes so that the ball nestles on a saucer placed on the centre spot. Millionaire Chairman, Lionel Stubbs vowed to give anyone who successfully achieves the feat £200,000 of his personal fortune on the basis that it’s impossible. However, he looked on in horror as the first ever participant in the challenge lofted the ball up field and judged it perfectly, the ball coming to a standstill on the saucer. As the person celebrated wildly, Stubbs hurried over to the centre circle and gently nudged the ball off the saucer when they weren’t looking. Before the next participant stepped up, he replaced the saucer with a golf tee.
Away from the pitch, in November Raydon held a five-day charity initiative based on the television programme “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!” Labelled “I’m a Raydon Player, Get me the Flying F*ck Out of Here,” the exercise involved ten Raydon players who had to endure five days living in a small copse in the grounds of millionaire chairman Lionel Stubbs whilst undergoing various rigorous and unpleasant tasks. The charity element was based on a series of randomly placed webcams broadcasting the action live via the Raydon Ramblings website. People following the action could then send texts voting for their favourite player. Each contestant nominated a charity and at the end of the event, 2p from every text would be donated to the winner’s chosen charity.
Here’s a slightly unnecessarily detailed review of what happened:
Day One: Dougie McManahammond, Sid Chopper, Mal Chipaway, Jack Funtingdale, Andy Slipper, Les Candlestick, Dave Mackinackie, George Mnunga, Ian Buffalo and Derek Diffydale were acquainted with their new home at 7am on the morning of the first day (after parachuting in via Lionel Stubbs’ private helicopter which costs £500 to run for every half hour it’s in the air). Sid Chopper was nominated to take part in the first “copse” tucker trial which involved swinging between two tall trees from a rope tied round the neck. A platform between the two trees had ten stars placed on it and Sid had to grab stars from the platform as he swung past. Each star he retrieved would ensure one meal for the camp. Sadly, Sid broke his neck on the first swing and had to be airlifted to hospital (in Lionel Stubbs' private helicopter) ruling him out of the rest of the competition and ensuring that his team-mates went hungry on their first night with nothing to eat but conkers and squirrel milk.
Day Two: Tensions started to run high in the camp when Les Candlestick awoke to find that his stash of random wild berries that he’d collected the previous evening to eat for breakfast had mysteriously disappeared. Candlestick accused Derek Diffydale of taking the berries and a fist-fight ensued which had to be stopped by security personnel armed with CS spray substitute (a tin of Lynx Deodorant). When Andy Slipper later started suffering from agonising stomach cramps, diarrhoea and violent vomiting, the true thief of the berries became apparent and Candlestick fondly hugged Diffydale by way of apology.
Ian Buffalo was nominated for the copse tucker trial which involved inserting his hand into various containers that he was unable to see the contents of and retrieving a star. The contents included mouse-traps, battery acid, liquid nitrogen, dirty used syringes, asbestos, boiling hot tar and polonium 210. Fortunately, Buffalo has a false arm and was able to complete the challenge easily and retrieve all 9 stars without sustaining any physical injury. The camp feasted on a meal of stoat steaklets and acorn fritters as a result.
To obtain an additional treat, Dougie McManahammond had to wade through a 20 metre wide neck-high pool of animal excrement to retrieve a metal chest on the other side. The contestants had to correctly answer a question within the chest to win the treat. The question was:
“How many life threatening diseases could you contract from wading through a neck-high pool of animal excrement?”
The contestants correctly guessed the correct answer of 543 and were each presented with a pipette full of lager as reward.
Day Three The nine contestants had a cheeky visitor to camp in the early hours of the morning when a lion that had escaped from Colchester zoo pounced on Les Candlestick as he slept. Fortunately his colleagues were able to subdue the frenzied animal using a large knife just as it was about to bite Candlestick’s face off. The camp duly spit-roasted the lion and gorged on a massive night-time feast of lion steak on a bed of sorteed nettles.
The contestants were so stuffed that they didn’t see the point in taking part in the copse tucker trial the next day which was just as well as it involved a contestant being strapped to a rotating wheel which stopped with their head submerged in a vat of hedgehogs for two minutes while they fumbled round in the prickly animals searching for the nine stars.
The contestants were also presented with the challenge of strolling the 50 or so metres to edge of the copse to retrieve a box containing letters from their wives but they couldn’t be arsed.
Day Four. All nine contestants had to participate in the copse tucker trial. They were each propelled 100 metres into the air by a giant catapult and were given a large umbrella to open up in order to cushion their descent. To win a meal they had to grab any passing bird. None of the contestants were successful and the umbrellas were woefully inadequate, all instantly turning inside out when opened up. All nine contestants suffered broken legs and other injuries after plummeting to the ground at around 80 miles per hour. However they all vowed to struggle on to the final day after being attended to by a bungling Elaine Funtingdale, the resident first aider.
Day Five. The competition was due to end in the early evening of day five but with all the contestants in dire need of medical attention with some of them having passed out in severe agony, the organisers decided to bring it to an end early to avoid any fatalities. Dougie McManahammond was unveiled as the unanimous winner with none of the other contestants receiving any votes.
He had seemingly won over the hearts and minds of ‘viewers’ with the heroic manner in which he had waded through the excrement, showing true resilience to push on despite pieces of turd splattering against his face.
Dougie chose local charity CONT (Caring for Otters with No tails) to benefit from his success. CONT are a charity who take in otters who can’t swim due to losing their tail, (often through being caught in traps intended for other animals or by being caught in the propellers of passing boats) nurse them back to health and fit them with prosthetic tails so enable them to live a normal life.
Unfortunately as the total number of votes cast by text was only 109 (108 from Dougie’s family and one wrong number), the event actually made a huge loss, particularly after Lionel Stubbs’ helicopter pilot submitted his expenses and Raydon were invoiced for a new lion by Colchester Zoo.
As Dougie had chosen CONT as his charity, Millionaire Chairman Lionel Stubbs had no choice other than to send them a bill for the losses accrued therefore ending their operations and making their only paid member of staff redundant. Everyone enjoyed the experience and agreed they should definitely do it again next year.
Raydon have since had to sign 7 loan players in order to field sufficient numbers to fulfil their fixtures. The ten contestants are not expected to return to football action until the 2008/2009 season. Find out how the loanees are doing in the next Raydon Ramblings!
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