January 2025
Brigadier “Captain” Johnny Torrens-Spence returned from a month-long research trip to Australia and shared the secrets of Aboriginal rock-skittles, gathered at peril on several sleepless treks into the Western Desert. Unfortunately the main finding was that Aboriginal rock-skittles is played with square balls, and the chalk diagrams of bowling techniques smuggled through customs had been effaced by their pashmina wrapping.
And so Dad’s Army started 2025 with precious little in the way of new skills or aptitude to add to the customary January slump in vigour. With memories of the previous year’s cup exit still lurid, and sensing a potential global collapse in morale, the Brig summoned the troops to a special TikTok livestream. “Fair enough chaps, we’re out of luck, out of shape, and out of the cup. But at least we’re not hang on sorry, damn phone, yes, hello, what’s that, are you sure, right, OK, sorry chaps, newsflash, we’re also out of the Sexeys.”
Indeed, the Dads were now also homeless. A trivial remark about the crisps had been detected on the re-sexey-ed Sexey’s Amazon Alexa, and offence had been terminally taken. Over the following days and nights, the group chat hummed and buzzed with proposals and counter-proposals. The Lamb? The White Hart? The Bason Bridge? The Plough? The Farrow and Ball? The Apple and Tesla? Wilkins Cider?
No firm decision had been taken by the next fixture, but fortunately this was an away game at the Watchfield Inn, the only pub in the county to be lit entirely by LED – and by the skittling of Fitz “Paul” Fitzgerald, whose beer-hand flopper instantly eclipsed memories of Solskjaer’s extra time winner for Manchester United against Bayern Munich in 1999, Trevor Chappell’s last ball to New Zealand in 1981, and that bit in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf comes back.
All eyes which haven’t been incinerated by the sight of this triumph are now focused on the Dads’ next match. Wherever it’s happening.