April 1st: Turtles 2(0) vs Miramar Rangers 2(2)
Match Report by Stevie 'Wolfman' Hambleton

Jimmy Franklin taking 50 test wickets wins Bobby a bottle of Gordons gin off Dodge.
Jimmy commented, "Every bastard's a critic". Right on Jimmy.

There have been administrative decisions made over the close season that would make the Finance Department at Enron look like a Quilting Circle for Lovely Old Ladies. Back-stabbing, corruption, shady meetings in back alleys; you name it, it’s probably happened. As we speak, four different Government agencies are currently investigating the events that have led up to the first game of the 2006 Masters season. Gordon Davidson of the IRD was quoted as saying, “Aye, muckle mee a blindy bloo, sploondormy arrr, ach, Falkirk, ar ar ar ar”. Lance Dixon of the Department in Charge of Stopping Earthquakes said, “We regard these goings on as seriously detrimental to the structural stability of the Wellington area, and we’re going off to have a big lunch today to decide what sort of report to write about it”.

But enough about Tel being dumped as Webmeister, lets get on to the season ahead. Welly Soccer finally settled on a Masters One division of eight teams. In a departure from previous seasons, teams were seemingly ‘invited’ to join Div One, which has lots of newly stringent regulations surrounding player eligibility (although as soon as Olympic were scared off up to one of the Open grades, the need for those regulations disappeared back up, er, into, the bottom, er, drawer, of some over-zealous administrator’s, er, filing cabinet).

So, by special invitation only, the eight megaliths of Welly Masters footy have lined up for the Mother of all Seasons. There will be four titanic, ding-dong battles every week, there’ll be some horrific injuries, there will be joy, and there will be sorrow, there will be bickering, whingeing but probably a lot less bad sportsmanship now that Olympic have gone. And within the first seven minutes of the season opener against the Old Foe (Miramar), there were two goals conceded by the Turtles by way of the usual method - gross incompetence.

For the first, Stevie H had a bouncy ball to deal with on his right foot, and this naturally was sliced away infield to one of the oppo forwards. He ran menacingly at our defence (as their attackers did all day), and had a shot from well outside the box. Snouter, suffering, possibly, from one too many big lunches over the summer, did not move well to his right, and the ball bounced quietly over his flailing arms into the bottom corner.

For the second, it was GT’s turn to slice a clearance, and it was a similar result. Although this time Snouter did get some of his well-earned torso behind the shot, only for it to get away from him, and dribble pathetically into the goal as he flailed around on the ground, looking much like a well-nourished salmon that is about to be slaughtered for the delectation of well-nourished businessmen at Shed 5.

This was all a bit shocking for the scores of supporters (final count: 28, a new record) who had turned up at Ben Burn for the season opener. Truth be told, a vast majority of those supporters had been enticed along by the promise of free G & T, courtesy of Bobby, who was presented with a bottle of gin before the game by Dodger. This curious transaction was the outcome of a bet between the two, made some years ago, about the Test wicket-taking potential of young James Franklin. Bobby said yes, of course Jimmy will take 50 Test wickets. Dodge politely told Bobby to fuck off, and the bet was sealed. When B C Lara slashed at a wide one from Jimmy at the Basin a few weeks ago, the transaction was complete, and on Saturday the gin-soaked middle-classes of Karori turned out in force to toast Dodge losing a bet. “Appalling defending.” “Dreadful keeping.” “Pass the tonic.” “Has anyone seen my kids?”

Playing into the wind and up the hill, the Turtles slowly recovered from those early set-backs and started to get forward a bit. Wal and Glenn up on the right, and PK and Gazza up the left were making some progress, but there was a definite early-season rustiness to the play. Miramar played forward with control through their midfield, and stressed our defence with the running and passing of their forwards, but it was the Turts who produced the next two pieces of goal-area action for the intoxicated supporters on the sideline. Wal got the ball up to Glenn in the box, and he was tripped as he waltzed past a defender. Wal stroked the resulting pen calmly onto the post, and it rebounded away harmlessly. There was talk later that Snouter looked mightily relieved at this, as it shifted the ‘TiT’ spotlight off him momentarily, but no-one really believes that. And it was said by some that four minutes later he looked even more cheery, as Gordie trotted after a loose ball in the box, and with an open goal beckoning, scuffed it across the front of goal and wide from a tight-ish angle.

Speaking of Gordie, it is clear from his profile that in his new position with the IRD he has not yet made a push to increase taxes on fatty foods, and make imported running shoes cheaper.
The rest of the first half was notable only for the demise of yet another Langridge knee. Steve limped off to join his brother on the sideline, a week after Phil collapsed in a heap at the pre-season game. Merran rushed over to her stricken husband, and five minutes later presented this written diagnosis to Grunter: “Steve has damaged the tendons behind his knee-cap. He will therefore not be allowed to come out and play for six weeks. During this time he will be at home with his family on Saturday afternoons, like all sensible middle-aged men should be.”
At half-time, there was a brief skirmish among the crowd as the tonic ran out, but reserves arrived from the Cook cellar just in time to avert an ugly scene.

With the wind in the second half, the Turts comfortably expected to get back into the game, but as the minutes ticked by, and the crowd began to start playing charades, it was starting to look bad for the Turts. Numerous corners from Stevie and Wal were bundled away by the oppo defence, and their keeper made several miraculous finger-tip saves. One rebound off a shot fell to Gordie inside the six yard box, but his header was somehow nodded off the line by Jim. The tiring elderly gentlemen in the oppo defence somehow continued to hold fast.

Turts were now popping up in some very strange places. Gordie, citing problems with the ball, was now wandering around in the middle making terse comments about the quality of our passing, and Glenn took his place up front. Terry was asked to play centre midfield, and took this as an invitation to play left wing. As a result the oppo strolled around in the middle of the park at will, and there were several hairy moments for the defence trying to cope with the breaks of their forwards. Don, by far our quickest and fittest player, was required to make the last tackle on several occasions, when Marty, Si and Dodge had missed out.

Sheer weight of numbers up on the left wing (Tel, PK and Steve) finally paid off with about fifteen minutes to go. Steve got the ball into PK inside the box, and he beat one before putting a ball across the front of goal to Glenn, who tapped in under the keeper. Wild cheering broke out on the sideline, but this was due to someone arriving with a bag of lemons.

A draw or win certainly seemed possible now, and the Turts surged forward. Well, maybe ‘surged’ is not quite the right word. How about ‘stumbled raggedly forward, gasping for breath’. It was the left that provided again. Tel and PK worked a crossing opportunity for Steve, and he put it in goal-wards. Don arrived at pace to flick the ball over the keeper and send the crowd into a frenzy of drunken delight. Some even started singing, although ‘Ten green bottles’ didn’t seem quite right.

In the final three minutes, the winner could have come at either end. First, Glenn made a great run up the left, and laid it back into the path of a rampaging Tel, but his shot hit the legs of the keeper. And then up the other end, Don slid in to thwart the final run by the oppo’s forward line. Incredibly, GT, reffing, deemed this tackle a penalisable offence, and pointed vaguely in the direction of the spot, before some vitriolic abuse by Dodge, and general consensus by everyone else within 100 yards of the incident that it wasn’t a penalty, changed GT’s mind.
So a disappointing start to the season really, given the number of chances we had and the circumstances of the oppo goals. And Miramar is expected to be one of the easier games. Oh dear.

Postscript One: There has been talk in some of the gentlemen’s clubs of Welly that David Kirk of Fairfax has been making enquiries into the possible purchase of Jetplane Press. We say, take a good look, David. We respect your business expertise, and no-one can forget the surge in pride we all felt when you lifted that World Cup back in ’87. But, if you should ever come sniffing around Jetplane Towers with a suitcase containing several hundred million dollars, we would say
“Oy, David, NO! We will not have our journalistic standards compromised by selling out to some bland publishing conglomerate. Take your grubby corporate money and piss off.”

Postscript Two: The off-season was the opportunity for our readers to give feedback on the 2005 suite of match reports. Based on reaction, by far the most contentious aspect of those reports seemed to be the involvement of our beloved Patron in a string of sexually explicit episodes, some involving other women. A number of Turtle wives expressed their outrage by way of nagging at their husbands. An alternative school of thought was that we should really ramp it up this year, putting the patron in even more explicit situations (all relevant to the match being reported on, of course). But Jetplane Press has always been mindful of our public, and we feel we have our finger on the throbbing vein of the Turtle community. Turtle wives are an essential cog of this well-oiled machine. An army, particularly one that is old and over-weight, marches on its stomach. So, this year, we’ll be asking match report writers, particularly Dodger, to refrain from including our beloved patron in any of the g-on-g activities that may be needed to accurately report a match. The use of the daughters of some of the more elderly members of the Turtle fraternity is also not welcome (well, for the next few years anyway), and will in fact be heavily censored by the Webmeister.
These are the only restrictions being placed on writers, but please try and maintain some semblance of decency. As an example, a detailed description of a toys/fruit/vegetables romp including Sammy Fox, Sarah Ulmer and Gabby from Desperate Housewives would be perfectly acceptable, but only if it was relevant to the match being described.
 

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