This week saw the first real fight at the Amblecote church hall.  On what appeared to be a low key event with many members absent for a variety of reasons, we had our biggest upset in our history.

I was in the kitchen making a brew and I heard a crash and loud swearing and cursing. I thought a table had got knocked over and the row was because some ‘precious’ figures had got damaged. To my surprise Phil was lying on the floor entangled with a chair and Jimmy Dean was stood over him with clenched fists threatening to batter him. Everyone else was frozen in a deathly silence, like a Hollywood freeze frame.

I walked over to Jimmy and told him to back off and calm down. Jimmy backed off accusing Phil of having ‘issues’ and continuing to threaten him.  I told him he’d over re-acted and to calm down at which point he stormed off out.

Phil was surprisingly virtually unharmed, but for a centimetre square loss of skin (no blood) and a small scratch on his neck. We know now his shoulder and neck were bruised in the fall but, as I suspected he couldn’t  afford the time to hang around and explain to the police what had happened as he had to get home to care for his father.    We have written into the rules the power to ban somebody but, I never thought we’d ever have to use this.  I cannot see Jimmy being welcomed back without some serious justifications and apologising.