Still suffering from a healthy dose of “internationalitis”, it was a patched-up, many-players-out-of-position, but generally young and enthusiastic Broadstreet third XV that headed in to Leicestershire for the second week running, this time to take on the might of Belgrave RFC third XV. All the players left the Ivor Preece Field in convoy to find their way to the northern reaches of Leicester with ‘Trussy’ (now renamed ‘Trustie’ by manager extraordinaire Danny ‘Tinkerman’ Rowan – does he know something the rest of us don’t?) hobbling along at the rear. On the face of it, one would imagine that the slightly late arrival of Street’s one and only sub wouldn’t matter too much, but unfortunately Kev also had both wingers in his brand new gleaming Jag too … Rick ‘MFC’ Skene had written down the directions on a piece of paper (as is becoming of a technophobic man of his greatly advancing years), whilst the technically advanced ‘Trussy’ / ‘Trustie’ punched the postcode in to the Jag’s SATNAV and set off at breakneck speed down the M69 … Rick had the last laugh with his piece of paper stating M69 > M1 > off at J21A > A46 taking him straight to the ground, whilst in the words of ‘Little Britain’ “computer says no … centre of Leicester is much more colourful” … the breakneck speed turning in to a crawl of frustration, although upon his eventual arrival ‘Trussy’ / ‘Trustie’ did have the satisfaction of reporting that the centre of Leicester has a new John Lewis store … and with a glass bridge!

And so, with ‘Street having completed their usual efficient warm-up, to the match itself … the home side kicked off, and ‘Street stamped their authority on the match immediately, skipper Pete ‘Evergreen’ Branston taking a clean catch (his first of many on a day in which he belied the fact that he is in his eighty-fourth year with a vintage performance), ran on ten metres, created a ruck with the help of his fellow forwards, this enabling stand-in half-backs Mitch Hancox and Paddy Hughes to feed the ball quickly to centre-for-the-day Adam ‘Short Stride’ Tyrrell to break through the beleaguered Belgrave defence and score the first try within sixty seconds … faster even than England would score against France later that day, and ‘Street weren’t even chasing a championship in this friendly fixture. With Darroll ‘Deadeye’ Watts, partially recovered from the “dead eye” he suffered the previous week adding the extras, ‘Street stormed in to an early 7 – 0 lead. This set the tone for the balance of the first half, with Lee ‘Ratty’ Lightowler next to cross the whitewash following strong forward play from the outstanding Will Venard, Brendan ‘Irish Exile’ McGuire and Danny Bucknall. Three more first half tries followed through Danny Havart, Paddy Hughes and a second from ‘Short Stride’ with ‘Deadeye’ missing only one conversion to leave the visitors 33 – 0 to the good. At this stage, with ‘Street’ dominating the scrums and line-outs (the latter via clinical execution by Clinton Ndlovu and Danny Havart) and strong forward driving by ‘Downsie’ and the returning from sabbatical ‘Deano’ Watts, not to mention the superlative pace of Paddy Hughes, ‘Ratty’ and ‘Short Stride’, a cricket score looked possible, the only negative being the fact that ‘Ratty’ was forced off shortly before half-time with a nasty looking knee injury, allowing super sub ‘Trussy’ / ‘Trustie’ to enter the fray and increase the average age of the side by a factor that only the most advanced computer could calculate. Half-Time: Belgrave 3rd XV 0, Broadstreet 3rd XV 33

With Rick ‘MFC’ Skene encouraging the team “to step up the intensity”, ‘Street confirmed that they have no respect for their elders by doing exactly the opposite for the next twenty minutes, going off the boil, allowing the hosts to dominate possession, making too many handling errors with the ball they did win and even missing a few tackles. The inevitable and deserved score from the home side came during this period to narrow the gap to 33 – 7 in favour of the away side, and it took stern words from ‘Evergreen’ to galvanise the visitors back in to the mode of play they had enjoyed in the first half of the encounter. As an aside, it was about this time that ‘Short Stride’s’ dad Kev tipped up to watch his impressive son, having spent the first half at Syston sending Facebook messages to ask where we were, clearly confused by the fact that he didn’t recognise anybody from Broadstreet at a ground the other side of Leicester … the visitors mightily glad that his son is a lot quicker on the uptake (at least on the field of play) than his dad appears to be! Back to the game … normal service now resumed, and with wingers Murray ‘Mint’ West and Danny Truslove in particular making strong inroads in to the hosts’ territory, ‘Ratty’ miraculously recovered from his leg injury returning to step in to the scrum half slot and ‘Trussy’ / ‘Trustie’ being allowed to take a break after his twenty-five minute spell of exertions, it wasn’t long before in quick succession ‘Short Stride’ went over to complete his hat-trick (although we note that neither Adam nor dad Kev offered to buy the traditional jug for achieving such a feat), ‘Deano’ Watts crashed through the host’s defence like a man possessed for his first in many a year and Paddy Hughes added his second, leaving the score at 50 – 7 in favour of the away side. Having fluffed two out of three of his second-half conversion attempts ‘Deadeye’ did at least provide us with a classic comedy moment before the final whistle, running backwards and falling over in a movement reminiscent of his father Ricky, who could be heard shouting from the touchline, “that’s my boy … a real chip off the old block.” Full-Time: Belgrave 3rd XV 7, Broadstreet 3rd XV 50

Team: 1.‘Downsie’ 2. Clinton Ndlovu 3. Will Vennard 4. Brendan ‘Irish Exile’ McGuire 5. Danny ‘Emma’s Son’ Bucknall 6. ‘Deano’ Watts 7. Danny Havart 8. Pete ‘Evergreen’ Branston 9. Mitch Hancox 10. Paddy Hughes 11. Murray ‘Mint’ West 12. Adam ‘Short Stride’ Tyrrell 13. Darrol ‘Dead Eye’ Watts 14. Danny Truslove 15. Lee ‘Ratty’ Lightowler 16. Kev ‘Trussy’ / ‘Trustie’ / ‘I love Leicester City Centre’ Truslove

Management Team: Danny ‘Tinkerman’ Rowan, Rick ‘MFC’ Skene, Bill ‘Healing Hands’ Busby, ‘Irish’ Dave (Brendan’s granddad)

Man-of-the-Match: Adam ‘Short Stride’ Tyrrell

Dick-of-the-Day: Darroll ‘Deadeye’ Watts (very harsh Darroll, I’m sorry!)

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