Tip: Do not rely on your memory to write match report after nanna function. It doesn’t work. I remember having a swim. And before that there were some dinosaurs. And a man with a beard. And then a round ball…As always, I only have a very loose recollection of the actual game, and the buffet hasn’t helped.

It had been a tough return for wal. Starting back at work after 4 weeks off for Christmas, overlapping some beachtime with the crooks and brown camps. Hammocks and christmas puddings had taken their toll. That ‘famously’ tight body, was looking a little ‘bouncy’ on the slow-mo replays. but it wasn’t just wal who had ‘let go’.

It was a sluggish game. How I picked up the MOM is still a mystery to me??? But sometimes that’s just the way the math pans out. I think I ran around a lot, up and down…

Court conditions were proving the physics law “the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection”. The late afternoon sun, blazing in at 2 degrees (to the horizontal), rendered much of the court as a mirror. This meant that taking any passes on the ‘lakeside’ was pretty much blind guess work.

But let me not blame the sun, mother of mothers. It was a sluggish start to our new division. And that was with 3 subs. And for some reason, I can only remember the Gill moves. I remember Gill’s head hitting the floor. I remember then Gill in a push-up position and the ball smashing into his eyeball. Then there was some crazyness where Gill came right out of goals, and danced up the court, ducking and weaving in and out of the glare and shadows, losing the ball, somehow getting it back, crossing the court back and forth. Madness. That’s entertainment.

And then there was the other madness, the other exception to the ‘angle of incidence’ rule. Obviously such rules apply in a vacumn, free of friction and magic. And it was Chas who defied the rule. It doesn’t account for spin. Chas kicked the ball from the corner at about 88 degrees. It hit the post. Rolled around the goalie, who was frozen by this madness. Walked slowly along the line, teasing time. And then curled in. Goal! Un-be-lieve-a-ble.

The rest of the game was a rather uneventful (from my perspective). Thomas fronted up, despite an injury from the week before. Chas danced the dance, and popped the first goal (unseen from my perspective, and I wish I could remember who assisted. sorry). Even Taoza could barely muster a tantrum. The Cap-i-tan was there. He could not have forseen that a few hours later he would wake up in the nude on the bathroom floor. Crooks, ever graceful, but who had some issues with passes. And Jim, who also had mutual issues with passing. And the cheersquad, always appreciated, courtesy of the Crooks Ransom posse. And there was some off-field umpiring disputes, led by Crooks, and reined in by Coach.

We lost 5-2. Hughness left Melbourne. I lost $15 at poker. I lost arm wrestling. And after a solo smorgasboard, Heath, a cowboy who represented much nanna ethos, camping, and sharing a tent together on a cold night, departed our world. It was a low week for reality.

But the lows make the highs higher.