June 24th: Turtles 4 (2) - Tawa 0 (0)

The lads shuffled nervously through the massive oak doors into the lavishly furnished boardroom. At the far end of an oval mahogany table a sumptuous teak and leather chair faced away from them, the occupant puffing cigar smoke in the air as he leadenly contemplated the view out the steel-rimmed window. Welly harbour on a still winters day is a thing of beauty, especially from a 22nd floor waterfront office, but today it brought no joy to the lads of the Turtle Management Committee, who had been summonsed by the Owner of the FTFC franchise, Mr Dee. Tel had received a call the previous evening, shortly after getting home from the Tawa game, and had hastily advised the Committee - a call from Mr Dee usually meant he was unhappy and wanted some action. Since 1983 he had bank-rolled the Turtle empire, and seldom meddled in the day-to-day business, but when he saw the playing side of the empire stumbling, he invariably took a firm hand.

Tel nervously broke wind, then attempted to break the ice. "Ahem", he coughed, feeling the taste of last night's One Red Dog pizza coming up into his mouth.

"Sit down" was the response from Mr Dee.

The charade of musical chairs began, Mr Dee having played his usual trick of making three of the eight chairs too thin for certain members of the committee. Finally, with Weasel, Stevie and Nicko in the thin chairs, everyone settled and waited.

The big chair swivelled round, and those new to the committee gasped, even though they had been told what to expect. Mr Dee's hideous features scowled around the motley group, his bulbous left eye zeroing in on Tel.

"I'm worried", he began. Tel felt a shudder go through his nipple ring.

"With Simon Garrett leaving, the average age is going to increase rather dramatically. Yesterday's performance was an embarrassment. My mother looks more athletic than most of you, and she has no hips".

"A lot of us were carrying injuries, sir" squeaked Weasel.

Mr Dee rose from his chair and limped around the table, stopping to lean over Weasel. He leaned close enough for Weasel to smell his rancid breath and see the ringworm on his cheek. "Pathetic" he breathed, and Weasel dry-retched.

Mr Dee returned to the top of the table, scratched his arse, farted, and sat down. "I want to know what you intend to do about keeping the FTFC competitive, in light of the obvious failure of our "youth policy"".

Tel led from the front. "Yesterday looked bad, I'll admit, but we were missing Livi and Gordie, for varying reasons, and Si Law was injured, so that's a lot of our youth missing."

"Bollocks", said Mr Dee.

"We are still second", said Tel, less assertive now.

"Not good enough", said Mr Dee. "I want to see bright, energetic football. If the starting lineup for the first game of next season doesn't include at least 5 people under 35, I'm pulling the plug".

A gasp went around the table. Mr Dee was a powerful man, and his influence touched the lives of all Turtles. The big houses, flash cars and cushy jobs hadn't come by accident, or indeed hard work. Mr Dee saw to it that anyone who pulled on a Turtle jersey prospered, and not just from the win bonuses. All that would disappear overnight if he wanted it to. The lads left the boardroom quietly. Don went straight home to find those emails from kids in Nigeria and Bolivia who had seen our website and wanted to come and play for us.

Actually, the performance against Tawa wasn't that bad, given the circumstances. Starting from the back, Tel was badly hungover, Tony had a cold or something, PK was always going to cramp up sometime, Weasel's hammy was still dodgy, Spratty pulled something in the first ten minutes, and Nicko wasn't even supposed to play due to a sprained ankle. And all this with no subs. Luckily Tawa weren't that good, but they started brightly. Sanjay, a sprightly winger, got round Stevie twice early on. The first time he wasted his efforts with a feeble shot, but from the second his effort hit the post and sat up for his team-mate coming towards goal. From about three feet out, this clod shinned the ball away for a throw in, the miss of the century, and better even than Weasel's bleeding nose effort at Ben Burn many years back. After this initial burst, the Turts settled down and did some passing, enjoying the time on the ball the oppo allowed. Spratty, although pretty immobile, had time to make some good passes, and worked particularly well with Wal, who was only slightly less energetic than he was last week. Nicko and Si G up front chased enthusiastically, and this paid off soon enough. A harmless through ball was being shepherded towards the goal line by a defender, and Nick decided to hassle him. For some reason the defender thought he could fend off. Nick nicked the ball and squared it for Si G, a chance even the BH couldn't miss. The oppo heads dropped perceptively, and you could see they were short on spirit. This lack of fire had been explained by their captain prior to the game. They had been out at Snakes Gully the previous week, and not only had one of them been punched by the filthy animal who plays right back for SV, but when they threatened to walk off, they were told that if they did they "wouldn't get out of SV alive". Hopefully the WSA will take action.

Anyway, our passing game continued to work well, and our second came from some nice stuff. Several first-time passes to the edge of the box included Don's through to Spratty, who slotted in the bottom corner from ten yards. Shortly after this Wal made a big run from out on the right wing. Unusually for him he headed infield, and after getting past a couple of half-hearted tacklers he was clear through to the box. His last touch was slightly too far, but it still looked like he would get another before it got to the keeper. Sadly, the little old legs just didn't have that last effort in them, and the keeper got it easily.

Half-time was drinkless, due to Boss having given the duties to Gordie, who thought it was a two-thirty game. Scottish git.

The second half began like the first, with Sanjay tormenting Stevie. Tony suggested a novel approach, that of making a tackle, which Steve did at the next two opportunities. Sanjay then limped off the field, thereby ending their hopes. On the other side of the park, PK and Wal were playing some delightful stuff, which included PK making several outrageous overlapping runs. Cramp naturally attacked the silly man, and that was the end of those. We needed a third goal to kill off the game, but it didn't come until well into the half. Spratty darted in from the right and shot low. The keeper saved but the rebound sat up for Nicko coming in, who finished well. And finally, with about five to go, Wal hit a ball in from the right that went over the keeper into the far corner. Some would claim it as a brilliant piece of vision and skill. Wal just claimed it.

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