May 23, 1987 – The Fabulous Turtles FC make their debut at Kura Street.  The weather was sunny, the pitch in perfect condition.  The Turts were unbeaten for 25 straight matches, but this day were up against a decidedly useful Porirua-Viard side.  Spratty arrived at the game with his entire worldly possessions packed in the car, which consisted of a few clothes and two crates of beer.   Bye-bye, first marriage.  He had a quick cry on Gorsuch’s shoulder, but was told to harden up in quick order.  There was an important game to be won.

And win it we did – 4-2.  Porirua gave us the run-around that day, knocking the ball around nicely.  Spratty got over his marriage break-up by half-time and scored a brilliant hat-trick in the second half.  With the minutes ticking away another notable event occurred.  Stevie, our erratic and eccentric goalkeeper, decided to punch the ball away from an opposition corner.  Instead of the two-fisted (and some would say correct) technique, Stevie had read in Viz magazine that a left hook was equally effective.  He made contact, but only with Tarquin, our left back.  Knocked the poor boy senseless.  Still, Stevie only conceded two goals that match, a clean sheet by his standards.  The Turts eventually extended their unbeaten streak to 30 games, an amazing achievement considering CJ played in most of them.

July 6, 2002 – The Turtles return for their third visit to Kura Street, and suffer a beating.  Things had started to go wrong two weeks earlier.  A rained out match followed by a bye resulted in no footie for three weeks. Fitness, which was questionable anyway, got a lot worse.  On Thursday before the match we had 15 players confirmed; Saturday 2:30 we kicked off with the bare eleven.  Both Langridges were late scratchings.  Phil had to stay home and assist with breastfeeding duties, while the Pieman claimed he wasn’t feeling well after reading about the AIDS epidemic in Africa.  Lawrie (our mechanic) never showed – his car broke down in Tawa.  Other defectors included Snouter, PK, Spratty (overseas trying to save his second marriage), and Lance-alot (injured a lot).  Wal stood PJ down, on the theory he would be ineffective (read: sink) on a heavy pitch.  Logical thinking, but the ground was in reasonable shape considering the rain we’ve had lately.

The most pressing discussion in the changing room centred around who the hell would play goalkeeper.  Dodger, who wasn’t part of the conversation, walked past at that point saying "I fancy myself".  A surprised Dodger was immediately installed in the role, a logical choice given his body shape was amply suited to fill Snouter’s massive jersey.

The day was cold and the pitch puggy when we kicked off.  The Turts knocked it around nicely, and quickly dominated with the wind at our backs.  We began creating half-chances, but Tawa played five across the back and proved difficult to break down.  They hadn’t won all season (four draws, seven losses), and were determined to put in a good showing.  We attempted several long-range efforts, which were handled comfortably by the keeper, causing Gordie to vent his frustration.  "No more long shots", he screeched,  "we are not a bunch of Ronaldos!"  "There’s a few Jimmies out here though", remarked a Tawa player.

Wal was causing quite a few problems for the defenders early, but it was a through-ball from the middle that created the first real chance.  Gordie received the ball in an offside position, and, perhaps feeling guilty, blazed wide with just the keeper to beat.  A short time later Daryl received the ball a mile offside, but again we were unable to cash in with a clear run on goal.  Tawa then scored against the run of play.  A counter-attack opened up a massive gap through the middle.  The Tawa player advanced on goal with only Dodger to beat.  Dodger completely mistimed his advance, got stranded, and the striker passed the ball to his right where two Tawa players were competing to knock the ball into an empty goal, with nary a defender in sight.  0-1. 

Stunned disbelief was the reaction from the Turts.  Dodger, who was still fancying himself, didn’t seem to mind too much.  After all, his World Cup sweepstake had been a resounding success.  And people were praising him.  One e-mail (obviously from someone who has never met Dodger) dribbled "…thanks for organising this so wonderfully!"  Another, from a writer who must have mistaken Dodger for another Roger Kinsella, tongued "the organisation of this competition was simply amazing…".  And so it went on.  Our hairy-arsed (not my words, but worth repeating) custodian retrieved the ball, content in the delusional knowledge that people actually liked him.

Meanwhile, our attempts to break down the Tawa defence became more and more futile.  We had some success attacking on the flanks, but the final ball was always wanting.  Their second goal wasn’t long in coming, either.  A defensive error saw Tawa gain possession, with the striker again bearing down on goal.  Stevie and GT ran alongside him for 30 metres taking turns trying to tackle him.  They failed miserably, and the striker tapped in, with Dodger this time anchored to his line.  0-2.

The second half featured more domination of possession, but we completely lost our shape. Midfielders became strikers, defenders played strikers, strikers played strikers, trying their hand at midfield when the urge took them. The defenders not playing striker felt obliged to move in to midfield to cover the gaping holes left by the wandering midfielders.   Plaudits go to Wal, who never lost his shape (although he tried to run some of it off), and ran hard at the defence all day.  The rest of us were awful, and the shooting abysmal.  Gordie missed two great chances in the second half, shots he normally buries.  Stevie drew a great save from the keeper, but generally spent most of the match complaining how sick he was, and shouldn’t be playing, blah, blah.  An ear infection being the latest affliction to strike him down. Must be all the body hair picking up airborne viruses.

Tel nobbled himself again, so he donned the keeping gloves in the second half, with Dodger moving to sweeper.  The Pieman finally arrived at the match, and chatted amiably with Grunter for 15 minutes before kitting up.  Zil was the first to spot this, and won the foot race to the sideline to be substituted.  The Turts continued to press for goals, but the lack of defenders eventually told. Tawa scored again shortly before full-time with another one-on-one with the keeper put away comfortably.  Tel did his best to gift another couple, so it was blessed relief when the ref blew for time.

To be fair, Tawa played well.  They competed for everything, defended well, and took their chances.  The Turtles, who are used to feeding on scraps, had enough possession to win three games. It was the worst we played all season, and a disappointing way to end the first round.  It also dropped us to seventh place, and potentially out of the top division when Round 2 begins.  Bugger.

It was difficult to gain any positives out of this, Dodger’s self-esteem aside. Olympic did lose though, and while it’s childish to draw pleasure out of the misfortune of others, I was bloody ecstatic. The psychos come up empty-handed!