On the 12th day of christmas......

Hoooooo baby.

Look this is gonna be a rather shambolic effort. We scored lots. I can’t remember them in order so this will be a series of short goal descriptions. 12 in all. That’s right, 12.

Foreword

We played the Petone Martians at Petone Memorial ground, which was actually quite good, with excellent nets, and a firm track. They had a flash-as ref for the first half who told a few people *cough(Donnie)* to stop swearing. We had no subs with no less than seven regular public servants away for numerous reasons.

Gimli scored first, it was about 15 minutes into the game. Glyn brought the ball in deep from right back. He passed across the top of goal and found Ben in good position but under considerable pressure. Gimli was screaming for it coming over the half way line. Ben laid it off and Gimli gave it a good solid hammering. It was arguably going in, he middled it so it was likely headed over. But football is a funny game and anything can happen. In this case, it did. Some Martian stuck his hand up and the ball ricocheted into the back of the net. Top stuff, lots of Messi/Maradona gags abounded. 1-0.

A nice lob in from somebody (probably Donnie) found Ben’s head and the back of the net. Nice work. 2-0.

Monty got the ball somewhere, dribbled for quite a while then struck home a strong first up offering.3-0.

Phil was not a favourite of the Martian’s keeper, who spent fully three quarters of the first half fetching Phil’s wild shots from the car park, 50 yards behind the goal. Phil finally got one, when, in a rare moment of indecision (normally its a simple decision, just hammer it), Phil decided to aim at the keeper. It was a pretty strong shot but the keeper chose, not to catch it but to parry it into his goal. Phil later said he felt a bit guilty about claiming that one. 4-0.

Ben got the ball at about half way and pretty much dribbled the ball up and into the goal. A solid piece of individual brilliance. 5-0.

Middleword

Despite a five-nil lead Dom still came off the field angry as a Scotsman who’s dropped a penny down a drain. All fire and brimstone, he went a little off the rails demanding a clean sheet.

It may have been the angry tirade at half time but BNUPS were caught wrong footed and the Martians came out and grabbed an early goal back. It was reasonably well worked and was a good shot, going in across the face of goal and bouncing in off the post, but never-the-less still a little depressing. However, the BNU Public Service rebounded splendidly. 5-1.

Phil kicked off the scoring with another half way dribble-a-thon all the way into the goal. 6-1.

Monty knocked in his second. 7-1.

We got a second own-goal when a lob from Phil was viciously headed by a Martians defender back past his own keeper. 8-1.

Phil got his hattrick. 9-1.

A position shift occurred in the lead-in to the 10^th goal. Mortgage galloped eagerly forward to partner Monty upfront as Phil dropped to left back. Monty finished off his third for a fine hattrick after a clean pass inside by Mortgage. This also spelt a hattrick of hattricks for Monty who must have golden boot leader Ben looking over his shoulder.

Another position shift as Dom offered the gloves to Phil and came bounding out into the field, elbowing Monty back into the defence. The added pace and impetus upfront with only twelve minutes to go shook the lead-footed Martian defence to its core. Another strong run by Dan down the left spotted Mortgage, who passed it in, skilfully avoiding Dom, and found Donnie. Donnie controlled and cleverly fired a shot around Dom equally cleverly found himself standing right in front of the goal and the keeper. The alien keeper had no chance. 11-1.

Dan carried it in, and fired a shot that was deflected by the keeper across the face of goal into the path of the goal hungry Dom. 12-1.

In amongst all this was a succession of loud expletives from Donnie who grew ever more frustrated with each miss until he finally got one. Dom, engorged with a fierce bloodlust after his first goal, had a wee tanty when Dan went for a shot instead of passing to him.

Also with about 10 minutes to go, Gimli went off with a suspected dislocated toe. And when Glyn went off to see how he was doing, the BNU Public Service was effectively down to nine men. Phil had a wee blinder in goal though and we never looked in any real trouble. I mean 12-1 up with five minutes to go, we’d probably have to be down to three men before I’d consider dropping the strikers back to help out the keeper. However it was still kinda funny to hear poor Glyn’s appeal to his team mates as the enormity of the 4-on-1 suddenly dawned on him. Top stuff Glyn for keeping your head with no support around you.

Servant of the day: Donnie nominated himself and I could agree with him. For despite not bringing his shooting boots (apart from his goal), he ran around a lot, must have dropped in at least four assists (his estimate), tackled everybody, and contributed to an exceptional win. Special mention to Dan, played good, running all day, hattrick heroes Phil and Monty, and Dom for inventing the new Skeeper role (sweeper/keeper).

The team: June 16^th vs Petone Martians

Glyn	Dom/Gimli		Mortgage
Arnu
Nick	Donnie	Ben	Dan
	Monty	Phil
Subs
Ref
Absentees	Jarrod	Sam	Phil
Jules	BC	Johnny	AJ
Goals	1st	2nd
	O.G. (Gimli) 15’	Phil 55’
	Ben 20’	Monty 58’
	Monty 30’	O.G. (Phil) 60’
	Phil 35’	Phil 65’
	Ben 42’	Monty 78’
		Donnie 82’
		Dom 85’

I love steamrollers

Woo hoo. An excellent win on the weekend. A comprehensive thrashing of a team that probably should have done better but was beaten down by a Public Service that is starting to come into its own once again. An offence that has now realised 20 goals in its last three games and a defence that has given up only five goals in the ten matches played this season, suggest that this team is only getting better.

While leading at half time only two goals to nil, one of which was scored right on the whistle, the BNU Public Service had shown considerable dominance over the Porirua City (PC) first team. PC had had a couple of long distance shots at the BNUPS goal, but nothing ever truly threatening the goal. Up front, strikers Jules and Monty were causing all sorts of problems for the PC defence. There were no open goal missus this week, as an increasingly desperate defence, scrambled like crazy and was able to keep Monty and Jules scoreless for most of the half. Jules eventually got a pin point perfect through ball which he chased down and calmly slid past the advancing keeper. Monty hustled late in the half, beat his man and imitated Jules by sliding it past the advancing keeper.

The BNUPS had reffed for the first quarter but when it became apparent that PC had two subs warming up, they asked that the responsibility be taken back. Following this was a series of rather spiteful incidents as Donnie was targeted repeatedly with spiteful shoulders, elbows and hacks to the ankles. Nothing was called, but then again, Nick didn’t make one legal throw all afternoon and he was never called on it.

Half time had the BNUPS finally turning their backs to the sun with a certain sense of inevitability. Two minutes in, Nick was sent down the right wing by BC. He controlled the ball, looked inside and found Donnie about 5 yards outside the 18 yard box. Donnie floated in a perfect pass that Jules, standing on the penalty spot, chested down and volleyed in for a brilliant finish. And then the floodgates opened.

PC did have a half way decent centre back who was reasonably quick and had diffused a number of promising Public Service attacks in the first half. But with the score rising he was forced to push further and further forward, exposing a shockingly soft PC belly. Jules, Monty, Ben, Dan and Phil exploited his absence at every opportunity.

The goal of the game started in bizarre circumstances. Dan had been chopped down brutally, about 15 yards inside the PC half. The freekick was given and BC went to place the ball where the tackle had taken place. The referee decided that the tackle had actually happened pretty much on halfway and sent BC back. Ben, on the side line, cried foul, as did BC. The ref, decided he’d had enough and stormed off shouting “now you don’t have a ref. You’re phuked.” In a wonderfully deflating move, Ben piped up “I’ll ref mate” and liberated the whistle and jacket from his grasp. Ben indicated to BC to bring the ball up to the freekick spot, but BC declined. Instead, in a play reminiscent of Babe Ruth calling the Home Run to right field, BC called Monty’s name and launched ball into the goal mouth. Monty, standing perpendicular to the right hand upright, just outside the 6 yard box watched as the ball floated in. When it became apparent that the ball was not going to arrive at head height, Monty accelerated across the face of goal towards the penalty spot. The ball and Monty arrived at the same moment and with a simply tap, he bent the ball around the keeper and inside the left hand upright, all the while the defence and keeper stood shell-shocked. All class.

Ben and Phil scored solid goals from excellent build up play, Jules reffed, swapped for about three minutes with Monty, just enough time to complete his hattrick before he went back to reffing, allowing Monty to complete his.

In fact Monty could have had four, but for a rare moment of footballing charity. Dan had received the ball from MattNich wide out left. He dribbled in towards the goal, beating one, two and three defenders. Finding himself one on one with the keeper, Dan appeared unsure of quite what to do. And indeed the question remains if he did anything at all. It wasn’t a shot, it was a pass. It just kinda kept rolling towards the goal and then went in. Though Monty was right behind it shepherding it, resisting the desire to give that final tap and add one more to his tally.

Sadly, we weren’t able to keep our own net untouched. A strong low cross found a striker who had managed to leave his marker. A good shot, low and perfectly into the bottom right hand corner was fairly unstoppable. However the shouts of joy and cries of “that was the best defence in the competition, guys!!” kind of made it okay, I guess. At least there is respect there. Only five teams have managed to score against us, and of those five, one was an on goal, one was a mean deflection, two were silly mistakes, and Saturday’s was actually a very good shot. Good work lads.

Servant of the Day: Dan – ran all day, set up a couple, “scored” one. Honourable mention: Jules and Monty, Hattrick heroes.

Dick of the day: Another difficult one. Can’t think of any really, least not on our team. We did have a bit of a “handbag moment”. From a kick off, the ball came at BC at such an angle so as to have the full force of the sun shining directly into his eyes for the almost complete duration of its flight. Consequently he turned away when he realised he had no idea where the ball was and that the red blur in his vision was not a PC jersey but in fact his burning retna. The ball hit the back of his legs and no harm was done, but it was still a bit of a minties moment.

The team: June 9^nd vs Porirua City

Dom
Johnny	Mortgage		Dan
Ben
Nick	Donnie	BC	Phil
	Monty	Jules
Subs	MattNich
Ref
Absentees	Jarrod	Sam	Gimli
	Arnu	AJ
Goals	1st	2nd
	Jules 30’	Jules 48’
	Monty 45’	Monty 54’
		Ben 60’
		Phil 70’
		Jules 78’
		Monty 80’
		Dan 85’

Golden boot: As at June 11

Player	Goals
Ben	12
Phil	8
Monty	7
Jules	6
Jarrod	5
Donnie	3
BC	3
Jones	2
Dan	2
Arnu	1
Gimli	1
Sam	1
Fynny	1
TOTAL	52

CAPITAL 13:

Island Bay Piglets                    6    Petone Martians                2

SV Destroyers                         2    Uni Bombers                     4

Wainuiomata                          2    Karori Swifts                      1

Brooklyn Pints                        2    Uni Lateral                         1

SV Sunshine                          3    Porirua City Mana              2

Western Suburbs                     5    Upper Hutt Slayers             2

Porirua City                             1    Brooklyn Northern              9

                                              P  W  D  L  GF  GA  Pts

Brooklyn Northern                    10  8  2  0  52   5  26

Wainuiomata                           10  7  2  1  25  17  23

SV Sunshine                           10  7  1  2  37  21  22

Brooklyn Pints                         10  7  0  3  28  19  21

Island Bay Piglets                    10  6  0  4  38  36  18

Porirua City                             10  5  0  5  22  25  15

Uni Bombers                           10  4  2  4  17  22  14

Uni Lateral                              10  4  1  5  23  24  13

Karori Swifts                            10  3  3  4  27  24  12

Western Suburbs                     10  4  0  6  21  32  12

Petone Martians                      10  3  2  5  25  34  11

SV Destroyers                         10  2  1  7  23  36   7

Upper Hutt Slayers                  10  1  1  8  27  44   4

Porirua City Mana                      0  1  1  8  20  46   4

Righto.

Game I.

Good play on the weekend. Once again it’s late in the week and I’ve forgotten who did what during the match. This has been made worse by the fact that there were two matches played over the long weekend.

Our first, against 9^th placed Western Suburbs at Happy Valley, was a pretty clinical performance. We scored six goals, two each to Ben and Hadyn “Jonesy” Jones (As my ringer, I get credited with his goals - Whammy), and one apiece to Dan (finally scored in the right net) and Monty (welcome back son). We started with Jules and Monty up front, going for all out pace to try to upset them early. We needn’t have worried too much as most of them had been drinking before, then during and of course after the match.

Ben scored first, latching on to a through ball down into the left side corner, controlling then bringing it back toward the goal, squeezing it past the advancing keeper at the near post. Jules and Monty waited unmarked in front of goal. Monty then scored after a nice build up down the right wing, the ball passed across the face of goal and Monty struck from with deadly accuracy, Jules waiting just beyond him unmarked in front of goal. Jones got his head behind a delightful corner (I think by Donnie), making the score 3-0.

The second half and the BNUPS play pretty much descended into one of those line-up to shoot type days we got accustomed to in the first few games of the season. Jones got his second, then Dan scored an absolute ripper, chesting down a corner (from Donnie? – its usually Donnie), before slamming home for his first goal scored for us this season. They got one back after some BNUPS hesitancy at the top of the box, allowed the only shot against us of the weekend. Gibbs was going the right way, right up until Gimli, who otherwise had an outstanding game, stuck his foot out. A cruel deflection rolled just inside the far post, mere inches out of the reach of a hopelessly diving Gibbs.

We scored one more, through Ben, courtesy of the biggest shocker you will ever see a goalkeeper have. A clearance by Gibbs was headed forward by Donnie, and chased down by Ben. The keeper came out to meet it and give it an almighty thump, but sadly he miscued and ended up kicking nothing but fresh air. The crowd and indeed everyone had a good laugh, and Ben, who hadn’t stopped chasing, ran past the stricken keeper to nudge home the goal.

We had about a million shots at goal, Ben admits he fell into the classic striker’s mentality and stopped looking up, missed several passes to open team mates in pursuit of his hat trick goal. Overall though it was a good effort and shows that after a bit of a midseason speed bump we are back on the goal scoring band wagon.

Servant of the Match: Jules. Ran his nuts off the whole game in both defence and attack. Set up a few goals, would have scored about 10 more but for the final pass.

Dick of the Day: Hard to pick one, though it would be easy if the other team were eligible cos the keeper would win hands down. Sadly and reluctantly we might have it to give it to Gimli for his deflection. But, nah, that’s a bit harsh. I think someone missed an absolute sitter, I forget who. However you are, you are the Dick of the Day.

Special mention goes to Phil. A superb effort, reffing the whole game. Good work son, an extra ration of rum to that man.

The team: June 2^nd vs Western Suburbs

Dom
Arnu	Mortgage		MattNich
Jules
Nick	Donnie	Ben	Dan
	Monty	AJ
Subs	Gimli	Jones
Ref	Phil
Absentees	Jarrod	Sam	Phil (Injured)
	BC	Johnny
Goals	1st	2nd
	Ben 15’	Jones 60’
	Monty 30’	Dan 65’
	Jones 40’	Ben 80’

Game II.

Monday had us at Nairnville Park in Kandallah vs the other Uni team, Uni Lateral. These guys were fourth on the table coming into the game following some solid results. But we were confident. A good crowd of supporters came along, thanks supporters. We had had a win a day earlier, and we totally have the best uniforms. They were a bunch of emo’s fresh from a lecture on computer science or media studies.

HUGE KUDOS goes to Gimzaghi (see photo). Long may it continue. Dude, I reckon you played better too. Shoelaces may become compulsory. (Damn our uniform is cool). I apologise for the picture if its crap, my computer is crap and stroppy.

We smashed in four in the first half in easily our best 45 minutes of football this year. The backs played intelligently, the midfield completely owned the midfield, and the forwards were everywhere and put away the goals. It could have been greater too, as Monty failed to put away two decent chances inside the first two minutes. He didn’t miss a third time and at half time Monty had scored two, matched by two from Golden Boot leader Ben. One of these included the “best team goal of the season”. I quote Donnie here who remembered it a bit better than me. “This one was like a sweet five or six pass move up the left, all one touch stuff”, Donnie says. “The early part is a bit fuzzy, some sort of interchange between Jules and Dan on half way after a ball forward by someone. Then Jules hit a ball forward to me in the middle, and both of them ran forward ahead of me, Dan down the line and Jules into the box. I hit a one touch through ball ahead of Dan, past their fullback into the left corner. Dan ran onto it and crossed it low first time from the outline to Jules who let the ball go through to Monty (or Ben?) who hit it first time low into the left hand corner. Schmoooooove like silk,” he mused.

Half time and we again took the foot off the throat. To their credit they played pretty hard in the second half but we appeared to be flaccid in front of goal. They had a few fairly handy players including a big ging, who Jules admits gave him some good competition and a big blonde golliwog who shouted a lot and didn’t pass the ball. But once again we owned the middle of the park. The most telling statistic, if we recorded stats, would be the time in possession. We held the ball exceptionally well. Playing the ball out from goal was extremely effective as both wingbacks took short goal kicks regularly up to half way for attacks on goal. It was surprising that despite the considerable number of short kicks, probably at least three quarters of all goal kicks, it still seemed to come as a surprise to the opposition when we took a short goal kick. Only once was Dan put under any pressure when Gibbs kicked the ball to him at left back. This is the sort of play we want to see every week.

Servant of the Match: Dan and MattNich on the left side (with help from Jones)

Dick of the Day: Again a hard one to pick as it was a very good day for everyone. It would be harsh and Monty will probably have a hissy but perhaps the attack for not scoring more? Their defence really was pretty ordinary, though their goalkeeper was quite good and kept the lads out with some impressive saves, particularly a very nice strike by Donnie into the top right corner which produced the save of the game, at least from my view, and I’m a hundred metres away. Maybe Gibbs deserves it for a clearance he said he had covered which he then kicked straight into the head of one of their team, where it went back across the face of goal and indeed almost into his own net. Or maybe it just doesn’t get awarded this week.

Well played lads.

The team: June 4^th vs Uni Lateral

Dom
Johnny	Mortgage		MattNich
Gimli
Nick	Donnie	Ben	Dan
	Monty	Jules
Subs	Arnu	Jones
Ref
Absentees	AJ	Sam	Jarrod
	BC	Johnny	Phil
Goals	1st	2nd
	Monty 10’	Monty 60’
	Ben 15’
	Monty 25’
	Ben 45’

The points table