April 29th: Turtles 3(2) vs Waterside Karori 5(3)
Match Report by Blobby

“Lest we forget”

Major-General “Lil’ Kimmy” Fussbudget adjusted his socks in a very un-Turtle like manner. He adjusted his skirt. He adjusted his suspenders. He was ready for the most important day of his life except for some of the others.

Walking into the milky autumnal sunlight, medals slapping quietly against his ample chest, he surveyed what would become known as the Paschandale of the new millennium – Bannockburn (sorry, Benburn).

Several days earlier, over the Rimutaka’s and far, far away, Sparkman Puddswoodle sat at his desk twiddling his thumbs. He was now uber-Fuhrer of print media in the central Wairarapa (for journals starting with ‘E’) since the, er-humm, unfortunate incident involving the previous editor of the Eketahuna Bugle, Septimas Stout - yes, that’s right, the one involving the Turtles’ patron, a Mexican sword juggler, and an unusually large amount of warm honey.

Anzac Day did not fill him with any great enthusiasm – he’d send one of the juniors out to cover that. He’d save himself for a trip down memory lane, back to his first love, sports reporting, and back to the Turtles. After all, his last match report some two years earlier had seen him win the Pulitzer Prize (Aptly Named Sports Teams Reporting division). He felt a warm and unusually large amount of nostalgia. He adjusted his socks. Nicely.

But Sparkman would not be there just for the football – there was a whiff of, amongst other things, scandal. He had heard of the record crowd for the first game of the season. He had also heard of patrons being bribed with gin to attend – would never happen in Eketahuna, and must not, he thought, be allowed to besmirch the reputation of the Turtles. He would find the culprit and bring him to task.

There was no record crowd today, but there was gin, although the weather was more conducive to a hot Toddy or Trixie, depending on which way your flag flies. The milky autumnal sunlight had been a figment of Fussbudget’s imagination, and more likely the glint of his plastic medals against his lovely art deco sapphire and platinum brooch.

He minced towards the sideline for the start of the game, and was aghast as he noticed no Turtles supporters at all. In fact the oppo’s travelling fans has taken up residence in the Turtles’ usual spot. Scanning the horizon, he saw the behemoth Big Si, and the bigger behemoth Tadger, beside the goal chatting to the bigger, bigger behemoth, Capt. Snouter.

As he ambled down to see them, a bigger, bigger, bigger behemoth turned up with lemons, ice and tonic. “My kind of afternoon”, thought Fussbudget as he sashayed towards Snout’s bag to collect the gin.

It was a crucial moment in the reporting of the game, for at that exact second, Sparkman Puddswoodle, reinventing himself as the short-panted, rosy cheeked, buck-toothed, overly moral cub reporter of yesteryear, appeared.

“Hey you – what’s that you’re carrying?” Fussbudget swirled around to face Sparkman, fixing him with steely gaze, a sly wink, and Revlon Rose Velvet No8 lippie.

Sparkman was aghast – so it was true! Gin was being used to bribe spectators to the game. It was scandal, a scoop, and far too cold to be supping on a wee G + T.

“I’d better watch the game”, he thought, “but for as long as my name is Sparkman Puddswoodle, they won’t get away with this spectator doping disgrace”.

He rang his own office to leave a ‘note-for self’ – “Front page and back page for this one”, he mused. “Biggest thing in Turtle history since last week – Lest we forget”.

Turning to the field he noticed three things, although two of them were Snout. The other was the classic Turts performance – too many wandering aimlessly at the back doing five-eighths of fuck all, and Don Guthrie running around like a mad bastard.

But suddenly, out of nowhere a pinpoint through ball found Wal who, despite the protests of the staggered oppo, skipped through, rounded the ‘keeper, did a small jig, had several very grubby thoughts, a couple even grubbier G-on-G ideas, jotted them down with the accompanying sketches, and scored.

Then they scored a goal, notable only for Dodge not yelling at anyone as the Red Sea of Turtles defence opened wide, which clearly means it was his fault for the first time in Turtles History (3rd ed, revised, R Kinsella editor).

And then the Turtles scored another goal, “Which”, thought the usually mathematically challenged Sparkman, “makes it 2-1”. To be fair, the Turtles, playing with the brisk southerly at their backs, from time to time put together some passes (seldom more than two, but there you go). Gary was playing well somewhere near the front for part of the time, Steve Langridge brought a new, more violent perspective to left-back without injuring himself, Muzza and GT both did some interesting work near the ball, and Beaker tripled his season tackle count, taking it to two.

And then the game-changing moment. A floating, looping header spooned over the defence, held up in the wind and, after Snout had demolished the post with his face, dropped gently into the top corner.

Sparkman took out his camera to record the moment, only to be blocked by The Boss scampering the metre to his fallen brother, after only the gentlest of prodding with a cat-of-nine-tails and a pack of AA batteries.

After the post had been taken off on a stretcher, the game resumed anew, with them scoring again (Sparkman didn’t quite see what happened as he was still jotting down notes from the goal in the previous milli-second), but was happy to quote Snout as saying “Unstoppable”’ or similar. Snout also muttered a blisteringly understated tirade about the lack of defence, bad shape, and edible panties, “But”, thought Sparkman, “journalistic licence might see those stay out of the story”.

3-2 down at the half, and the Turts all had quite a jolly little chat about the Jamaican lime cordial, the cricket, Chelsea, lubricants and the latest round of penis-enhancing spam emails.

The four spectators threatened to storm the pitch and move the other end, but given the chill wind, the diminishing bottle of gin, and Fussbudget’s tales of what REALLY happened in Cairo in ’43, they stood firm.

The second half was largely one-way traffic, and Sparkman could only view the action using binoculars. When he focussed back on the game, he also noted the Turts were bloody miles away and not looking like coming forward except sometimes. He saw them have, rather than create, a few chances, but all were spurned as the oppo racked up a couple more goals to take it out of the reach of the Turts. Thoughts of a Middlesbrough-like come back were dashed when everyone realised it wasn’t going to happen, so Sparkman began his wrap up of the game with ten minutes to go.
“The shell of a once great side – Best we forget”, under which was mournfully penned – “Spectators bribed to watch painful exhibition”, which PK thought was a reference to …. (Too much information – Ed) ….

Then out of nowhere, a Turtles corner, some diddly-dicking around in the area and ball fell to Dodger (about to release Turtles History, 4th ed – My part in all the victories). A delicate first touch, the wind up, and into the roof of the net from outside the area.

The crowd were astonished, the oppo were astounded, and Fussbudget came over all hot and clammy.

Sparkman couldn’t believe what he thought he had just seen – he tore off the previous report and waxed lyrical about nothing other than the consolation goal.

“Burst the net with an almost religious fury”, “A master class in long-range shooting”, “Why has he been at the back all these years?”

But his words would never be seen in print, for in his absence, things had been afeet at the Eketahuna Bugle – Septimas Stout was back at the editor’s desk, having mugged the junior reporter going to the Anzac parade, and instead covering the event in a way only he knew how (with an eclectic array of electronic devices, some peppermints, and a plastic mac).

The phone rang. He picked it up. Seemed the most sensible thing to do in the circumstances, indeed on most similar occasions.

“Fussbudget here – have you got Sparky’s report through?”

“Sure have,” grumpfed Stout. “Just laying the front page now – sounded a pretty awful performance”.

“Well, don’t print it – it’s all lies, and all the spectators swear they never saw Dodger’s goal. You can’t print anything that can’t be substantiated – just like Cairo in ’43 – you remember that don’t you Septimas – DON’T YOU SEPTIMAS”, he now snarled in a more threatening tone. “Look, be a good fellow and pop the Anzac commemoration back on the front page - I’ll make sure you get a medal for it.”

Stout frompled his way into the typesetting room. He removed the ‘B’ from the banner headline and replaced it with an ‘L’, re-laid the Anzac day story on page one and put the Turtles debacle through the shredder.

“Played like crap anyway”, he crimmumfled.

As so it came to pass, that the only record of the game was a run-through result in amongst the other scores, and small ads for all-gay shearing gangs.

Which, dear and gentle reader, was possibly the best place for it (with a French tickler, whipped cream, and a rubber chicken…) ….

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