June 19th: Turtles 4 (2) - Tawa 1 (0)
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| Bobby looking pensive. Looks like a ball imprint on the butt there Bobby... | Nice goose- stepping Dodge! (this week's match report author) - yet more evidence of Nazi sympathies |
Last game of the season. Turtles vs Cops and victory needed for the title. 1-1. A minute to go. Don makes a horrendous two-footed tackle in midfield, and while the Cops wait in vain for incompetent referee Rat-a-deux to blow for the obvious foul, Phildo lays on a through ball for Zil to run onto down the left wing. Zil waddles clear of the last defender, and with just the keeper to beat and success for the season resting on his balding head and broad stomach, he draws back his trusty left boot to shoot. Twang! It's the hammy again and Zil collapses face first in the mud. The lads let out a collective groan of disappointment and a torrent of loud abuse can be heard from somewhere in the back four…
Zil jerked awake, the sweat dripping from his fevered brow. Another horrible nightmare. It was Saturday. He leaned back in his hotel room chair somewhere in Hamilton, growing more bored by the minute, as the two grating American voices droned on and on and on. "What the fuck am I doing here?" he thought. "I should be playing footy in Wellington. If only I'd had the balls to stand up for myself for once in my pathetic life." He fiddled with the radio dial searching for Turtle FM, consoling himself that at least he could listen to the match commentary. But all he could hear was another edition of "Coppersmith's Guide To First Aid". "What the hell? What happened to the game?" Zil muttered to himself. But soon he was happily whistling along with Grunter and the afternoon started to fade away…
Sunday afternoon in Wellington. Fill-in captain Don was once again congratulating himself on diddling the Tawa team by having the game switched to Sunday. Saturday had been looking desperate with all the absenteeisms. Tel was in Australia, touring some of the more upmarket Sydney bus shelters; Don and G.T. were both bending over for various corporate clients; Karen had forced Zil to go to Hamilton to meet a friend of hers from the States; and Gordie, the four goal fat Scottish hero from last week, was away in Auckland for some shite reason or other. Gordie had made sure Brenda had gone with him, as he didn't want any repeats of that sordid episode when he'd found Brenda naked underneath his ex-best mate Craig. He'd always had his doubts about Craig's explanation that he was just practising some amateur gynaecology, and from then on had made sure there was no chance of another such performance.
The day dawned clear and sunny as the Turtles made their way to their spiritual home of Ben Burn Park. Tony G., having got to bed at 7.30 that morning, turned up in a taxi, ready to scarper in case he'd got the kickoff time wrong and the match was already over. We were staggered to note the reappearance of Spratty, who'd returned just the previous day from representing N.Z. at the Drinking Olympics. He was looking remarkably fat and tanned after six days on the beach in Hawaii. In fact he was so dark that the lads speculated that this might be the closest Leigh would get to sleeping with a black man. But we knew she'd be doomed to disappointment as there'd be no way Spratty would be able to overcome the obvious limitation of only having a three inch willy.
Don won the toss and made the elementary error of playing with the setting sun behind our goal, overlooking the obvious fact that it would be more difficult for our defence in the second half. A simple but hardly unexpected blunder from the midfield thug, and one that had most of us almost, but not quite, wishing for the return of regular captain Rat-a-deux. The Turtles immediately set about their task and for the first thirty minutes, the meagre crowd were treated to a sublime exhibition by an aged team at their vastly experienced best. Tawa were run ragged as the Turtles made numerous breaks down the flanks, pressurising the opposition defence into conceding corner after corner. One of these corners after five minutes saw the ball cleared to the edge of the area, where G.T. hit a superb first time shot back through the crowd of players and into the back of the net. However, our initial elation turned to disappointment when it was found that Spratty had provided a glancing header past the Tawa keeper and was claiming the goal, the wanker.
Five minutes later, we almost doubled our tally when, from another corner, the ball was headed out to Dodge, of all people, and from twelve yards he unleashed a thunderous dipping volley onto the crossbar and away to safety, with the keeper well beaten. The rest of the team held their breath but were thankfully able to shelve any insincere words of congratulation for another day hopefully far, far into the future. The Turtles continued to dominate and it was no surprise when we went two up after twenty five minutes. Nicko went round his marker and angled in toward goal, finishing the move with an unstoppable shot high into the net. At this stage, we were looking good, but our old legs were starting to tire and Tawa slowly worked their way back into the game.
The half time whistle came as a relief, and we all plodded off for another foaming-at-the-mouth harangue from captain Don. Having heard it all many times before, no-one listened to a word. Of more interest was an offensive, although highly accurate, comment from a spectator regarding "the goalie being a tub of lard". Thoughts immediately turned to Snout, but it turned out that the reference was to the Tawa keeper, one of the few opposition players in the long history of the Turtles to tip the scales ahead of our beloved Bellymeister.
The second half began with the Tawa forwards applying intense pressure to the Turtle defence, and it was no more than they deserved when they pulled a goal back. A partially cleared corner reached one of the Tawa strikers on the edge of the box and he hit a precisely placed shot just inside the left goalpost. To be fair, it didn't have to be too precise since Snout was nowhere to be found due to being engaged in polite conversation with G.T. somewhere in the vicinity of the right goalpost. The Turtles were really under pressure now, and struggling to put together any attacking continuity, a situation not helped by the presence of an empty thirty yard circle of No Man's Land in the middle of the field, caused by a combination of the Turts defenders playing deeper due to total sun blindness and the complete absence of centre half Tony G., who spent the whole second half somewhere up on the left wing. In fact the last we saw of him was when he took a wild swish at the ball, completely missed it and fell on his fat arse.
Fortunately, most of the pressure was relieved when, from one of our rare second half corners, the ball fell to big Si Law. Not unexpectedly, he completely duffed his shot, but the ball fell to an unmarked Spratty who turned and slotted it from about five yards out, and we were on our way again at 3-1. This meant that a couple of aerial cock-ups, firstly by G.T. and then by Cooky, were not too serious. In fact, a few barely concealed sniggers were heard after Cookie was smashed on the nose by a vast up-and-under, but not so loud, of course, as to be overheard by the ageing psychopath. At this stage, his job done for the day, Spratty limped off to be replaced by Dodby.
Our fourth and last goal arrived with ten minutes to go, and put the seal on a fine performance by the lads. In his only significant contribution to the game, Si G. weighted a lovely chip over the defence for Dodby to run onto, and he buried it off the far post with a well timed left foot shot. Young Si, who has been sadly out of sorts in recent weeks, to the extent that Malcolm and Audrey no longer bother to come and cheer on their wee boy, has been struggling to adapt to the stringent alcohol intake requirement of the Turtles youth development scheme. Perhaps a few nights out on the piss with Spratty might help him get the hang of it.
An excellent 4-1 victory was not enough to prevent everyone getting hammered for five bucks by Dodger in the after match fines session at the B.B. Nicko, who'd brought his 46 year old mistress along to the game, made the highly enviable claim that he'd had twelve shags since Wednesday, but as none of those had been on the morning of the game, he had to depart early in an effort to keep up his average. Wiser Turtles than Nicko have a fair idea of who's really using who in this sordid little relationship. In finishing, it can be said that, in the absence of their star Gaelic striker, the Turtles learnt a very valuable lesson. And that lesson is, "Fat Scots bastards, who needs 'em?"