A Little Man, A Big Goal - the set up

What better way to fire up the team preseason that photographs of great games past. Thanks Jamie for the photos - great work, and there are some doozies to be released over the next little while, so keep checking in. Great chance for some take the piss caption competition me thinks.

But first, lets sit back and admire. Ben H gets a little bit of abuse on this blog, but how can you argue with the following photographs (split over several parts).

A Litle Man, a Big Goal - The Goal

A Little Man, A Big Goal - the celebration

Return (Once again) of the Ludlow Curse

I know that no Stallion likes to mention the Ludlow Curse so close to the start of the first game for fear of bringing an end to their own season. Last season, Robin reminded me of this fact mere minutes before the tragic moment which left Jamie sprawling on the ground after feeling the full power of my left foot volley from 45 meters into a howling gale. In a Football Final Destination kind of way, I now feel that I must now be safe, that the Ludlow curse transferred via the power of the aforementioned volley to a player of much lesser consequence. Thanks Jamie. Bring it, curse. But please, if it happens to me, can someone take me to the hospital. I'll be the one crying like a little girl.

Now, we know the curse will hit someone, and it would not be right to nominate who would make the funniest victim - but I think we need to embrace the curse. Let's invent some Ludlow curse scenarios. Best one gets the only prize I have to offer - immunity from the next time they have to wear the pink headband, and the ability to force it onto someone else.

I'll start us off:

Stallions first game in Div 6, playing Wellington United at Melrose Park. The animals locked inside the zoo were eerily quiet, as though they could smell an evil presence hovering over the fence. From kickoff, a beautiful through ball puts Hodges into the clear. He beats one, beats two, trips over his own feet, recovers, trips again, recovers, looks to see if Dad is watching, trips, comes inside Paddy, fakes it, recovers and finally looks up to the see the goal. The ball sits up perfectly ... he is about to unleash when a hairy ball of energy rips across the field from the baboon enclosure and takes off his left leg. Another baboon sitting in a tree calls him back, slowly stands up and pulls off a baboon mask to reveal himself as Robin who has not been in India at all, but living in the zoo training his minions to get revenge on Hodges after the infamous baboon gag of 2006. He yells out there is no Ludlow curse you idiots, we are the Ludlow curse (only Ben and maybe Graham will get the literary reference), rips the number 6 of Ben's back, slots into left mid and scores a hatrick. Ben tries to play on, but with only a right foot and a big forehead to play with he is rendered useless and spends the rest of the season on the couch, the latest victim of the Ludlow Curse.

That sounded better in my head. I just wanted to get rid of those damn cricket stats.

Fear and Loathing in Onslow

Controversy before we started as we turned up with Roshan from the Tamils, who it seems is universally loathed by Onslow. They threw the rule book at us, and it turns out that player who've played for one team in a grade can't play for another (although players playing a higher or lower grade can transfer no problems). I argued that we barely had a team even with Roshan, so they relented provided he didn't bat higher than 7.

 

The pitch looked good but the outfield was damp after rain on Friday. There were very long boundaries on their number 1 ground out at Nairnville. Luckily, we won the toss and hence could bowl first. This was extremely lucky, as Richard could only play for the first 2 hours; we only had 10 with him.

 

Early, we did a good job restricting them on a pitch that was pretty true, but not easy batting by any circumstances, Greg took 2 early wickets, a bowled and a smart catch to Butch at slip. Needing to go early, Richard bowled 9 straight into the wind, replacing me after I had bowled three. He claimed a good bowled. This brought together their two old timers, one of whom had been honoured the night before. They nudged and nurdled and ran slowly between the wickets, and at drinks (24 overs due to Richard's timings) they were 79/3.

 

It was clear they wanted to up the ante after the break, and I conceded 8 or 9 off the first over back. Losing Richard and only having 9, there were suddenly a lot of gaps in the field. However, I was lucky enough to pick up two quick wickets; one of the old timers bowled and Patterson, who'd already biffed a couple of boundaries, caught and bowled. From there it was a quick procession; Greg finished with 4/16, Matt Boa picked up three, they were bowled out for 120.

 

Dan, who you might remember became our 10th man v. the Spartans three weeks ago, opened along with myself. We took our time early on, before Dan got a good one and was given LBW. Butch came in at 3, and he and I managed to put on a good partnership; the score was about 90 when I departed for 29. Butch had been blazing away, taking about 30 from the previous 4 overs as they were beginning to despair. They eventually picked up Butch for an awesome 58, and annoyingly Josh too; if we'd won by 7 wickets we'd have claimed a bonus point. Greg coming in a 4 along with Matt's mate Dean saw us home with a nuance 10*.

Jill McIntosh, Farah Palmer, Ben Hodges?

Not surprisingly, you have to go to the bottom of the page.

Here are the highlights:
'Having represented Nelson in a highly combative national Under-10 age grade soccer tournament, Ben has since retired from high performance sport. Like the majority of kiwis, he now plays his chosen sport for the pure fun of physical activity and the social interaction which comes with organized sport.'

It don't always look that way on the pitch ...

Sorry Ben, love your work - was just trying to find an email to see if you are going to the wedding-thingy.