"Ow! What'd you do that for?" Dodge was suddenly awake. A solid elbow in the ribs from Trudy had just shattered his peaceful Saturday morning lie in.

"It's after ten o'clock. You've slept in. The soccer cancellations will be on in a minute."

"Oh, right, ta. Hang on a minute, I'm injured. I'm not playing today. I told you that last night. Damn, I could have still been asleep."

"Oh. I forgot. Sorry about that. Oh, well, now that you're awake, how about getting up and making me a nice cup of tea. Off you go. There's a good fellow."

Dodge stumbled into the bathroom, performed his various ablutions, got dressed, and wandered down the hall into the kitchen. He switched the jug on, then went outside to collect the morning newspaper. Back in the kitchen, he attended to Trudy's cuppa and delivered it to the bedroom, made himself a coffee and headed into the living room to read the paper. After dealing with the sports section, it was but a couple of minutes to whiz through the back page crossword, before working his way inside to the cryptic. And what a treat there was in store for him today. In addition to the usual sized grid, there was also a monster prize cryptic crossword. It was the big main heading as much as anything that had caught his eye – 'The Fabulous Turtles Cryptic Crossword' – and underneath in smaller letters, 'Sponsored By Microsoft'. "Brilliant! This should be a piece of piss! Right up my alley." He grabbed a pen and looked at the first clue. "Right, what have we got?"

Dodge finished writing in the last answer and put down his pen. Yet another crossword had bitten the dust. Now he just needed to post in his entry form and see if he won anything. Just as a matter of interest, what were the prizes? He'd been so keen to get started on the crossword that he hadn't even looked. He checked the newspaper. "First prize is a video from our sponsor entitled 'Highlights Of The 2003 Microsoft Annual Conference In Queenstown'." "What? How effing boring is that likely to be? What's second prize? Two copies?"

Another miserably cold day in Johnsonville and the Turtles (139d) huddled in the middle of the barren windswept moonscape that is Alex Moore Park (127a). Wal (15a) was absent in Queenstown partaking in yet another Microsoft corporate wank, and the lads were looking forward to his return next week with the goods on Pippi's (1d) nocturnal exploits during the conference. As a result, Snout (140d) had assumed the leadership role, and the lads gathered round for some much needed words of inspiration. As per usual, the rotund custodian abdicated all responsibility, leaving the likes of Zil (132a), Si (47d) and Stevie (172a) to exhort the troops to stick it out for 90 minutes instead of buggering off home to spend the afternoon thawing out in front of their heaters.

Fortunately the team had been bolstered by the inclusion of several replacements made of sterner stuff than less dedicated Turtles such as Spratty (2d), Steve L. (53d), Lance (52d) and P.K. This last named had in fact last been seen prancing through the offices of N.Z. Post wearing stockings and a pair of Mickey Mouse ears, for reasons that will hopefully become apparent during the course of the next fines session. Tel (1a) had manfully climbed off his death bed to bolster the defence, while an injured Dodge (46d) huddled on the sideline wondering what on earth had possessed him to turn up in such thoroughly unpleasant conditions. At least he managed to maintain a modicum of body heat by sheltering behind the imposing figure of team manager Grunt (168a), who was making a rare appearance this season, presumably due to the cancellation of all rugby games in New Zealand on the day.

Anyway, after losing the toss, the Turtles kicked off into the wind and spent the next five minutes watching North Wellington pass the ball amongst themselves in the middle of the park. Eventually we got hold of the ball and Stevie knocked a cross over to the right side of the box, where unmarked new striker Kevin controlled the ball superbly and smashed it past the keeper for a totally unexpected 1-0 lead. Sheer amazement reigned all round, with the Turtles not used to seeing any good goals scored for us (or any goals for that matter), and the oppo stunned to have conceded a goal so patently against the run of play. The Turtles immediately resolved to sign Kevin up for the remainder of the season, while vowing to fine G.T. a truckload for not bringing him to our attention earlier.

Although NW continued to dominate possession, the Turtles played with a lot of composure and made some good breaks down both flanks, with a powerful shot from P.J. rebounding to safety off the keeper's legs, and then an ambitious shot from Zil curling past the far post with the keeper struggling. Although our defence had to scramble on numerous occasions, we were able to break down all NW's attacks, and they were mainly restricted to long distance shots from outside the box, most of which flew high, wide and handsome.

Halftime arrived with the Turtles holding on to their one goal lead. Cue more impassioned pleading from the usual suspects. A lapse in concentration from NW enabled us to secure the kick off for both halves of the game, and the battle was on again. However the impassioned pleading obviously had the reverse effect of that intended, because NW immediately forced a couple of corners, the first resulting in a fine save from Snout, the second culminating in a hopeful shot from outside the area which Murray spectacularly sliced behind him and into the top corner of our goal to make it 1-1. A stunning display of incompetence. We'd barely kicked off again when NW were straight back onto attack. A through ball saw a striker get almost to the byline five yards wide of Snout's right hand post. With no angle to work, he was forced to shoot directly at Snout, who emphatically exposed his ineptitude in dealing with near post shots by diving out of the way. 1-2, and the tide had turned.

It was all NW now. Snout tipped another couple of shots over the bar, while a further corner saw the ball in the net, only to be disallowed as their big cloddish centre half was climbing up Zil's back. Soon after Zil limped off with a strained thigh, then Chris hoofed what turned out to be about our only shot of the second half about 15 yards over the bar. Tel then had to call it a day as well, and in his absence NW scored their third from a goal-line melee, a goal notable for left back Stevie attempting to clear the ball while flailing around on the ground like a dying ginger seal. It was soon 1-4 as the oppo's Matt Cantwell was given a free run at goal and knocked the ball over the advancing Snout.

Tit of the Day was still in the balance when a very hopeful long distance strike rolled gently along the ground to Snout under no pressure whatsoever. In an act of goalkeeping incompetence worthy to rank amongst the finest clangers perpetrated by former keeper Hambleton, he spilled the ball into the path of an advancing striker who couldn't believe his luck as he gratefully accepted the opportunity. There was just time for Si to give a huge (and deserved) serve to referee Roxy for missing a blatant handball right in front of his eyes before the final whistle blew on a 1-5 loss. A disappointing second half result, but the Turtles could be proud of holding out the grade's top team for 45 minutes with a meritorious effort. Definitely a game of two halves, with ball control being much easier playing into the wind, but the game was played in good spirit and there was some good humoured banter with the oppo back in their clubrooms over a few pints.

Dodge popped the video tape into the machine and pushed the Play button. Winning the cryptic crossword competition hadn't been totally unexpected, but it had been a bit of a surprise to receive his prize through the post carefully wrapped up in plain brown paper packaging. Yes, that was a bit odd, now that he thought about it. Oh, well, never mind. He sat back in his chair and started watching.

"Ah, there's Wal. Nice one. Hang on, he's wearing a dress! And who's that woman? Actually, I suppose there's a good chance it could be Pippi. And who's that other woman? Wearing no clothes. And what are they doing? To each other? Oh, my God. And what's Wal doing now? Oh, my God. Hold on, rewind..."

Across: 1 Posing pouch, 7 Churton, 15 Wal, 16 Hooter, 23 Bobby ... 127 Alex Moore, 132 Weasel ... 168 Grunter, 172 Rat-a-deux.
Down: 1 Pippi, 2 Spratty ... 46 Bastard, 47 Big Si, 52 Lance, 53 Pieman ... 139 Turtles, 140 Snout, 141 Ben Burn...