Snout slumped back into his plush PWC executive office chair, buckling up his suit trousers, tucking in his new shirt, adjusting his garish silk tie. "That will be all, thanks, Mandy," he gasped to his extremely attractive and large breasted secretary, his breath slowly returning back to normal.

Mandy dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a hankie, then wiped her chin. "Certainly, Mr Coppersmith," she replied in that breathy way of hers that always seemed to get him rising to the occasion. "Same time tomorrow?"

"Of course, Mandy, so remember, don't go booking any meetings for me then. Oh, and Mandy..."

"Yes, Mr Coppersmith?"

"No interruptions for the next half hour, please. I'll be clearing my Emails."

"Understood, Mr Coppersmith." She turned on her high heels and moved through to the reception area, her shapely bum cheeks moving seductively beneath her short tight skirt as she went.

Snout watched her go, then turned his attention back to his laptop, muttering quietly to himself under his breath. "Right, what have we got today? Charity golf tournament and piss-up. Excellent. Book it in. Latest client overpricing structure. Wrote it myself. Delete. New share options allocation to the partners. My idea. Delete. 67 consecutive Turtles related messages. Bugger that. Delete. Hang on, what have we got here? This week's match report. Here we go." He clicked on the link and began reading.

"'Myoshi Nakajima?' What?! 'Mitsutomu Bridge?' Eh?! 'Jimmy Sakura?' What the fuck is this crap?!" He read on for a couple of minutes, his disbelief increasing exponentially by the paragraph. Finally he exploded in a paroxysm of rage. "What a load of bollocks! That has got to be the worst match report I have ever read. It doesn't even mention the bloody game. Hambleton should be shot for producing that load of drivel."

A small vein started throbbing in his forehead and he could feel another headache coming on. The number of match reports these days that completely failed to mention any of the events during the game was taking its toll on him. That twat Hambleton was starting to piss him off. It had all seemed a bit of a joke at first. The other players had initially laughed at the likes of Stevie's 'match ball', 'Jodie' and 'goalpost' efforts, but nowadays it was a struggle to get to the end of a report. This Japanese crap was the last straw. Why couldn't more of the reports be done by the likes of Dodge and Zil? They may have written some pretty turgid prose at times, but at least you always knew what happened during the game. Hambleton definitely had to go. Something had to be done and quickly. He closed his eyes momentarily as a jumble of thoughts surged through his mind...

Snout paused in front of the ATM. Tomorrow was his 300th game for the Turtles, and in Wal's absence, he was also been entrusted with the responsibility of captaining the team. Now there was the small matter of shouting the team at the bar after the match. He stood there considering what would be an acceptable amount. Theoretically he should be dropping 300 notes on the bar, but times had changed. These days the lads would be lucky to drink their way through the bare hundred. He pulled the team list from his shirt pocket and scanned the page – P.K., G.T., Chris... excellent, no Spratty. He quickly pressed the buttons on the machine and collected his money. $60. Probably have enough left over to pick up some takeaways for the family on the way home.

Snout ducked through the door of the projection room high at the back of the PWC corporate theatre. It was dark inside but that was how it had to be. He put his briefcase on the floor and opened it. He'd practiced this numerous times before and had the procedure down pat. Removing the various components from their slots, he assembled them quickly and silently, until eventually he held in his hands the finished product – the most powerful sniper rifle money could buy on the illegal black market. He slid in a fresh magazine. Expanding bullets, a guaranteed kill. Moving to the open window at the front of the room, he looked down at the scene below.

On the stage, the PWC sponsored celebrity debate was in full swing. The subject – "Sports Journalism: What Happens In The Game Is Irrelevant" – had brought the best out of all the debaters so far. The verdict could go either way. But the affirmative side had saved their big gun for last. This would sew it up for them; they couldn't lose now.

The compere spoke to the large audience. "And now the final speaker for the affirmative team. Yours and mine, our all-time favourite Turtles match report writer, Stephen Hambleton. Let's hear it for the ginge!"

Way up above, Snout smiled ironically to himself. What a brilliant set up this had been. There would be no more shite match reports from now on, that's for sure. He considered the matter carefully, then reached his decision. Yep, Dodger could do this week's match report. Nestling the rifle into the hollow of his shoulder, he peered through the laser sights and lined up the target, his finger tightening on the trigger. He squeezed.

The bullet ploughed its way along the top of Stevie's sparsely populated ginger scalp. Blood spurted into the air and he stumbled backward, falling into his chair. Snout cursed under his breath, aimed again and fired. The second bullet disappeared through Stevie's left eye and blew a wad of brain tissue and skull fragments out of the back of his head and all over the wall behind him. Got 'eeeeem!

Oh, Jesus, what was that?! Uh, oh! Not again! Snout quickly flipped himself out of bed and scooted through into the ensuite, grabbing for a flannel, the all too vivid dream fading as Sue started to yell. "Murray Coppersmith, that's the third time in three weeks that's happened. Those sheets are fresh on too. I'm telling you, you're not going to soccer today until you've remade the bed and washed the sheets. I mean it!"

Five minutes before kickoff against Kapiti Coast United at Weka Park in Raumati, Snout assembled the troops. The team gathered around, expecting to hear some much needed words of inspiration on the occasion of Snouter's 300th game. Five minutes later, Snout had finally finished working out who was playing in what position and who was by default left on the bench, and it was time to start the game.

Kapiti had some good ball players in the middle of the park and the Turtles were being given the run around early on. The ref kept the lads on their toes by applying an interesting version of the advantage law, along the lines of any Kapiti handballs were 'play on' so as to 'keep the game flowing'. But as the game developed, Snout had come to an interesting realisation that filled him with hope. These buggers were slow – slower even than the Turtles, in fact, if such a thing could actually be. Kapiti were working themselves into some decent positions, but for some reason, the sight of the goal in front of them seemed to inspire each and every one of them to have a ping from twenty five yards or more rather than pass to a more favourably positioned teammate. In somewhat difficult underfoot conditions the outcome was inevitable and Snout was kept occupied with having to run across the road behind his goal to retrieve the ball for the resulting goal kicks. Not only that, the temper of the opposition deteriorated with each such miss and some of the verbal interchanges amongst themselves were beginning to reach Olympian proportions.

Meanwhile, the Turtles were starting to play a bit of good footy themselves. The slowness of the opposition enabled the Turtles to build play all the way from the back and the midfield were finding a lot of space. Several opportunities came to nothing as the result of either poor final passes or foolishly directed good passes to the Italian connection, but eventually the pressure paid off. The ball fell to Stevie, five yards out and 50 yards out of position, with just the keeper to beat. With a powerful volley just begging to be hit, he prodded the ball tentatively past the keeper. A defender raced back to clear off the line, but under intense pressure from Frankie could do no more than wildly slice the ball into the roof of his own net. A deserved 1-0 lead to the Turts.

The opposition continued to attack and forced a number of corners, but the defence, well marshalled by Tel, held strong and Snout was rarely tested. Nonetheless, there was some pretty ugly stuff, with numerous mishit clearances, Dodge slicing a couple of attempted hacks upfield and Zil airballing in the area. But the Turtles made it to the halftime break unscathed and with the dim prospect of win number two for the season beckoning.

One dose of lemon barley later, and the second half got underway. The Turtles were playing some great stuff, spreading it wide, playing up the sidelines, knocking over numerous crosses. Unfortunately these were all wasted with no real targets to aim at, but finally a nice chip from Chris found G.T. unmarked about eight yards out. He turned and volleyed goalwards. Having missing the ball completely, he then gathered the rebound off his thigh and poked it past the keeper. 2-0.

By now the Turtles' dominance of the second half possession stats was seeing some players disappear for long stints up the field. One such was Stevie, who was AWOL for a good ten minutes at least. He finally made it back into position just in time to completely fail to cut out an opposition ball down the line and one of their players was away. Having made it all the way to the byline, he cut a cross back into the centre. A lone Kapiti striker was surrounded by three defenders but somehow got a toe to the aerial ball and it spun off his boot into the top left corner for one of the jammiest goals imaginable. 2-1 and Kapiti were back in it now.

Not for long though, as more Turtles pressure resulted in a shot from outside the area from Muzz. It struck a stray hand and the ref pointed to the spot, all too aware that a lynching would have been on the cards if he hadn't made the decision. Zil stepped confidently up to the spot, waving off Dodge's impassioned plea for the forwards to follow in after the shot. One sweet strike later and the two goal margin had been restored. 3-1.

With fifteen minutes to go, tragedy. A lofted ball saw Tel stretching to clear. The injury prone centre back caught it on the left toe, collapsed in a heap and was stretchered off. In his absence, a Kapiti corner sneaked through Snout's hands before falling to Muzz on the line. Admittedly Muzz had had a good game to that point, but his attempted clearance under minimal pressure dribbled six yards straight to a striker who blasted it back past him into the back of the net. Oh, dear. 3-2 and still ten to go.

The next sixteen minutes turned out to be the longest ten minutes ever played by an opposing ref, but the Turtles took it all in their stride with some poise. Kapiti struggled to get within about twenty metres of Snout's goal and most of the remainder of the game was played somewhere up in their half with not even a sniff of anything remotely resembling a siege. Eventually the ref's legs started to cramp up to the extent that even he could continue no longer and it was all over. The Turtles had secured a famous victory and in the process elevated themselves to the giddy heights of eighth place on the Masters 1 points table.

Snout felt a small internal glow of satisfaction as he drove home after the game. Captaining the team to a gripping victory against the odds in his 300th game had been quite a thrill. Although tempering his pleasure was the memory of having to go to the bar and Eftpos another $60 for the team shout. The Turtles may have not been able to drink like they used to, but by Christ, he'd never seen so many pies, sausages and chips disappear down so many throats into so many fat bellies so quickly...

Snout sat in front of his laptop. He clicked on the link and began reading. Five intense minutes later, he reached the end. That Dodger, eh. Absolutely amazing. It was like he'd actually read Snout's mind. Honestly, I could have written that myself, he thought. Snout sat looking at the screen, ideas forming in his mind. He picked up the phone. "Mandy, I've had an idea. Get onto the corporate sponsorship department for me and ask them to arrange a celebrity debate for next Saturday morning in the corporate theatre. Here's the topic and a suggested list of people we should invite..."

He leaned back in his chair and smiled grimly to himself. His headache was already starting to fade...