Stingers battle it out at the Liverpool Shield
Photo credit: David Grice
Getting a Stingers team down to a tourney is like herding kittens, so our hybrid outfit for Liverpool this year consisted of Hackers, one Screwball and travelling friends from north of the border representing Edinburgh Vandals.

A first game defeat to a strong Bristol Bam team gave the ragtag bunch a chance to get warmed up and just in time to meet the Bats in the second game, where three consecutive home runs from in the first inning set the tone nicely for a 14-6 win. Game 3 saw us face the Trojans just in time for them to hit a stride with some excellent batting, leaving us trailing from the start and running out easy winners. But the team were not disheartened, digging deep in the next game to perhaps surprise the Kelpies, who had to push hard in the last innings to secure a tied game.
“It was left to big hitters Kristian Stokwisz and AJ Hoysted to see who could hit the furthest home run.”
The Bobcats were the final opponents of the day and it was left to big hitters Kristian Stokwisz and AJ Hoysted to see who could hit the furthest home run of the game (I think Kristian probably edged this one with a fine bomb towards the car park). Not to be outdone, Ian Mills added his own homer in the second innings but sadly we lost by just one run at the end of the day.

On to Sunday and the dreaded early start, particularly for Clan Mills who had spent the night painting the town black and green; we fished a bleary eyed and sunburnt AJ out of his tent just in time for the game to begin and immediately conceded 10 runs against Yorkshire Dales. It was a wake up call indeed and the team did well to respond, but sadly time was called just as we took the lead and with the game reverting to the score from the previous innings it was a good win for Fletch’s crew. Two victories followed, the first seeing our Vandal players meet their compatriots in the Bolts and the second had us playing against the other half of the Hackers side who had joined Drizzle for the day; and some excellent defensive play saw us earn a semi final Plate game with Kelpies, who had learned from the draw yesterday and saw us off in the end.

It was a fantastic weekend under beautiful blue skies with some really close games and strong plays, sunburned shoulders and sore heads – just what Good British Softball should be.