April 11th: Turtles 3 (1) - Lower Hutt 7 (4)
A skilled football analyst would have looked
at this game before hand and declared "the Turtles are going to get their arses
kicked". Any complete imbecile would have come to the same conclusion.
Lower Hutt strolled away with Open A last season, and, deciding that they enjoyed winning
easily each week, had decided to stay in the grade. The Turtles limped out to the Hutt
carrying a few injuries from last week's mauling by the cops, and with a number of people
making their season debuts, including Nick, GT, Chris and the much-maligned Langridge
brothers. Trafalgar Park is a new one for the Turtle stats, and not unpleasant, nestled in
deepest middle class Lower Hutt, not far from where Dodger is rapidly descending into
boganhood.
The boys assembled to hear Simon's team talk. When I do a spell check, simian is one of
the options that comes up for his name, and that's apt. His general play, and particularly
his team talks, have a lovely neanderthal quality, lots of grunting and spitting. Later in
the game he was to score the own-goal of the century, but more about that later. The
opening stanza's of this game were as expected, LH running around a lot, and Troy looking
dangerous. Troy is their playmaker, but rather predictable, in that if he gets half a
second of space anywhere within 25 yards of goal he'll usually ping it in the top corner.
Surprisingly it took them about 10 minutes to open their account. Quickly followed by
another. After that, you could sense a pasting, but the famous Turtle spirit started to
show through, and for the next half an hour it was a close game. GT was getting some ball
up front, and was doing well with it, and Wal was creating some good breaks around him.
During one of these he made a run down the right, and prompted a local who was sitting on
a bench watching to comment "that young man looks a good player". The poor man
obviously had eyesight problems. Mind you, when you are pushing 80 someone in their
"late" thirties probably does look young.
Anyway, from another break, on the left this time, Hooter forced a corner. The
aforementioned Simon challenged, and the ball looped out to the edge of the box. GT met it
sweetly on the half-volley to score. Much standing around looking puzzled. Lower Hutt
suddenly stopped taking the piss, and saw that they had a game on. The Turtles defence was
now excellent. Simon put in lots of violent tackles, Dodge was always in the right place,
and the halves did some excellent tracking back. Just when it looked like an even tussle
was on the cards, the turning point. Simon made a tackle out on the left flank, but the
ball came back in, to Troy on the edge of the box. It was a high bouncing ball, and he
nudged it forward ready for a shot. Simon came charging back in and saved him the trouble,
flying through the air and meeting the ball with a determined right boot, curling it over
Snout into the far corner. It was truly a goal to savour, and as we did so, they grabbed
another soft one before half-time.
So that was it really, 4-1 and over as a contest. We turned round, and promptly had to
defend desperately again. Snout, squeezing back into the No. 1 jersey after missing last
week, had had a big lunch, but by the second half the effects of that were wearing off,
and he pulled off some great saves, including one from Troy which he anticipated nicely
(see earlier comment). But we couldn't hold out, and the goals started to flow again. An
aerial challenge resulted in their sixth. Simon complained of a foul, but as I was reffing
I though it wise to allow the goal, for fear that Simon's macho tough guy image may suffer
from being shoved out of the way, albeit with an elbow to the throat.
Shortly after, the other Simon, G, had his moment in the limelight. Getting released down
the right by some good work by Don, he surged towards goal, weighing up his options as he
went. There were two. The first was to square it into the middle, for a striker to run on
to. However, our striker was at this particular stage of the game Bobby, and he was still
waiting on half-way for the next No. 37 bus to get him up towards goal. Simon took option
two, and from a tight angle smashed it in. Apologies if I've got this wrong, but I think
we scored next. (I was too busy copping abuse from players and spectators, all our own,
for my refereeing display. All I can say is that certain people will be having lots of
half games this year).
Don again made some space for himself in midfield, and played an exquisite ball through
their defence. For some reason Simon L was now up front, apparently because of some
obscure and well disguised injury. Which miraculously disappeared as he charged towards
goal, only the keeper to beat. He finished with what he claimed was a clinical finish, but
which looked more like a jammy miskick. After they got another, the score was equal to the
Turtles' record loss. Dodge pointed this out to me, and as it didn't look like we were
going to score four goals in five minutes, I called a halt to proceedings. The light was
fading anyway, and I deemed this a potential danger to the players. Especially the old
ones in our side.
Zero from two.
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