June 11th: Turtles 3 (2) - Seatoun  0 (0)
A Blast From the Past
By Terry "Tel" Hills

Date:               June 11, 2030
Time:               4:45pm
Location:       Turtles Lounge, Karori Park Clubroom

Another Saturday, another match for the ‘Flabuous’ Turtles (renamed from ‘Fabulous’ in 2006). Recent alterations to the Karori Park clubrooms have seen the stairs to the Turtle Lounge replaced with an escalator and the installation of a Zimmer-frame park at the front door.

Any visitor to the lounge on home-game match day is invariably greeting on arrival by a curious odour caused by the excessive use of linament and bouts of uncontrollable flatulence by the occupants.

It’s a scene that has become part of Waterside Karori folk-law – this geriatric bunch of wannabe soccer stars, gathered in their shrine, reflecting on their latest ‘conquest’. It was a milestone year for the FT’s – their 50^th anniversary season.

PK was reminiscing about a “great day in history, a memorable coastal milestone”.

“What – the ANZAC’s landing at Gallipoli?” asked Wal, stirring his Pina Colada with his specially engraved Microsoft CEO swizzle-stick.

“No, my first Turtle goal at Bishop Park, Eastbourne … what a wonderful day!” sighed PK.

Further round the table, a still very sprightly 78 year-old Chris Lavis was reliving highlights of his latest performance. Chris now resides at the NZ Home Loans Retirement Village in Sprattville, Lower Hutt – his property swallowed up as part of the monstrous development of the site in 2010 which now covers the whole of Waterloo Road.

Amongst the muffled din of coughing, chortling and grinding of teeth (some still their own), a raspy call belts out from the far end of the room.

“OK you lot, let’s do the stats”  exclaimed Tel, his wrinkled hands opening the cover of ‘Grandson of ERIC’. Tel had somehow managed to recover from being stretchered off most games to be back in his central defensive position by the following Saturday.

“Any hangovers?” inquired Tel. Two hands shot up immediately – both belonging to Spratty. A few seconds later C.J. raised his weary drinking arm.  Both these Turtle stalwarts had managed unlikely playing comebacks some years ago. Spratty, courtesy of a liver transplant and two brand-new artificial legs, had found a new lease of life and taken his career goal tally to just over 600 goals. C.J. had returned to the playing field back in 2007, due to ex-wife Vanda moving to the Playboy Mansion after Hugh Hefner read various scintillating 2005 season match reports and offered her a fortune to move in with him.

 “Spectators?” After much deliberation and number-crunching, a total was agreed – 128, including 36 player’s children, 72 grandchildren and Spratty’s 6 great-grandchildren!

“OK, next - juice flavour, Grunter?” asked Tel. He knew full well what the Boss was going to say, but asked anyway.

“SNO Turbo” replied Grunter, his weathered hand still gripping the Turtle’s bucket. This bucket, despite having it’s 8^th handle, was still holding together remarkably well after nearly 40 years, although it now sits on a cart, operated via remote control by Grunter during game time from the comfort of his sideline armchair.

“OK, what about ground conditions?”

‘Young’ Si Law was the first to respond  “About as lumpy as my man breasts!” he complained. The Turtles were now playing in the Over 65 years grade and poor Simon was only 64 – and playing his 28th season as an illegal player!

“Alright, so that’s ‘MALEMAMOROUS - what about weather conditions?” Tel responded.

“Rather cosy” exclaimed Snout, feeling quite relaxed after another game in his special XXXXXL thermal goalkeeper’s jersey.   Snout’s old jersey finally couldn’t take the strain and was retired some years ago – the number on the back had stretched and separated to the extent it had read “1 1 1” which appropriately was the phone number dialled in haste to seek help removing him from the constricting garment.

“Next - opposition demeanour?”  After a brief silence, Dodger responded “They were a cocky bunch of wankers .. then we end up thumping them 4-0 - I reckon 'Flattered-to-deceive' should do the trick!”.

After much head-nodding and grumbled agreement, it was decided. “We haven’t had that for a while” GT commented “ .. when was the last time?”. Tel pulled out his voice-activated Web search device and inquired “Opposition demeanour dash Flattered-to-deceive’. The ‘WebPalm’ responded immediately and displayed “Searches found:  1  - June 11, 2005: 3-0 vs Seatoun, Benburn Park”.

“Well, it’s been a while ..” Tel announced “.. on this day, June 11, way back in 2005 ... versus Seatoun – a 3-0 win at Ben Burn”.

“Oh yeah, wasn’t that the game you wrote that crap match report, Tel?.." Dodger bellowed ".. so tell us more about what happened that day.”

“Yes, Dodge – not one of my finer moments. OK, let’s get have a look at the match details” replied Tel, as he brought up the match report on his WebPalm

“It was a cool, grey day at Ben Burn Park …..”

…. our first outing on our regular home strip this year. The team was entertained before the match by an impromptu boxing exhibition as a brawl broke out in the curtain-raiser between the Karori Wanderers and North Wellington.

So now we faced Seatoun in the first game of the new 10-team Masters 1 competition. Despite an early onslaught, we had comfortably triumphed by a 4 goal margin against the same side in the first game of the season. Since then, Seatoun have recruited a couple of skilful looking players, including Nasser - an old nemesis of ours from Island Bay.  Obviously the pool of eligible players in Seatoun is limited these days, as two new members of their squad didn’t even look old enough to legally drink alcohol (perhaps a ploy by the older members of the squad to get more of the after-match beers!?)

For the second time this season, we were privileged to have Catweazle's brother officiate in his referee’s ensemble. His whistle blew to start the game just as Gordie, the ‘Tartan Tadger’ appeared on the sideline. With their skilful and youthful additions, the Seatoun team started with an air of confidence and a large degree of territorial dominance. Ten minutes into the first half  Gordie entered the fray, his regular raucous outburts of ‘Come on – it was 6-0 to us last time’ (it was actually 7-3!) seemed to unsettle the opposition. Their attempted retaliation by asking him “how many haggises did you have for breakfast?” only seemed to fire him up even more. Their attempted raids on our goal were constantly thwarted by some tight defence and several crunching tackles from Chris, GT and Dodge.

It didn’t take long for the tide to turn. After another Seatoun attack was repelled, a couple of quick passes through the midfield saw Wal release Glenn W on goal, his calmly taken shot across the goal mouth finding the net just inside the far post. 1-0 Turtles!

Seatoun were clearly rattled, but they continued to press. Some tall timber in the Seatoun defence was repelling our attempts to attack via the aerial route. Gary was battling gamely up front, but unable to get much space to turn with the ball and attack. Before long, a sweet move which started from a short goal kick to the left flank was relayed through some quick passing to the right wing, where Wal was gaining some dominance. His cross was met delightfully on the run at the edge of the box by Gordie, and sailed under the crossbar. 2-0.

The Wilkinson “twins” were battling gamely and Chris was his usual energetic self. Stevie H (2 days past his 40^th birthday) seemed to be having a mid-life crisis as the effect of reaching the big "4 0" sunk in. Snout was kept relatively quiet except for the occasional long distance lob in his direction, but he was required to make a reflex tip over the bar from a close-in header. Both teams battled gamely for the rest of the half, but the score remained the same when the half-time whistle blew.

Playing into a gentle breeze and defending a 2-0 lead, the FT's seemed to adopt a “siege” mentality for much of the second half. Despite that, a number of break outs led to promising attacks and the occasional corners. On one such occasion, Snout, our beloved leader and custodian, bellowed out to our attacking players to "just put it in the goal". Fairly rudimentary, perhaps, but far less ambiguous than his "someone pick up the guy in the shorts" call at a defensive corner a few weeks back!

Big Si was coping admirably with the wave of Seatoun attacks, until they found his weakness - a sharp elbow to his right "man breast" and he was left a quivering wreck in the middle of the park. He soldiered on, regretting his decision to not pack his padded bra for this potentially bruising encounter.

20 minutes from the end, the final nail was hammered into the Seatoun coffin. Wal sprung up on the left wing, and his blistering pace took him past his marker, but not quite past the cover-defence. Just as he forced himself into the box (so to speak), he was unceremoniously dumped to the turf by a desperate and late challenge. Not a pretty sight - Wal face down in the penalty box with his shorts around his ankles. A cry of "Just as well the tackler wasn't John Hopoate!" rang out from the sideline. Pulling himself and his shorts up, Wal steadied himself and expertly slotted the penalty just inside the right post for a 3-0 lead.

Before the end, Tel wobbled off with a calf strain, followed by PK collapsing in heap by the side line with cramp in both legs. With Chris "Energiser" Lavis flagging slightly after many bone-crunching tackles and covering about 150 miles of Ben Burn turf, PK gamely offered to crawl back on with 2 minutes to go, but someone took out a shotgun and put him out of his misery!

So there it was, a solid 3-0 win and  a great start to the new round. At the Turtle Lounge following the game, the usual post-match analysis was in full swing. Wal duly picked up the M.O.M. award for 1 goal and all 3 assists, while Steve L followed two consecutive M.O.M. performances with this week's T.I.T. award. A 9/10 performance was decreed as the stats for the day were debated and decided.

"Right, what do we have for 'Opposition Demeanour' " asked Tel. Suddenly, Stevie H pulled himself out of his mid-life depression and offered "Flattered-to-deceive!".

“Gosh, that’s a new one” thought Tel as he scribbled the unique phrase onto the latest statistics sheet in the 'ERIC' folder -  “that will probably never happen again – well, surely not in our playing era!”
 

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