[EDIT – This week see’s the debut of Gary “Garreeeeeee” Bowen, providing his very first match report. The games covered in this report were friendlies and therefore (due to considerable complaints from the voting public) do not contribute towards stats. As a result we only get to enjoy the words of Mr. Bowen.]
20th April 14:19 and the call comes from Matt ‘Million Dollar’ Finch – we have a “friendly polo” event against the Kingston Royal Warriors next Thursday 25th. With hindsight could this be the most miss-sold event of 2019?
One by one the yay and nay messages appear, but all slightly confused by someone [edit: a convict] called Birman who seemed to have hacked into the team WhatsApp group on that Saturday evening and was posting pictures of himself superimposed on images of some of the Narwhals having a quiet evening in Streatham. Birman even posted that Phil ‘Big Daddy’ Richards was having lunch with the in laws – he could have thought of something more original – what a poor excuse to miss some beers! And posting that our team elder statesman was still ill 10 days after attending a stag weekend was just cruel. [edit: I still want to know what happened on that stag do…]
By Wednesday, even with the many nays, Million Dollar had summoned a mighty team of eight. So, game on – but what the team really needed was a bit of pre-match training. What better than an extended Wednesday training session at the Khana Peena (http://www.khanapeena.co.uk) followed by a heated game of five-a-side Hungarian Dodgeball – not a game that has made Olympic status yet but it could challenge synchronised swimming (or artistic swimming as it is now known). At the end of the game we won and they lost.
Anyway, on to the match day. In spite of his almost agreed transfer to the US league, Big Daddy came through with an early confirmation that he was good to play. No mention of poo, so can only assume that he was still stacking this for a later mighty session. Perhaps as a left-over from the Saturday hacking, Million Dollar completely messed up his liaison with John ‘The Animal’ Holah and arrived at the pool before thanking The Animal for his offer of a lift. Great to see a bit of team coordination.
But what about the game you ask? Well we played, and it did involve a pool, but was it polo? Perhaps there was some rule confusion, should we follow the new FINA water polo rules or should we use the UWW freestyle wrestling rules? This confusion seemed particularly hard for Zac ‘The Undertaker’ Finch who achieved his second exclusion within 90 seconds of the start of Round 1. The rest of the team also struggled to get their holds right and at the end of the round the judges had scored the match as 3 to Kingston and only 1 to the Narwhals.
Round 2 was better as the hold and release training came back to some of the Narwhals, and the judges scored this 4:2 to the Narwhals with Nick ‘The Hacksaw’ Shute and Big Daddy being awarded 2 each.
Round 3 and Kingston had clearly got to the judges, so despite The Hacksaw being awarded 2 more points Kingston were judged as winners of the round by 5:2. Sadly in this round The Undertaker was caught trying an illegal backbreaker move and was eliminated from the competition.
So, into round 4. Could the Narwhals get Kingston onto the floor? The Hacksaw continued with his grip and release tactics to get two more points awarded and Ed ‘The Hulk’ Gamble and Gary ‘Rowdy’ Bowen were awarded 1 each for clearly confusing the opposition. But sadly Kingston were also awarded 2 points and had their hands raised at the final score 12:11.
Despite a severe lack of votes, in recognition of his valiant attempt to be remembered after his transfer to the US, Big Daddy (Phil-adelphia) was awarded the Man of Match award. The Hacksaw was given the award for the best ‘release from the opposition hold’ moment and The Undertaker was nominated as fluffer for his excessive use of illegal backbreaker moves.
Million Dollar, The Animal, Tim ‘Ultimate Warrior’ Young and Charles ‘Ravishing’ King-Tenison have all been sent to enhance their skills at the Portuguese training camp…….