Round 3, May 21 Hampton away: FunkMan, The Ukraine Express and the importance of defluffing....

Winners may be grinners, but so are sinners. The only person remotely capable of being man-of-the-match is Kevin...

Saturday May 20, 2011:

The Team turned up to Happy Hampton with the sun a blazing and spirits high. Controversially, once again, Alan & Yuri were tagged as the2nd Pair, Neale & Mark as 1^st Pair.

Alan and Yuri absolutely demolished the Hampton 2^nd pair. Yuri, often mistaken for a freight train, was more like a Ukraine Express! Score 10-1 J

Chuffed by the win, Yuri demanded caviar between matches, which set off Alan thinking about launching a book on Melbourne Good Food Guide to Sports Club Afternoon Teas; since a great measure of how good is an afternoon tea is how much of it you want to knock off to take home while no one is looking, he is thinking of calling the guide The Big Tissue. Abstract, but inspired. In any case, with Yuri pissed off about no caviar, Alan dreaming about his book launch, the 2^nd Pair won 2 games against Hampton #1s and promptly decided that “well, we’ve done our bit as we’ve won 1 more game than we’ve lost”, rolled over and lost 2-10! L

As for the 1^st Pair, they were sprinters off the block, breaking Hampton #1s early, but then Neale (Jolly by name but as it turns out Dolly by nature) noticed the skirt on the adjoining courts (well it was Hampton!), promptly got distracted and dropped his serve. Then the double faults on serve began, 1 per game, then 2, then 3 then 4 and what can only be described as a dark and foreboding Funk slowly descended upon his game. Lost 5-10! L

Heartened by 2^nd Pairs easy win, Hampton #2s were expected to be easy. After a ferocious start, the Funk however re-appeared again, only blacker this time and it began to engulf his partner. Quick thinking in the face of disaster (that’s why he is captain), Mark secretly defluffed (everyone is good at something, some are lucky enough to find out what) the balls during Neale’s crucial service game. He won, we won 10-4, and games 27-25 and the day 6-2. J

Bizarre, you couldn’t make this stuff up.

Support

Valuable support was given once again by Kevin. Thank you !

He did his best to coach from the baseline; we all knew what his little facial expression meant. While looking at the 2^nd Pairs set against Hampton #1s he had both eyebrows raised, then pursed his lips and couldn’t take it any more so went over to watch the 1^st Pair whereupon seeing the FunkMan’s game he flared his nostrils, dropped his jaw and, realising he had run out of facial real-estate, scuffled off to the club house to suck some oranges.

Afternoon Tea

Alan gave 1 smack of his lips for the cut oranges bought to the courts and the beer offered afterwards, but 2 thumbs down for the luke warm meat pies and boring conversation on football and tennis.

This Saturday:

Home match against Glenhuntly; although still early in the season, they seem like one of the easier teams. Our urbane Alan is skip supported by the surgically precise Victor, FunkMan Dolly and a special first-time-this-season appearance by the BigHitter Deano. Mark & Yuri are backups if anyone gets cold feet.

Yuri has decided the Captain needs mentoring.

Yuri leadership advice #1: “Set a goal and the team will deliver”. Well Team, it’s 4 sets zip to us this Saturday ‘cause Glenhuntly is supposed to be a crap team. Anyone who loses a set I’m going to set a plague of wild cats upon your neighbours houses; you’ll never sleep well again

Practice:

On again this Thursday, 7-9pm. Deano is going to show off his stitches, Neale is going to shed his Funk, and Team Motivator & Coach, Nick the Enforcer, is going to be banging some heads together about this inter-pairs rivalry that’s sometimes more competitive than against the opposite team!

New Team Rule:

This comes from Yuri leadership advice #2: “People love rules. The more rules you have the better captain you’ll be”.

Anybody losing 4 sets in row will be delegated to the bench. Anybody winning 4 sets in a row becomes Untouchable and is automatically playing in the finals. Any games played with Nick as partner don’t count. Any games played with Mark do. Tough, that’s just the way it is (Yuri leadership advice #3: “The more the team hate you the more they’ll respect you”).

Any complaints email: what_about_me@yuri.com.au

Momentum is with us.

Cheers…

Mark