Apologies

Almost fourteen months since my last post, such reckless disregard for my solitary blog follower. Three seasons of football have passed since last I sat at this keyboard trying to emulate the prose of my verbose sibling.
Not surprisingly those 30 something games of soccer have seen many more defeats than victories a subject you and I have quickly become bored with, which is the main reason for my absence. Not to suggest that I haven't had anything else to write about, but my juices flow more on the back of success. Like many sporting writers I might just have to resort to other peoples...
October saw 17 of us old boys travel to Armidale for an end of season carnival. As you can imagine the major attraction was four days away from everything, drinking and playing up with my mates. The fact that we had to play 6 games of soccer was a minor inconvenience. Friday morning saw us depart MFC in a mini bus piloted by the Kiwi. The sorrowful cries of our loved ones were drowned out by the hiss of beer cans, and the arrival unannounced of 17 hungry, noisy drunks at KFC in Stanthorpe has now, no doubt, seen several major ammendments to the Colonel's operations manual. Likewise I'm sure the solitary Constable on RBT duty in Deepwater has regaled his comrades many times with the tale of the bus full of singing old blokes, in particular the one with his jeans around his ankles akimbo an esky in the aisle. Whilst we are on the subject of singing and public nudity, I should apologise to the lady in the Service Station who got flashed and everyone who had the misfortune of dining in the Mandarin Chinese Restaurant that night.
All of this brings us to 6 games of soccer over two days. The first five games passed without major incident. We acquitted ourselves well without actually winning a game. Over the course of the weekend we tried various methods to warm ourselves up and by the time the final game rolled around we had settled on a regime of drinking in our team bus, pharmacology samples from our Keepers bag and a noisy rendition of Fat Bottomed Girls immediately prior to kickoff. By this stage we had broken or bent a few of our boys and so it was that I was flying up the left wing getting a deft touch on an excellent cross from mid-field. A late and clumsy (I'll shy away from deliberate) tackle from behind saw me on my face outside the field of play but luckily directly adjacent the St Johns tent. By the time my team mates wandered over I had my shirt off, an "Alien" style protuberance sprouting from my shoulder and a jaunty green kazoo in my mouth.

After an ambulance ride and a photo session at Armidale General I traveled home a night early with the Sunshine Coast Churches Team (Kumbaya free thankfully). I like to pretend that our victory in that final game was not directly linked to my absence.
This was the beginning of 14 weeks off work (ever met a one armed sparky?) that would be spent enfolded in the bosom of my family.
A word from the wise...if you are self employed, get income insurance and if you are going to have 14 weeks forced long service leave...don't do over the Christmas school holidays.