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Home | Return to Division Fixtures
| Nom | Home Player | Nom | Away Player | Result | Games |
| 1 | M Breen | 5 | A Martin | 0 | 3 | 4/9, 2/9, 2/9 | | 3 | B Cowan | 6 | M Harrison | 1 | 3 | 1/9, 9/3, 7/9, 2/9 | | 4 | J Breen | 8 | P James | 1 | 3 | 8/10, 9/3, 3/9, 2/9 | | 5 | A McLean | 12 | G Seed | 3 | 0 | 9/1,9/4, 9/4 | | 6 | M Golding | 13 | D Lark | 1 | 3 | 9/4, 6/9, 6/9, 0/9 | | | | | | | | | | | Games: | 6 | 12 | |
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| | | Bonus: | 0 | 5 | |
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| | | Result: | 6 | 17 | |
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| Report: | Having braved the streets of Dartford and found a parking space in the labyrinthine Acacia Hall, team Amida (also known as Team Hoff) stepped onto the car park tarmac, only to get lost again. Fortunately, two Romanian gypsies, apparently auditioning for the upcoming psychic fair showed Hoff the way and predicted a 4-1 victory.
The first game of the season is often a let down. The promise of victory, the enthusiasm of starting again, followed by a rusty performance, off-kilter movement and somehow things just not feeling right. Not for Alex ‘the Kunto’ Martin though.
He was up against M Breen, a lean and sprightly competitor, and clearly keen to put in a performance. Breen had started energetically enough, but Kunto, warmed by the excellent sun lamps above the courts, began clinically, with wave after wave of winners. Breen found it difficult to respond, and despite his best efforts at jump-starting his game, primarily by cussing himself, the points ticked by metronomically and he quickly found himself 1-0 down. The second was no different. Kunto has been accused by team mates of being grossly overweight, Bernard Manning-style, with a butt like a conservatory, but there was no sign of this (mainly because of his over large T-shirt) as he strided about the court with confidence. On two occasions he actually broke into a run, fortunately he was wearing trainers instead of his habitual hiking boots and crampons. The third game continued in the same vein, with Breen managing only 2 points. Kunto came off court and I think I saw a bead of sweat.
Meanwhile Mike ‘the Diplomat’ Harrison was playing against B Cowan, who was sporting his super sci-fi futuristic specs, clearly worn to put the Diplomat off his game : ) – and it nearly worked.
Although the Diplomat started well, taking the first game 9-1 by inducing narcolepsy in his opponent with his boring length game, his form quickly dipped in second as Cowan, clearly aided by his magnifying glasses : ), ran down the Diplomat’s shots and showed real character to even the score with a 9-3 victory. Cowan’s confidence was buoyed and it looked as though the Diplomat was starting to struggle. His shots became sloppy and he couldn’t decide whether he looked better with his track suit top on or off. The third game was a good old scrap (not a real fight, as the Diplomat would have lost that) and there were some entertaining rallies, with both men retrieving and attacking well. The Diplomat edged it 9-7 with some lucky boasting and a couple of winning forehand drive kills. With that, the Diplomat composed himself and ran out the winner with a 9-3 fourth game, in which he managed to control the T more effectively and make Cowan run that little bit more. The Diplomat came off court looking a bit pasty and had to warm himself under the sun lamps.
The number fives had an interesting tie. Dan ‘kung fu took her to a sauna on Wednesday’ Lark was up against Acacia Hall’s M Golding. Kung Fu, this time not sporting his bandana and without his lucky nun-chuckers, started positively enough only to collapse like England’s cricket team in pole position, and lost the first 9-4. A succession of mistakes had cost Kung Fu dearly in that game but some deep meditation and standing on one leg in the praying mantis position during the interval appeared to revive and refocus Kung Fu in the second. He started to dominate the T a little more and cut down on the errors allowing him to take a tight game 9-7. His confidence started to rise and with that Kung Fu began to hit the ball harder and harder, until his arm almost fell off. During one exchange Kung Fu hit a backhand boast timed at 79 mph. The ball instantly came back to him so he hit it harder, our speed gun timed it at 96 mph. For a third time the ball fell into the backhand corner so he hit it even harder – timed at a whopping 134mph; a new Amida record. We will be writing in to Norris McSquirter to inform him of this. Kung Fu took the third 9-6 and with that he had effectively sealed victory, closing out the fourth 9-0. But this was not before he had demonstrated to spectators his unique way of claiming a stroke – mid rally, Kung Fu turns around to look at the referee ‘Can I have a stroke’, no response from the ref, Kung Fu turns back to the play and continues the point. Class. Kung Fu was happy with his result stating to reporters “I went into the game with a throat like the sole of Ghandi’s slipper after having been boozing in Italy all weekend. The lads have got to be pleased with a 110% performance, hopefully like (said in a scouse accent) we’ll do well in Europe”. Nobody had a clue what he was talking about.
Acacia’s A McLean was up against Grant WebHead Seedy in the number fours match. WebHead had demonstrated an improvement in form over the summer with some important victories towards the latter stages of the summer league but he was out hit in a short-lived encounter by McLean. WebHead, clearly with too much web in his head, looked out of sorts and for some silly reason decided not to raise his right arm above the level of his shoulder. Apparently, he thought that if he did it would be disrespectful to Germans. So volleying was a no no, as was smashing. WebHead was soon off court and in the bar, where strangely enough he could raise a pint to his mouth without incident.
Last season I was chided by my team mates for talking too much about myself so I shall say the following, I, Paul ‘the Dictator Disco Cowboy’ James played J Breen at number three. I won 3-1.
For Breen’s sake I will say however, that it was a very close game and could have gone either way. Breen hit some intelligent shots and moved very well, retrieving some balls that the Disco Cowboy had thought were winners. Unfortunately he pulled up during the third with a blister the size of Slough. I did double check that it wasn’t from a joke shop and sure enough he was being genuine. With his movement restricted Disco Cowboy dominated the T more and won the match. On his own performance the Cowboy said, “Much of the time I felt disjointed. My timing was patchy, and on occasion I almost completely missed the ball. My movement was sluggish also. I felt I was just doing enough to hang on. I also thought that at any moment I was going to be struck by bird s..t from pigeons in the rafters.”
After freezing showers we headed to the bar. It was as dead as the parrot in the Python sketch but we were asked to leave our bags out in the hallway for the thieves, because the bags would have restricted access to the bar. Clearly the barman had been a bouncer in a previous life : ) The hospitality was very forthcoming though and Team Hoff thoroughly enjoyed the meal banter, drinks and food. Although, it has to be pointed out that that night the thieves had decided to steal the vegetables – as there were none – and mercifully left us our bags in the hallway. Thanks lads for a good evening, very enjoyable!
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| Author: | Amida |
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