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July 4th: Turtles 2 (2) - Arakura 0 (0) After all the excitement in France this week, it would be understandable if the world's media ignored, for once, the exploits of the FTFC. But no, the above headline usurped Ronaldo, Zidane, and even Stupid Spice on the back pages of a tacky London tabloid this morning, a paper that for legal reasons can not be named here. And indeed, it is a story that demands to be told, and, for no other reason than to fill up a bit of space as I struggle to make this report longer than the last one to piss off the Webmeister, here it is. Dodger is, as most of you probably know, almost universally disliked. Quite why this is so is not widely known, but it may have to do with the fact that he is an utter and complete bastard. The ability to "tolerate" Dodge is an essential pre-requisite for a long Turtle career, and many is the promising youth who has found this skill too difficult to master, and been subsequently lost to football oblivion, like going to play for Ajax or something. Our most capped player, Blobby, is the master in this area of the game. Fifteen years of vicious personal abuse has not lessened his enjoyment at all. The same can't be said for Boy though, a John Cleese - like player of skill and immaturity, who curtailed a promising career because he "won't play on the same field as that bastard". The pressure to be "nice" to Dodge has increased recently because he is running the World Cup sweep, and an unkind word or kick up the arse may see him disappear out to deepest, darkest Hutt Valley for good with all the cash. This pressure was increased ten-fold when it was discovered that Saturday was his 30mumble birthday. Grown men struggled valiantly with their emotions and said Happy Birthday to him, collapsing with nervous breakdowns a short time later. As the game got underway, Dodger's expletive abuse was met with comments like "yes, you are correct Dodge, thank you for pointing out the error of my positional play during that attack", or "I agree, that pass was woefully misdirected", as opposed to the usual "fuck off you fat wanker". On into the second half this trial continued, until a moment, about 12 minutes in, that you just knew was coming - he scored a great goal. After coming up for a corner, Dodge was given a delightful lay off by Weasel, and from about 20 yards smashed it in to the top right hand corner. All and sundry masked their disappointment by congratulating him heartily. A difficult day. As for the rest of the game, it was a win, but not a good one. Five or six nil would have been a better reflection, but our shooting and finishing did not live up to the rest of the play. Arakura had recently beaten Island Bay, so we were anxious to see if they had made any significant signings since our last meeting, Gullit and Vialli for example. But as it turned out they were still shite. It took us a while to get going. Good old bogan endeavour kept things tight until we got our passing going, and exerted some control. Most of our best play started with Terry up the middle, and either went directly up to Naz, or wide to Weasel or Wal. A lot of good stuff came up the left, through PK and Weasel and aided by the skipper, back up front after a long lay-off through injury and lack of ability. PK was showing the benefit of two visits to the gym in the last 12 years (both last week), and actually over-lapped in sprightly fashion several times. Up front, Simon was getting some good service, but was hindered by a sizeable hangover. This was due to free piss at a 21st, not something a student is likely to take in moderation. Judging by some of his shooting, it must have been a good night. Playing up hill (on the old Karori No.1), we started to get a few corners, and it soon became clear that the oppo were complete crap at defending these. Luckily for them we are complete crap at attacking them. Terry is the only Turtle in living memory to score a headed goal directly from a corner, and that was only because he was concussed at the time and didn't know which way he was going. However, after one of our corners, the ball fell nicely for the skipper, and after it was taken to the byline and squared, Simon tapped in from two feet, about the outer limit of his range on this particular day. The rest of the first half was dreary, as we found it a bit knackering uphill, and they found it knackering chasing the ball all the time. In our goal, Blobby was deputising for the absent Snouter, and did a fine job, looking totally bored and making snide remarks which nobody could hear. At half-time it was noted that the oppo, although younger, looked more exhausted than us, a rare occurrence these days. Half of them were smoking too, a nasty, filthy habit which has no place on the sporting fields of this great land, a land fought for by my great-grandfather, a decent, law-abiding man who did a decent days work, never complained, and went to Church on Sundays, who spent three years in a hole in the ground in the Somme, buried up to his neck in mud, nothing but soggy croissants to eat, whilst fat german gunnery officers tap-danced on his forehead singing old Rogers and Hammerstein numbers in falsetto voices, and those bastards have the nerve to sit there smoking at half-time. Unbelievable. The second half was played out almost entirely in their half, as we continued our dominance, and completely failed to turned it in to an appropriate scoreline. After Dodger's wonderful goal, a super-confident Stu came on to replace the ailing skipper. He was determined to inject some skill and panache in to our game, and looked promising until the ball got near him. A sad sight. Meanwhile, Wal was tormenting a young child on the right wing, and after one storming run around the back, had to go back and sing a little song to the poor kid to stop the tears. By his own admission, Wal sings best when wearing a low cut evening dress, but there is no time to go in to that now. The Turtles had a massive amount of shooting chances, but wasted them all. Simon got a couple on target, but the keeper saved in the top corner, one of the few times he used his hands. Weasel had an excellent chance when the child Wal had been tormenting threw his toys and played a lovely 40 yard cross-field ball to Weasel's feet. With space and time but no talent, the outcome was inevitable. GT came on for the over-excited PK, and made no impact whatsoever. The game deteriorated somewhat, and some of the challenges got a bit nasty. This encouraged Nick, who has for some time been trying to cultivate a mean, hard-as-fuck image. Some nicely mis-timed challenges, and even an elbow causing a bleeding nose totally failed to tarnish his pretty boy silver-spoon-in-the-mouth golfing tosser image. The injured Spratty, who had been reffing, decided to have a trot after Terry crawled off, with about ten to go. One of the oppo, a nice guy but a complete pratt, insisted that Spratty wear shin-pads, because "it's the bloody rules, init". Spratty obliged, and enhanced his reputation for self-parody by making a dick of himself, as he could hardly walk let alone run, and was wearing sand-shoes on a muddy field. The game was now a farce, and the crowd, huddling together to keep warm, wandered off to watch Grunter's son, aged five, kick a ball against a bank. The End. |
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