May 27th: Turtles 7 (2) - University 0 (0)
Normal Transmission Resumed
Si's touch on Dodger's blast from 20m beats the keeper
Cap'n Tel out early with a broken body, and as for The Wall...
please post your captions in the Turtle Lounge
Doubt filled the minds of The Turts as they headed to their spiritual home, Ben Burn Park. Over and over again negative thoughts were flooding in: a perilously close win against The Celtics, a thumping from the Island Bay Vauxhalls, the departures of Coutts, Butterworth and Goldie, and now wondering if George Speight was likely to turn out for Stokes Valley sometime soon. Did the Scarfies represent a serious threat this year? Generally we thought we’d be ok though – we were playing Varsity.
Eased minds thinking of an easy win against a junior and respectful side were unsettled though by the sight of a bunch of them already at the ground and neatly turned out by the time we straggled in. Rambuka had obviously whipped this unit into shape – where were the mixed shorts and socks and late arrivals that we had come to know and love? It is always a favourite fixture for Cassie too as she fondly recalls the 10 minutes she got to play against them in ’95 after the Turts were way ahead. She shares our soft spot for this usually disorganised rabble and was also troubled by this new lot.
A sigh of relief though – she herded them up and we only counted 10 of them: normal transmission resumed. But this didn’t really help us as we were only lulled into a false sense of security. A patchy team talk didn’t really help either – some rot about not abusing other Turts when they stuff up and thinking about the requirements of your position.
So the first 20 minutes were terrible. Turts passing the ball aimlessly as we tried to spread the Scarfies thin – lots of motion but no progress. After just five minutes the first of two hard tackles was dealt out to Terry (though the ‘opposition demeanour’ ultimately went down in the stats as ‘soft’) and he was off soon after – just as well Gordie had finally turned up. Returning from a long stint at Travel Camp, learning how to cancel Fijian holidays, Phildo was getting all sorts of abuse for not getting left foot crosses from the touchline in. Dogs were running amuck too – a Golden Labrador decided to get into the game (how the hell did Cassie let that happen?) and there was mass confusion as to whether or not we should be playing on as we all disregarded Ref Nicko.
And then a classic Dodger miss-hit put us on the right track. We had worked the ball down to the left side of their box and it popped up off a defender at perfect height for smashing into the opposite top corner. Dodger was a long way forward and had a real go at it. However, the ball would have gone flying out for a throw had it not hit Spratty’s head on the way across the box and rebounded into the goal. Normal transmission resumed.
Shortly after we forced a corner and Tony Garrett curled in a beauty. It hit the top left of the woodwork and bounced back into play. Spratty had a bit of work to do to reach the ball which had gone behind him but managed to left foot it passed a sprawling keeper. 2-0. We didn’t create any more real chances, but we were completely untroubled at the back so at half time we felt pretty good, but were eager to get a third quickly and seal it. The familiar taste of SNO was still on our lips when this happened.
Spratty got a great ball through the middle and went left with it – dragging defenders with him that were as keen as we were to not see him get a hat-trick. A deft left foot pass found Si G unmarked with only the keeper to beat. We aren’t sure if he got the finest of touches, sending the keeper the wrong way, or merely farted on it, but the ball lollied into the bottom right and all was right with the world.
The fourth gave Spratty his hat-trick. The ball was bounced in from out front and sat up for him to do a classic bicycle kick into goal. But age is definitely catching up with our short, fat Pom and it looked much more like a tricycle kick as he struggled to get his leg up and over (a familiar Spratty manouver) but he managed to get it wide of the keeper. No doubt at this point his mind turned to the possibility of another Honours Board performance.
The Turts were really opening up now. Lots of possession and well-timed passes that were taunting the oppo. Even Wal was showing glimpses of earlier years with good runs down the right and decent crosses. One should have been turned into a great headed goal by Si G but it went aimlessly over the top. He soon made up for that one though.
The next goal was definitely a case of who laughs last laughs loudest. We had won a corner on the right. Mr Fuzzy Bum put in a dreadful one that barely got off the line but we managed to get another corner out of it. He got heaps of helpful advice about needing to get it deeper. So he did – this time slicing off his normally trusty left foot to head out to Dodger way outside the box. The Scarfie defenders thought this was a great joke and took the piss until Dodger sent a low, straight drive in that Si G gave the final touch to. A wry grin from Rat a Deux as he jogged back for the restart. Not long after Si G made a great break and thumped the best shot of the game from about 30 metres. He beat the keeper but unfortunately not the woodwork.
And then a sickening thing. The Scarfies were doing a good job of keeping their heads up and were pushing forward well. Tony Garrett found that he was needing to make some serious tackles. He went in for a 50-50 and ended up astride the guy’s hips. His momentum and angle meant that the leg of the oppo was slowly forced wider and wider until he did a horrible splits. It looked a lot like Michael Jones’ knee job at Athletic Park against the Argies. After some pathetic attention from The Boss he was up and about again though (sort of). This pretty much put an end to their pushing forward. Snouter was savouring another clean sheet.
And Spratty got one step closer to another HB performance when he was put through by Gordy. He still had a bit of running to do but managed to hold off the defenders and put the ball through the keeper for his fourth. But a fifth wasn’t to be – the final goal came from an inch perfect pass from Rat to Si G (from the outside of the foot so it that it curled cruelly passed the defenders) and the youngest Turt buried it for a hat-trick and MoM.
So a comprehensive victory - especially as there were no goals again for Gordy or Livie (not surprising though because Livie wasn’t playing). We had thought that these one-sided results weren’t very satisfying but given the last couple of weeks this one felt pretty good. Even more so when team ages were compared – Si G at 21 was the youngest Turt by 13 years, and then another big gap from Don to the rest of us.
We all had a wee smile as we headed for the changing rooms – the Scarfies were getting changed outside; not bothering to shower. Normal transmission resumed.
So back to the Turtle Lounge to wallow in our win. Especially for Rat who had a little bit of folding from his lovely mother-in-law for a few quiets with t’lads. After most had departed the Lounge for the comfort of their families, girlfriends and/or dogs, a few of the stragglers turned their thoughts to Livie stuck in a kitchen somewhere. We all wondered if English was his second language and if he was being taken advantage of by his new employer. None of us was sure, but we all agreed that English was definitely Gordie’s second language.
Ps. If you want to know what the Turtles really think about Dodger then see if you can crack the code contained in the first 4 paragraphs.
Normal transmission resumed.