110811: No byes, does anybody know what that means anymore?

110804: 4-3 loss to the Annual in a loser’s semi final
DC, CG, JH, TK, TW, TH(MOM)

110729: Beach Box Poker

110828: 4-4 Loss to ??
DC(MOM), CG, TW, CB, RH, JH, TH

-The Disgrace
FIDDLER ON THE FUCKING ROOF, I’m taking the above incidents in the order they appear so the major angriness can come out and then we’ll get on to the good times, so like I said FIDDLER ON THE FUCKING ROOF, that’s what it felt like to be the only one with my balls on the table when every other Nanna walked away to get their nuts buffed in private, there I was all my mess downstairs hanging out with a grin on my face like the kid a primary school whose just told the classroom his crack is caked with unwashed dags and gets not the: “oh that happens to me all the time”, or “this underlines the importance of correct rectal hygeine” with a friendly smile and a pat on the shoulder type responses that one expects from one’s brothers in arms, but rather the room looks at him like he’s just professed his deep and undying desire to skull fuck little baby kittens and that’s the best possible thing in the world – THAT’S HOW I FELT GODDAMNIT NO BYES USED TO MEAN SOMETHING!!!!

-The Other Disgrace
Loser’s semi finals. Who. Gives. A. Shit? Well we all jolly well should because if we keep going down to those dickless phase-wannabes we’re gonna need a mjor skin graft to repair our knees and a high pressure water cleaner to get all the dick sauce off our faces. And we don’t want to be remembered as kneeless blowhards with you-know-what caked inches deep all over our features. I know it was a close game, I know it could have gone either way, I know we played well, but fuck all that shit I want to win, we got to get back that winning edge, the fucking hunger and desire. Step up. Take responsiblity. Make everything you do out there count. And fuckingwell own any bitch who dares step to us.

-The NOT Disgrace
I tell you what, if the comp was about having a good time with your brothers we would smash any bastard out there. We’d be the Manchester U and Barca of that shit combined. I’m telling you if Charlie Sheen called Rob Lowe, fucking that President of Italy with the ‘bunga bunga’ parties, Don Simpson, goddamned the whole of Mötley Crüe from their prime in the early 90s and had a beach box poker night – and I don’t care that they have Heidi Fleiss on speed dial, or that guy Johnny Depp play’s in the movie “Blow” backing dump trucks of yayo up to the beach box, and all the midgets and the cheese sauce and the vapourisers from “Bored to Death – they wouldn’t have done it as good as we did it. It. Was. Outstanding. And I commend every Nanna for making it so. Military like precision in maximising the amount of time having the finest of times.

-Something else
There was another game – Cock the Hammer said it all – perhaps a limerick:

There once was a team ‘o’ so brown
On the Annual they always went down
The Coach he did roar
“NOT ANY MORE!
It’s their turn on our jizz to drown”

3-3 vs DWS fc
CB 1,DC 1,TW 1,AW,JH,TH,TK,CG
MOM CB,CG

It was an early game. 6pm to be precise. But the Nannas still managed to field an impressive squad of 8. Only the Captain was absent. Unable to extract himself from the bewildering length of lightly soiled lycra he found himself enmeshed in, he resigned himself to yet another night in a small inner city theatre moulding dancers’ lithe bodies into amusing shapes while gently caressing his own date and crying heartily into his portable projector.

But enough about the Captain. What a night of nights. Possibly the greatest draw ever. Looking at the points table for our competition, it can be observed that DWS fc (and no even they do not know what DWS stands for) have only had one draw. Against us. Sure they’ve lost three times (once against us), but never had they drawn. Until tonight. Incidentally I looked up DWS and it’s true even their website doesn’t seem to know what it means. Let’s just refer to them as the Dandy Walker Syndromes or if you prefer, Driving While Suspended.

It must be mentioned at this point that we had considerable numbers in the members stand. The full contingent of Brownsmiths plus Marek the Eel were in attendance and they lifted the Nannas’ spirits and pushed us on. At one point we were down 3-1. Tao got our first goal. The writer put a ground grubbing left through the field for the Nannas second goal and Cocky followed this up with a lovely finish to put us level. We were (in the parlance of B-more street hustlers) back in the game.

We held on. We played it tight. We drew. Revelatory.

Afterwards Cocky had to self abort his meticulously planned three stage early game post match festivities due to El’s freeform car exiting resulting in the world’s best 0. Meanwhile Gilly got an unofficial 6 for his Thai hookup in Carlton.

Nannas vs DWS

CG, CB1, TW1, DC,1 RH, JH, AW, TK, TH

3 v 3

Billed as the greatest draw in the history of brown. The nannas faced the old opponent (in all senses of the word). The DWS crew came bounding out of the gates, with a new recruit. Someone who was so good we won’t even use the word good. It doesnt come close to describing him. He was a latino I think, very good with his feet, able to turn at the blink of an eye. He cracked them into the lead with frightening precision.

The game was viewed by the Brown-Smith family and they provided us with great emotional support. Boy did we need it. I think the half time score was 3 -1 to them. We looked and felt shot, however, the resolve of the nannas is nothing if not INCREDIBLE. First Chris Brown stood up and scored then big Danny Crooks came and released, right in the goal mouth.

Seconds remained, the crowd was screaming, the sweat was streaming and they were pushing like freaks. The heat was on and the Nannas remained strong. Proud and brown.

Their big angry grey haired guy was pushing on a forward thrust and it was parried only to be accidentally pushed back in front of goal. The grey haired dude could have won the game but was busy yelling at his teammates. Let this be a lesson about NEVER yelling at your teammates.

I would have stopped his goal attempt anyway.

Then came the calamitous cook off from Cocky. Faced with the responsibility of cooking he then took a phone call and had t run away. The 0 he recieved was harsh, but that is what the Nannas are – harsh and brown.

I then took the reins and did a perfect 6 cook, that was judged unofficial.

Nannas Vs Vagabundos

1    vs  4

CG, RH, TW (1), TK, AW, JH, CB

Coach TH

They behaved better this time. No crying and diving which last week would have SHAMED their family’s family’s. It was an embarrasing game to be a part of.

We walked away with trepidation at the next match the following week with them, thinking would it be worse, it couldn’t be, surely! AS things turned out it was better. The number of dives were down, they didn’t get as angry, however, a few of them would not shake hands after the game. That speaks volumes…..

This week began with a warm up game that our goalie took part in. In fact our goalie played WITH oz the ref, thinking all was tight. How wrong he was. AFter going down a goal early. Jim got a free kick and then slotted it through. The ref DISALLOWED the goal with the ghost of Pete Circuit freaking out! From there the game was emotionally lost. We held them to that single goal for a half. They had lots of shots but couldn’t penetrate.

The second half was fiery adn at one point it was 2:1 to them and we were coming. However, they got a few more and that kind of killed us off. It was a good performance by the Nannas. To hold that team was good. They make us play better. There was really some great defence shown. Great running and really tight pressure. We did lack on the shooting front, but hopefully Cocky will stop this “I’ve got a sore back” farce….

Then the night stepped up. Takeshi took us to a 24 hour KO – Rhian joint with no name and no address, just a hazey description of some chick who’d be there..she sounded hot.

We turned up, Jim got loose and started being inappropriate. He kept thinking he was playing soccer on the waitress and was like, “Guy Fraser’s allowed the reacharound, why not me?” Then he stood up on the table only to forget why he was there. It was a bit embarrasing for us all, but I think it reflected favourably on Takeshi’s votes. Jim apparently had the night of his life. Like he’d had before. and he WILL have again.

Maybe all Nannas can dress in plastic for the NEXT night of Jims life.

Nanna’s Vs Allens FC 6-3 Win

CG (Goals), RH (Captain)(2), AW (1), CB (1), TW (3), TH (Head Coach), DC (Ass. Coach)

A night of not quite true Nanna form. While we didn’t start all that well, going 3-0 rather quickly, it didn’t take too long before the Nanna’s pulled out a few of those tricky ‘oh my god how did that get through’ kind of goals that we are famous to get us back into winning hope.

By half time we had crawled back to 3 a piece. Luckily not to go down by anymore with our pitbull player Chassy playing with a strained groin or hammy or something. As we came off at half time Chassy let us know of his injury and, not wanting to let the team down, was willing to get back out there. Seeing as we already have 2 out to injury no one wanted to see Chassy take that risk but being down a player we grabbed funky Phil to come and have a run.

This put a new pace on things and Phil played a very generous and cruisy game. Weaving thru a few of the opposition and then passing across to a waiting Nanna to slot it in. Andy was one of those, with some fantastic running down the back side on more than one occasion, and I was a recipient of another.

One of the opposition then went out injured and Phil, being the sportsman he is, left the field also to make it an even 4 on 4. At this stage the Nanna’s kicked another goal and managed to stop anymore of theirs getting thru.

The oppositions 5th player came back on for a short while, as did Phil, but it was pretty much all over by then.

Nannas took it home with a 3 goal victory over the Allens not even allowing them to score in the second half.

After the match we went to celebrate in one of the coldest places in Melbourne. Some may say it was the most isolated bar on earth but actually it was just the furthest bar right at the arse end of the Docklands. Yes there was a point given for originality but for my money any place that has to have multiple 52” TVs hanging on its walls has already got something missing. It was a good try Hinkley but not good enough to topple the top.

Big thanks to 2 special Nanna’s that came to help with the move over the weekend. You know who are. Big kisses.

Loss to Hampton St Fc
0-8

CB, RH, TW, Brendan, TK

The traffic was really bad again this evening. All drivers were blasting the horns led by their frustration and the cold dry wind was blowing to take the last warmth from everyone’s heart. It was like a night something bad may happen. I saw a lot of kids trying to get help on the street. Some of them were screaming. Some of them were crying. I could not do anything. I could not save anyone. It was a strange night.

kudos for TW kicked a beautiful goal. The ball hit the net hard but ref canceled the goal because one of us was kicking the other team same time.

Nannas v Pornstars 5:4 loss

TH(mom), CB 2(mom), CG gk(mom), JH 2(mom?), RH, TW, AW, DC (coach)

Like we are starting to live up to our stalinist paper doilie trademark and give a little communist respect to our little sham. OUt of the seven on field and eight brown men in total, 4 were judged to be the spokespeople of our generation. It is really only Cocky who will be able to tell us of the mathematical probability of all of us sharing best on ground.

The game was good, but as the result suggests, not great. WE were close but as one of them took a MONSTEROUS totally pussy (do I play for Italy) dive they got a penalty, in the end, it was this act of immorality that was the difference between the two teams. I hope that little man hasn’t slept a wink since then.

The team is still funkional but we do need a little something…..maybe a VICTORY! Where the fuck is it? What thefucks going on? Last season we couldn’t lose, save for the crap administration of the comp who kept trying to penalise us for being too fonky. (Not dissing the ref though!)

The new chapter of the brown machine is the cooking. I spent all day and most of the game FREAKING out about the cooking. I had to go super conservative and went with an old local. It was this which proved sound with the Nannas even if Chassy didn’t like me filling up his drink every ten minutes.

5-4 Loss to Pornstars

TH(mom), CB 2(mom), TK gk(mom), JH 2(mom?), RH(mom?), TW, AW, DC (coach)

So many moms, like home time at kindergarten, like the waiting room at the Royal Children’s Hospital, like free knitting wool day at Costco…

Once when the Nannas were child Nannas not knowing the toughness of the game, or angles of a futsal pitch, or what brown meant we all used to spend our Thursdays getting drunk and doing hot knives at Rhian’s and Pete’s and Chassy’s and Little Hazey’s and Lisa Carol Bayer Sager’s and Janet’s “warehouse” in Alfred Lord Sir Tennyson st. Rhian would make a bbq out of left over asbestos, lead, mercury, carbon fibre and other noxious rare earth elements and then fire it up using treated pine and dried out lost dog cadaver’s that he processed into long burning brick-dog-ettes using techniques from Dunedin that’s saved the South Island many a time from the ravages of an Antarctic winter, made worse by the fact that they’d clear felled all the burnable wood to make room for pot plantations and back yard stills. Cocky would, by necessity, do double the drugs of anyone else and throw in an exotic hallucinogen for good measure and then proceed to attempt to document the experience by whatever means of technology he had found in a dumpster or managed to scam from a funding body or arts benefactor. About 15 minutes in to Cocky’s attempted documentation Janet would get angry with him, for little or no reason other than he was failing to show her the attention she desired. I used to ride my bike through the park from North Melbourne, pick up some sausages and beer on the way and try to chat up the single ladies. Even back then I was tactical, I used to worry about the long term effects of a bbq made from barium combined with arsenic smoked supermarket sausages, whilst trying to keep my pot and beer consumption below that of my body weight. They were the golden days, the halcyon days of good times and stacking your bike drunk. We nearly scored an abandoned convertible Alfa Romeo, Rhian had a PC and everyone’s erections lasted forever. Yep…

CB 2, CG, RH, AW, TH, JH 2, TK, DC(coach)
COOK CG

Nannas vs Pornstars

Won 5 – 4
History is a strange thing. It sometimes does not tell the truth. We know about that. We know our text books do not tell the truth of your country. Never mind. Someone must love making a complicated things. We have to like the fact people write things for fun.

OK lets’ find out what happened this night. Fortunately, we have 4 nannas voted as the witness. The 4 way MOM confused the APISC a little bit but see how it goes.

Story
This night was started as edgy. The traffic was bad. Too many things had to be done for the charity GIG. I know I won’t be able to sleep next day and night. So I was a bit everywhere and nicely frustrated for the run.

Only things I could think in the game were “Run and pass then run to get the pass. Mark up and never let the person go through” This made me really simple. It worked. It seemed that all Nannas were doing own job well this night. The simplicity made the night. JH- long range shoot 2 goals (one was touching the top of the goal post), CB – running and squeezing in (2 goals), DC – yelling and directing, AW- accurate back door pass, TH- Hell defence, CG – jumping catch, RH- amazing head + leading the game. When everyone does good work in own area. It works. Hey 4 way MOM shows the co-operated result. right?

BPBD back in town to help the nannas out on the court, came very close a couple of times but unfortunately no cigar…

nb: actual post date = 22 Nov 2012 but backdated for your viewing pleasure

Nanna’s lose 3-4 Vs The Pepper Shakers

DC(Coach), TH, RH(Capt.), CB, CG(G), AW, TW (MOM)

Well I will have to say that I got away unscathed for not putting up my match report prior to the game. This was a test Nanna’s to see who was paying attention and I’m afraid you all failed.

So it was pretty lucky I wrote this the next day after the game and saved it so I could remember every little detail……………………….. except I didn’t.

Here’s what I do remember. The Nanna’s came out fighting pretty hard in the first half and we kept our own. Pretty much thought we had these guys, as we often do. Though it wasn’t entirely our own classic second half Nanna fault as The Red Peppers lifted their game and really brought it home. They had some fancier foot work they were saving for the second half that took us by surprise again, and again.

Still we managed to keep it tight and the only thing that really brought us down that night was our passing. To many pussy little passes either not hard enough to each other or kicked straight to the opposition. We have to make those passes count. Not so hard that they can’t be controlled but not so soft that they don’t even make their target. We are better than that Nanna’s. We are NANNAs!!!!

The Nannas vs DWS

6 -4

TIght is right is a phrase oft used by brown men. And it was used again, it was used by the Nannas and it was used by our new cheerleader Marek. He was so hard about our win he had to leave early!

In fact the ref had to go up to him during the game and ask him to turn it down a little bit. I got to say though that his pompom work was nothing short of INCREDIBLE! Its like there is a factory in NZ pumping out amazing pompom action! He was top of his class for sure.

Back to the game. We were all kicked in the guts at the thought of having to change Jim’s over. Out with the old and in with the new. It was billed as his last ever game. All week we wept and cried and howled, but you know what – he didn’t even show up! What balls of steel.

Well, the game…..yes….IT was awesome! We were incredible. They had a crap goalie early and we took full advantage and slammed on 3 quick ones. Thanks god we did really because we only won by two!

The goals were wonderful as always with Andy sneaking one in Greek style – who would’ve thought!

Cooking afterwards was done by Andy and we all hit Fitzroy and got down to teh Middle Kingdom duck styles…. Tight work Wong…

Nanna’s 12 Vs Red Peppers 2

CG (GK), CB, GM, TK, TW

Semi Finals

Nannas v Pornstars

4 v 9

TW, AW, CG, RH, TK, TH, JH

Coaches CB (emergency) DC (no chance)

Disappointing is not the word, we could search for a phrase like gutted, or turkey slapped, but disappointing is not strong enough….

The week before we came up against the Pornstars and they just “couldn’t get it up”. The seemed to be a man down, boy was that right. There was this big guy who came up and said “I heard you took care of us”, I was like yeah, “You sucked our 8 goals”, then the guy was like….”Oh, I bet it’ll be different now that I’m playing” and then I was like (under my breath) “Yeah different, now your team will be uglier!”…

Well he was right, the difference he made was significant. We did better than they did. In fact a whole lot better than 8 -0. (losers).

The higlight of the night was night was not the soccer though…It was the SUPER funky KOrhian FRIED CHICKEN! DAMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmnnnnn.

Its like the loss was just an eventful evening to get us in the mood for the KOrhian.

The presence of Andy’s fan club was great as we all tried to show off to the kids, who apparantly had to put up with a shower of swearing from dad in the car as he took a wrong turn at Albuqueque….We live and learn……