As usual due to my memory being shocking some of what follows may be a little questionable.
We saved our best till nearly last and for the game that didn’t even count. Here’s a very brief look at some of the astonishing numbers to tumble out of the most comprehensive BNU Public Service performance of season 2007:
75 metre punt (wind assisted)
20 corners (at least)
15 goals
6 goals to one individual
2 penalties saved
1 penalty missed
It was surely a game that will go down in the Public Service annuls as a truly memorable occasion.
Thirteen servants fronted up in the wind and rain at Porirua’s
It was the same Porirua team that had been dismantled 9-1 in an earlier fixture including the chick who skinned MattNich in that match, a fact Aussie Dan was at pains to remind everyone of at MattNich’s expense. Well, pride comes before a fall and Aussie Dan was made to pay for his jocularity in embarrassing circumstances. After receiving a pass on his favoured left boot from centre back Emu, Aussie Dan came under immediate pressure from the female footballer. Ignoring options available to him behind and to the right, he attempted to nutmeg the chick and break into the open field behind her. But she was a little too quick for him, not only stripping the ball from between his feet but also delivering a metaphorical knee to the balls between his legs. To rub salt into the wound, as Aussie Dan ran back to retrieve the ball, she turned him easily and passed the ball off to a team mate. We all had a laugh. Sadly for Porirua this was one of the few highlights they could take from the match as the Public Service delivered an impenetrable display of attacking policy not seen since Muldoon.
Due to the numerous goals and often highly involved build up work, your humble scribe will only mention a few of the most memorable moments. A brief summary of goals scored reveals Ben Dover slamming in six (yes 6) goals, to take his season tally to 25, two goals apiece to MattNich, Jarrod Calvin Clyne, and the Rev P.J Houlding, one each to Young Jules and Emu, and one own goal. There was considerable frustration for Angry Dom who (in a rare outfield foray) missed no less than three open goals and BC who hit so much wood work he spent half the evening pulling splinters out our magical Teamgeist ball.
This was a match of several awards. The BNU were awarded their first penalty of the season. The Rev. P.J. Houlding was nominated to take the sacred shot after despatching a ferocious faux-penalty in the pre-game warm-up. The goalkeeper, a nervous looking but rotund fellow of roughly 100kgs, looked worried but prepared to topple to his left. In the end his worry proved unnecessary as the Rev P.J. Houlding uncharacteristically blasted the ball wide to the right. Protesting a moving ball right at the point of contact, the Rev. P.J. Houlding was immediately substituted.
This wasn’t to be the end of our penalty fun, as Porirua were awarded two highly dubious penalties by referee ringer Ginger Glyn. The first, a supposed handball by sweeper Sam I am, had howls of protest from everyone but, strangely, Sam I am. The penalty was awarded and the dangerous Porirua striker stepped up to take the shot. Gimli, in goal for Angry Dom due to an injury preventing him from running in the outfield was to produce one of the finest goalkeeping displays of the season. Despite initially moving the wrong way, Gimli showed remarkable agility to spring back to his left to deflect an absolute bullet.
The second penalty awarded came no less than five minutes later. Now, prior to the game Angry Dom had been giving Ginger Glyn some last minute refereeing tutelage (something he swears he’ll never do again). He happened to mention that keepers, while generally considered to have the right of way in all goal box circumstances, probably aren’t really allowed to push attackers out of the way to get to the ball. So when a Porirua corner was floated in, Gimli shouldered aside an attacker to catch the ball and was promptly whistled for a foul. An incredulous Gimli stood alone in his box, facing his second penalty attempt in five minutes. His second save was no less impressive though a little more fortuitous than his first. The Porirua penalty taker, different from the first, looked angry and focused and ready to blow in poor little Gimli’s house. “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!” declared Gimli as, while again he picked the wrong way, he was able to change direction in time and indeed save the goal using his chin, taking the force of the blast squarely in the chips. Amid howls of delight and laughter from his team mates, Gimli dragged himself to his feet and danced a wee jig.
At the other end, things just kept getting hotter and hotter. We went into the game needing just four goals to crack the magic hundred for the season. Ben Dover got us off to the best possible start. While he somehow contrived to miss his first four shots, he comfortably buried his next three including an exquisite 25 yard drive that had the crowd (all two them) gasping. Into a violent head wind, that was the extent of the BNU scoring in the first half. But little could have prepared both teams for the onslaught that was to come in the second stanza.
The first goal of the second half was always going to be special. It would be the team’s forth goal of the day but their hundredth of the season. However the major milestone in the season came as somewhat of an anticlimax. With the bottle of Spumante chilling in the mud on the sideline, waiting for that lucky scorer who would scull it in one, the whole BNU team, Gimli included, pushed deep into the Porirua half. There were four shots that led up to the 100th goal, two by BC thudded against the bar, one by AJ crashed into the butt of MattNich, and the last and ultimately successful shot was sadly taken by one of the Porirua team’s own players. There was a moment of confusion as no one from the BNU was quite sure who to congratulate. There was probably also a slight moment of (secretly undisclosed) relief by each member as they knew they were safe from the Spumante scull.
And from there the floodgates opened. Helped by a ludicrously strong wind which enabled Gimli to at one point punt the ball out for a goal kick at the other end on only one bounce, the game was played almost entirely in the Porirua half. And, more to the point, inside the Porirua goalmouth.
Thanks to a constant barrage of shots put up by BC being continually tipped and deflected over and round the goal posts, the BNU enjoyed at least twenty corner kicks. MattNich on the right and the Rev. P.J. Houlding had the ball almost on a string from the spot kicks and indeed MattNich, with the aid of the wind was able to score one of those jacksey corner kicks that goes in untouched by defender, keeper or attacker. From the numerous other goal box melee’s created by the corner kicks, Jarrod Calvin Clyne, the Rev. P.J. Houlding, Emu, and Ben Dover, were all able to put away scores.
Further goals came when Young Jules scored an excellent glancing header off a cross from the Rev. P.J. Houlding, Jarrod Calvin Clyne, smashed home a 10 yard half volley off a lovely cross by MattNich, Ben Dover headed home his fifth off a rebound from yet another BC shot that rattled the crossbar. MattNich and Dan combined for the team’s 13th goal after double teaming the loud, aggressive but competitive and competent Porirua central defender and resident pommie bastard. Leaving him lying in the mud, Dan dashed left then flicked it back into the centre for MattNich, miles out of his left back position, to crash home. Despite the goal flood there was still plenty of donkey-crosses that could have catapaulted the score deep into the stratosphere had they been converted.
The Rev. P.J. Houlding stroked home a very tidy freekick from 25 yards, curling his shot into the top left hand corner of the post. The game sadly did not finish without a disturbing physical incident. During one of the highly contested goal scrambles from a corner, a Porirua player went in rather high with what must have been razor blades where his studs should be. All BNU players escaped injury but one of the Porirua defenders was left clutching a pretty awful looking wound on his left thigh. He spilt a bit of blood on his way to the sideline, so the BNU hope he’s okay.
The injury put a bit of a dampener on the last five or so minutes of the match and the BNU Public Service could only manage one final score, a breakaway finish by none other than Ben Dover, put through by a classy Mortgage, who tapped home the 15th and final goal of the game. It’s pretty safe to say now that Ben Dover (25) will be awarded the BNU Public Service Golden Boot, it being unlikely that his closest rivals, The Rev. P.J. Houlding (15), Jarrod Calvin Clyne (14), and Monty (12) will post the dozen or so individual goals needed to overhaul Ben Dover’s mammoth goal total in the last game.
In one final award, a new one, the Official BNU Public Service Blowfly Award will this week be given to one Matthew “Donnie” Tait, who displayed a remarkable ability to swallow a mountain of bullshit on Saturday night and indeed get to the end of nearly 1600 words believing we’d scored 15 goals and that Ben Dover had scored six. Thanks Donnie, we all think you’re a jolly good sport, and can I just say now that it wasn’t my idea. And the Rev. P.J. Houlding wanted me to add that there is no way he would have missed a penalty had we been awarded one.
What really happened on Saturday 11 August: BNU Public Service vs Porirua
Well I’ve run out of time and imagination to write another report but here’s a brief summary for Donnie and our international readership.
For the second time in four weeks they opened the scoring. And it was as big a steaming pile of bullshit as ever fell out of a bull’s arse. The jacksey bastard miss-kicked a cross and the wind carried it high over Gimli’s head and in. We equalised through Jarrod Calvin Clyne who buried a very nice cross by MattNich. Then they fired a shot which produced the save of the season by Gimli, a full length horizontal dive about four feet in the air. But then they scored again from yet another miss-kicked shot that was carried in by the bloody strong wind that we found ourselves running into in the first half.
At half time we were down 2-1 but thankfully most of the lad’s heads were up. It took us a good 20 minutes to get the equalizer though. After some very good build up work, Young Jules, who’d moved up into the front line, nodded home a nice cross by the Rev. P.J. Houlding. Then the Rev. P.J. Houlding scored to put us in front. Finally Ben Dover put the result beyond doubt with the 4th, his 20th and the team’s 100th goal. Sadly we didn’t get ourselves organised for the Spumante scull so that will happen this week. We won 4-2, showing some good fight-back. Along the way, Aussie Dan got skinned by the chick, Ben Dover missed a couple he should have buried, there were a few spiteful challenges, AJ did a couple of shocking foul throws that weren’t called (cheers Ginger Glyn), and BC did indeed rattle the woodwork on numerous occasions.
So this game vs the Island Bay Piglets is the last game of the season (at least I think it is).
The table below shows the current championship situation:
| | Played | Won | Draw | Loss | GF | GA | Pts |
| Public Service | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 7 |
| | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 4 |
| Wainuiomata | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 8 | 4 |
| | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 4 |
| SV Sunshine | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 3 |
So we sit three points clear with all three chasing teams below us needing us to lose and to lose by at least 6 goals. Course we want to win this competition and win it well so there ain’t no slackin’ this week. We are likely missing Young Jules (fractured metatarsal), Monty (erotic adventures of
We play against the Island Bay Piglets at
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