The outbreak of The Second World War forced the suspension of the football league and the team marched off to fight the Germans for a second time.

The war started badly for The Bees.

They met up at The Market pub in Greenwich, and went to make their way to Dover to meet the rest of the army. Unfortunately, Smudger had forgotten his passport and went home to get it. This meant that The Bees missed their ferry to France, had to wait for the next one and the army had to wait at Dunkirk for them.

The next available places for the team were on the overnight boat. The team duly boarded and made their way to the cabaret bar. Many of the team were worried that this may be the last time they would ever see their beloved team mates, so much drinking and stepping on feet took place.

The next morning, with a thick fog enveloping the ship, they landed.

At Calais.

Raymond sent a message to the army, apologising and explaining that it wasn’t his fault, that it was because the destination boards were difficult to read and that The Bees would be in Dunkirk soon. Well, they’d get the next bus. Which was four days later.

Arriving at Dunkirk, The Bees wondered where everyone had gone. It was deserted. And so they left the beach, hoping to find the rest of the army at a nearby amusement park, in an arcade or on the crazy golf course.

But, Bees being Bees, they wandered into a local village pub and as they drank, a man in a kilt alerted the German army and The Bees were swiftly captured.

They were taken to a POW camp near Bruges, where an American bloke called Andy, who had been captured during a raid on a karaoke bar, ingeniously devised a plan for The Bees to escape by tunneling out during a football match against the Germans.

But he would only do it on the condition that they would take him with them. The Bees were overjoyed, mainly because they needed a replacement for Black Jonathon who had drunk all the boot polish and fallen asleep in the English Channel, but also because they didn’t like doing nude gymnastics.

Photo: The Greenwich Bees lineup shortly before kick-off

Players back row left to right:  Barrieluv, Blowtorch Scott, Brummie Dave, American Andy, Honky Tonk,  Geordie Joe.

Players front row left to right: Candy, Katanya, Chip, Stella Barry (suited), Smudger, Jose.

The game was arranged, a stadium erected, a tunnel was dug, disguises created and dummies that looked like The Bees were made from locally caught wildlife.

The match started well for The Bees and after some good pressure, a free kick was awarded some 25 yards outside the German box.

Geordie Joe stepped up and let fly an absolute screamer, leaving the German ‘keeper stranded. One-Nil to The Bees!

Incredible scenes!!

It was all a bit short lived when, from the restart, the Germans attacked the Bees’ goal and equalized from the resulting corner.

And then, just two minutes before the break, the Germans went ahead through a stunning shot from the edge of the area. Two-One to the Germans.

At half time The Bees got into the tunnel and made good their escape while the game carried on with the Germans unknowingly playing against the dummies.

It wasn’t until the end of the game, when players tried to swap shirts, that the escape was discovered. But by that time, The Bees were in the captain’s bar aboard the Pride Of Kent ferry and on their way home to England.

All except one.

Raymond was shot at a train station after accidentally stepping on the foot of a German officer.

The Germans, incidentally, lost the game 4-2.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Reflexive/music-catch

Easy-to-play, hypnotically pretty and very, very relaxing.  Collect the shapes, as many yellows as you can, avoid the red ones and don’t miss the purple ones for a bonus.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/moogoat/dodge

I love this game.  Good minimalist retro futuristic graphics set to an excellent trance soundtrack.  Slightly reminiscent of Rez on the PS2 in it’s look and feel (but in 2D), the idea is not to shoot the enemy (you don’t have a weapon), but to get them to shoot each other. A very clever and well executed variation on the shoot-em-up.

After The Great War, Greenwich Bees settled down into a pattern of losing regularly and they slid into the relative obscurity of Division Two of the Northern League.  The Great Depression of the thirties meant that all of the players lost their jobs as launderette attendants and many of them became took work polishing weasels for the rich.  The work was hard and many of the players developed Weaselitis, a disease that causes thick hair to grow on the eyeballs.  Fortunately, for The Bees, this led to a very curious business venture.

One squad member, Honky Tonk, had trained as a hairdresser in his younger days at Harrow School For Upper Class Twits.  The Bees pooled their savings, robbed the Deptford Hornet’s ticket office and set up the world’s first and last eyeball hair salon.  The rich and famous flocked to the salon, called Hair Eye Am, and high society eye hair sufferers were soon sporting outlandish styles and colours.

After a while they expanded, opening another salon in Woolwich which was managed by Raymond Chipps.  Raymond changed his name to Raymonda to suit his new gay, eyeball hair styling lifestyle.  Unfortunately, the salon was a huge flop due to Raymonda’s inability to style eyeball hair without stepping on the customer’s feet.

The cash rolled in and The Bees were able to rebuild their stadium, The Hive, which had fallen into disrepair and been fire bombed by an unknown assailant.

An assailant wearing a kilt…

Photo: A photo of an artists impression of a photograph of the mysterious kilted bomber.

The outbreak of war in 1914 saw the entire squad, cleaners, washing line managers, monkey butlers, Cecil the llama and the boardroom staff head off to France to fight the Germans. 

On the first Christmas Eve of the war, The Bees’ poet laureate, Black Jonathon, climbed out of the trenches and made his way into no man’s land to challenge the Germans to a football match.  Unfortunately, he had drunk all the nail polish remover and after getting lost in the fog and spending twenty minutes talking to a lamp post about the Falklands, he fell asleep in a shell crater. 

The Bees, however, found some Germans to have a match against.  A makeshift stadium was hastily built from mud and timber.  Tickets were well priced at 1d for standing with a washing line up to £5 for a corporate box with monkey butlers. 

It was a hard fought game which saw many feet stamped on, a lot of incomprehensible shouting from the youngest recruit, Geordie Joe, and lashings of ginger beer at half time.  

The Germans were skillful and organised, quick on the break and had moustaches.  They scored two excellent goals, courtesy of their striker, Herr Kreme, and went into the half-time break two-nil up.

The Bees came out fighting in the second half and when they finished, the game continued.  The Bees made good progress from the start and two goals in the first five minutes from Stella Barry put the Bees level.  A 74th minute goal from Raymond Chipps put the Bees ahead and despite a heavy German push for an equalizer, a goal from Katherine Hurley in the first minute of added time saw the Bees record their first ever win.

The team and staff made it through the war, with the exception of Raymond. He was killed by a German who took exception to having his foot stamped on.

His son, Raymond Chipps Mk2 took over the the management position but it would be nearly thirty years until they recorded their next win.

Photo: Greenwich Bees circa 1914.  The trophy was stolen from a rival team, Deptford Hornets.

To be continued…

EXCLUSIVE!!  At last, the true story behind Greenwich Bees FC is revealed. In part one of our exclusive story, learn how the team came about, what happened to the original home of Greenwich Bees and the truth behind the death of Katherine Hurley.

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Here’s something for the non-believers!  Scans of the original documents, drawn up by Chip and Katanya on that long night on a sheepskin rug in front of a roaring log fire drinking Super Tennents and consuming large amounts of, erm, stimulants.

To be continued…

So, the Greenwich Bees sort of came into existence in 2003 when life at the Funnel And Firkin pub in Greenwich, London was, to say the least, a bit dull.

Help was at hand in the form of two of our regulars Chip and Motorbike Kate.  Working long into the night and using a variety of stimulants, they drew up plans for a football team and named it Greenwich Bees.

The document came into my possession by means of Scottish Nick, a llama with a passion for Jack Daniels and owner of the much hated Deptford Hornets, who agreed to hand it over to me in return for a packet of bourbon biscuits.  Silly llama.

I agreed to meet with Chip and Katanya (Motorbike Kate’s real name) and, after much stamping on each other’s feet, I handed the document over to them.

It was agreed that we would have a three way ping pong tournament.  Then we realised we didn’t like ping pong much and decided to launch the football club, Greenwich Bees.  Scottish Nick and his Deptford Hornets weren’t going to have it all there own way any longer…

To be continued…

Welcome to the Barrieluv™ Blog!

I’m Barrieluv, sometimes known as Spruce Moose, and I hail from the world’s greatest city, London.

My main themes will be what’s going on in the wonderful world of Linux, iSaffron (my dippy niece), any news of upcoming Spruce Moose gigs, the Greenwich Bees (the greatest football team never to have existed) and llamas.

This is my first blog, so it might get a bit random and it might look a little odd at times as I discover how to use the features available.

xx

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