April
20th:
Turtles 1 (1) - Island Bay B 6 (4)
by Roger "Dodge" Kinsella
11.00 a.m., Saturday, April 20, a conference hall somewhere in Sydney. Stevie nervously sat alone in the large auditorium, a couple of rows from the back, trying desperately not to draw too much attention to himself. In spite of his best attempts at physical self-control, his heart was pounding, his palms were sweating and his damp underpants were riding up his hairy bum crack. But despite all his nerves, he'd done it. He was in. This was what his whole life had been building up to. The long awaited moment had arrived. It was time to proclaim his identity, his uniqueness; to stand proud amongst his fellows; to put behind him the best part of four decades of humiliation and ridicule; to finally gain the social acceptance that had been denied him for so long. Above the hubbub of the big crowd, he could dimly hear his name being called out. No turning back now. He slowly stood up, then slunk forward up the aisle with hunched shoulders, up the stairs onto the stage, until he found himself standing in front of the microphone. He breathed deeply, cracked his knuckles, silently broke wind, looked out across the sea of red heads and spoke. "Hi. My name is Steve Hambleton and I am a ginge."
2.00 p.m., Saturday, April 20, Ben Burn Park, Karori. The lads gathered apprehensively along the sideline. Numbers-wise, it was all looking a bit grim after the physical devastation of the previous week. Joining professional cripples Spratty and Phildo on the sideline was P.J., while Zil was playing but in far from serviceable condition. Also absent was the Red Rug, who had claimed he was heading to Sydney for a dirty weekend on the occasion of Bernie's 40th birthday celebrations. Much of the pre-match discussion centered around the real reasons for him being away, and Snout had proposed an interesting theory of his own.
"I was reading the Dominion classifieds a few weeks back and noticed this bloody ridiculous ad. 'Are you a ginge? Tired of all the ginger jokes and the ginger abuse? Join the Australasian chapter of Ginge Power and take control of your gingeness, meet fellow ginges, etc. Next conference, Sydney, April 20. BYO gerbils.' Well, at the time I thought it just had to have been an April Fool's joke, but I'll bet you anything you like that that's where the ginger backed git's headed for the weekend. The gerbils are the clincher. Everyone knows he's always had a thing for small furry animals."
The lads had all laughed at Snout's humorous explanation for Stevie's absence, but deep down inside, Dodge had felt a few twinges of guilt. He knew only too well how much Stevie took this sort of thing to heart, and, as one of the main culprits, he was worried that Stevie was struggling to cope mentally with all the ginger-related verbals. He made a silent resolution to himself to in future show more consideration to Stevie's feelings and to try to restrict the abuse to non-ginger matters. First of all though, there was a game to play.
This week's opponents were Island Bay 'B'. Stevie's parting shot was a dubious claim that they were a bunch of "nasty fekkers", but they turned out to be decent blokes and not at all nasty. Or fekkers. On the other hand, they had a couple of big black bastards in the midfield who ran around taking the piss and making a damn nuisance of themselves. The better bbb reputedly played National League for Miramar as recently as the start of this season. That's just ridiculous and there's no call for that sort of carry on when playing the Turtles, given that we've only just escaped the Lower Hutt bastards who tormented us for the last five years.
Anyway, after the bbbb had run through our whole team half a dozen times, the lads were longingly harking back to the good old days of Don in his prime, when such an obvious playing threat could have been instantly nullified by a ligament-tearing kneecap-shattering challenge courtesy of a horrendously timed sprigs-up lunge over the top of the ball. Such sights are all too rarely seen these days. Time to come to the party, Chris.
Zil take the ball forward with Spratty & Dodger on his shoulder
After about ten minutes we went one down, when Si's mishit pass set up one of their guys to smash it in off Snout's near post. Snout was actually beaten three times at the near post during this game, but a regular junk food diet should see that gap filled in future weeks. Soon after, another of their forwards broke through and avoided Dodge's attempted tackle while steering the ball wide of our portly custodian.
It wasn't all one way, and we mounted a few attacks of our own. One such occasion saw a square ball from the left smashed in by Daryl from five yards, and we were back in it at 2-1 down. Chris was playing some promising through balls but unfortunately, most of these chances were falling either to Lance, who didn't have his shooting boots on, or to G.T., whose shooting boots fell to pieces about 15 years ago. Island Bay would invariably break down our attacks and move forward en masse with most of our team trailing in their dust. Our defence certainly had their work cut out trying to deal with the continuous threats, while Snout was in fine form and made the most of numerous opportunities to fine tune his technique for dealing with one-on-ones.
Turtle's Man of the Match and goalscorer, Daryl, making another forward run
P.K. then foolishly wandered forward for a throw-in, but this was no Wests 'B' and his stumpy little legs were soon involved in a futile 50 yard chase back after one of their forwards, with the resulting shot smashed in at the near post for 3-1. G.T. trialled his new comedy act by mis-hitting a shot from all of one yard in front of a gaping goal mouth, a 100% improvement on last season's miss from two yards against BNU. Then a missed challenge by Tel ended in a low shot towards the left hand post from the edge of the area. Snout responded with a glorious full width dive, only for a wicked bobble to take the ball over his outstretched arm.
Speaking of Tel, it was obviously his time of the month, and after copping some stick from Dodge for stuffing up a pass, he blamed the rest of the team, let loose at Dodge with some verbals of his own and flounced off up the field. Dodge wisely let it ride, well aware that Tel was struggling from the after effects of his latest wedding and the knowledge that the unintelligible wedding register he'd signed in all innocence was actually a pledge to commit his entire assets to the Greek People's Front For The Liberation Of Cyprus.
4-1 down at the break, and a record defeat was on the cards. Not much hope was held by our largest crowd of the season, none larger than the Pieman, looking particularly well nourished after several years in Africa suppressing the natives. However, the Turts managed to limit the carnage, mainly thanks to the bbbb laying the ball off to less able teammates in scoring positions when he'd have been better advised to smash it in himself. It took twenty minutes for the score to increase when a lovely weighted chip to the far post resulted in a simple header from a yard out, although G.T. would no doubt claim that no chance is simple from that distance.
The 'Turtle Army' enjoying a lighter moment during the game
Numerous stoppages for injured Turtles to be stretchered off also helped eat up time, as Tel, Wal, Boy and P.K. all bit the dust, with Boy at one stage anchored about 25 yards from our line, with just the addition of a fishing rod required to complete the not inappropriate comparison with a large garden gnome. G.T. managed to stuff up another golden opportunity, before a late opposition strike at the near post ended the scoring at 6-1. There was time for one of the more decrepit looking Island Bay backs to twice blouse golden opportunities for his "moment of glory" before bastard referee Spratt mercifully brought an end to the proceedings, with the Turts walking from the field a well-beaten team, Dodge despondent enough even to forget his pre-match resolution.
Boy on the ball prior to performing his garden gnome impersonation
11.30 p.m., Sunday, April 21, Raroa. Stevie had just got home from Wellington airport. The weekend in Sydney had ended up being a total waste of his time and money. The other ginges had turned out to be a bunch of the most tediously boring self-centered no-talent no-hopers it had ever been his misfortune to encounter. No wonder he'd never had anything to do with them in the past. Although he had to admit that the gerbils had been particularly enjoyable, about the only real highlight of the weekend. But from now on he was determined to put his gingeness behind him and only hang around with normal people. How had the Turtles done against Island Bay, he wondered. He decided to ring Dodge to find out.
"Hello?"
"Dodge, Stevie here. How did we go against..."
"What the f**k time do you call this, you red headed twat?! Some people have got work tomorrow, you know. You get me out of bed when you could have Emailed me at work, you ginger haired plonker? Why don't you go get a big orange carrot and..."
Stevie smiled contentedly to himself as the tirade of abuse continued to flow unabated. He was back.