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LUCK! WHAT'S THAT? I'M IN THE RELEGATION ZONE 23-11-05
I am eternally grateful that my Beloved Boro rode their luck against the boys from the Cottage on Sundee a load better than I've been doing recently, more of which later in the piece.
I am beginning to think that our boys are looking very like a team on the up, who could just do the business and win a cup or even two. We're in cup tie mode on the pitch and there is a compulsive, dare I say a 'never say die, you score one we'll score two' vein of form running through the team, at the Riverside especially.
When we play in this frame of mind, well I think we can polish of anybody and we look good for goals too.
It was the usual pattern in the ErimusRed domain. Kick-off at midnight and I was already weary after a late night the previous evening watching Chelski demolish the Jardies with my Mate Magpie Mark, who was more than a little subdued after the drubbing.
When the dyslexic Dutch lad Collins John produced that early bit of world-class skill I plundered the fridge for more beer and battened down as I expected us to come back with force fairly quickly. We eventually got into a higher gear mainly after Nemeth's injection of second half pace BUT we got the result when maybe a draw would've been fair.
We chased the game down and rode our luck. I wish I could ride mine as well. Maybe the Boro fairy will sprinkle dust on me and get me out of my present lack of fortune.
I'm bloody glad that my shithouse form is not being carried by my Beloved and certainly wasn't in evidence when the brilliant Schwarz made those amazing penalty saves last week for his country to send them to Germany. I just hope that some of Lady Luck's charm rubs off on my clan and we all have a better roll of the dice and run of luck than that certain Lady has been sprinkling around the principality of ErimusRed this past seven days.
This last week hasn't been too marvellous at all in terms of that intangible medium. A bit of an understatement to say the least, as I'm typing this one finger, left hand style, after accidentally putting a circular saw blade at high velocity through the index finger of my right/write hand.
Ouch! Fuck! RazzenbassenBasta!
You name a swearword or make it up, through blood splashed lips, that's how I profaned, after I'd dragged myself up out of the collected pool of blood congealing on the kitchen floor. That was some ten minutes after laying prostrate gazing at the perfect arc of blood on the ceiling, scarlet red, symmetrical, excuse me while I faint.
After a few hours of thumb twiddling in the ER of a local hospital I was booked in across town to see a micro-surgeon as I'd severed a couple of nerves and a few tendons on the old index finger. Prognosis being, no bogie extractions, arse scratching or datehole rectumfication for a month and an operation under the knife.
So pre-op being splattered and spattered in blood and looking like an extra from Halloween goes DIY, I scrounged a lift home off my old neighbour. I then had the realisation that as I was in the process of renovating the kitchen I'd actually turned the water off and cut the water pipes to attach the new plumbing. Fark!
So, off I went to the hardware store to get the brass bits and some thread tape, blood spatters looking like some screen printer had ran out of red dye and used his own juice instead. The young chicky on the desk said enthusiastically, 'That's an unusual Quicksilver t-shirt I like the red spray pattern.'
I answered, Little England style, 'A don't like red, reminds me off blud!' At which she went all queasy! But I then explained how I very nearly lost my finger saving a surfer from the jaws of an errant shark, a white pointer no less. Well it's sounds far less plonkerish than fucking up with a Hitachi power saw.
Anyway, prior to going for my operation, I fixed the plumbing with a couple of stop caps, and after the spanner wielding exertions the bandage was brimming red, finger wobbling like Rolf Harris singing 'Tie me Kangaroo Down Sport'. What a hero. What commitment to the cause, the Bride being able to get water for a cuppa char and to remove the blood from everywhere.
'How's Peter going?' 'Oh! He's karked it, died in a pool of his own Shiraz while fixing the plumbing! Lovely cup of Earl Grey that night though.'
That's the same focused commitment, nee madness we now require from here on in for a bloody hard tilt at some glory and a trip or two to a final and associated silverware. We need 'em to give blood for the overall cause, metaphorically speaking of course. Hide the toolbox and the power tools at Rockcliffe though.
So after a couple of days in hospital I came back to Chateau Erimus to find that the proponent of safe driving personified, the Bride, had had a road smash and written off the car. This is someone who lectures me officiously about my numerous encounters with Plod and his flashing camera, someone who has never had a speeding fine or any form of known infringement, always getting suspiciously let off.
It's amazing what a pair of jubblyesque boobies in a low cut top and a girly giggle and flutter of the eyelids nice big trungeon Sergeant, will do for your rapport with the jam sarny Rozzers. Mind you, she was involved in a decent collision and thankfully she was in one piece, unlike the car I was about to trade in on another one.
Whiplash, tears and another bloke's flash new penis extension Alfa Bellendio, crushed to the testicles, getting towed away on a flatbed truck were the conclusions.
So the household luckometer has been running in the extreme negative and I just hope the Boro have a shit load more of the legendary effects of that illusive emerald green four leaf clover than the shrivelled up blackened, dried, dead fucker I've got in my midst.
Our Boro Boys on international duty with the Aussies did the club proud. A grand week in the history of Skippieville with the big fellah Schwarz and his smiling visage adorning the TV screen and appearing under front page newspaper headlines after his world-class heroics in sending the Socceroos to their destiny in Germany.
It's been very good press for Boro though as people are now taking notice who their saviour and his mucker Dukes play for. Even bloody John Travolta was in the middle of the TV celebrations as he's Qantas' roaming ambassador and he joined in the fun wholeheartedly after the game spraying Moet and singing anthems in the dressing room afterwards. Big Mark did his profile no harm though and he handled all the frenzy, adulation and Sheilas wanting their norks emblazoned with his signature with aplomb.
As I've previously explained in missives on these very pages, this game represented more than ninety minutes plus of combat and sweat. The future of the great game in this nation rode on qualification. Now that wilting rosebud will finally metamorphose into a full bloom green and gold blossom.
Mr. Schwarzer, a mountain of dependability and sheer professionalism, a Gareth between the sticks, is of Aryan stock as we all know but he's an Ocker born & bred and feeling that Ashes defeat no doubt. He's going to be extremely useful to the squad in translating when ordering the bratwurst butties and a frothing stein or two of Fosters after training sessions, during the pre-WC camp in Bavaria or some other lush region of lovely Deutschland.
Suddenly the beautiful game is a media darling and outlandish. "Can we win it?" questions are being asked by the uninformed. The World Cup has that effect on the soul though with qualification sowing the seeds of hope and the expectation levels increase markedly with dreams of glory.
Even my sparring partner from the Ashes series is enamoured with the round ball code. Old Colgoorlie, so called because he spent a good proportion of his life living in the gold-mining mecca of Kalgoorlie, where open-cut holes of hope adorn the surrounding countryside. Where men are men and sheep are just another serve on the barby. Where the World renowned red light district of shanty brothels has the most lucrative and productive holes in town.
We struck up a conversation one morning, while walking our respective shit machines by the river, my mutt still hasn't got it through his hairy little body, that a little Schnauzer can't successfully root a full size Golden Retriever, especially another male. He still tries the physically impossible each and every day.
Anyway, prior to the glorious Ashes series Col told me he thought England had improved as a force but like most afficionados of willow and red leather, Oz would take the series, in his learned opinion, 3-1 with one drawn.
Well after the first test he was gloating and giving me a stir, all very good natured stuff and in the spirit of Pommie versus Skippy. He's that type of Aussie larrikin Old Col, a genuine good bloke, fucken oath Blue.
When the three lions were finally victorious then followed up by going into a 2-1 lead, Col returned the dog walking duties to his missus. When I did catch up with him I'd bowl him an imaginary ball, a Yorker or an inswinger, to which he'd take his air swipe and bat away, before signalling a six followed by the hand over his eyes looking into the distance for the ball. Then I'd bowl him another air ball and he'd run for a quick single and I'd feign a catch or a victorious bail shattering run out.
Quite what the numerous other shit machine unloaders, walkers, cyclists and beachcombers thought of two grown men playing mock cricket while fifty-foot apart, well I didn't ask. Now when I see him with that series in the bag, I do a victory jig with the imaginary old urn clasped between thumb and index finger of the left hand and he tucks an imaginary bat under his arm and walks. I diffused his attempt at urine extraction when the World All Slobs got walloped by Ponting's punters by dismissing the collective as Wogs and that as I'm a card carrying Aussie, when it suits me, my lads won.
I've given him a new focus lately though and converted the Old Bugger, as he's now gone Socceroo crazy and also looks out for Boro results and reports too, as his son is squiring a Jardie lass. He loved the theatre of the play-off game and the knife-edge tension of the penalty shoot out. We now greet each other with a few imaginary one twos, a bit of keepy-uppy and a quick Cruyff dragback and a few air headers.
While a little grey dog makes yet another attempt to defy the shaggers laws of gravity on a whopping big hairy arsed Retriever. Old Col is veritably chomping at the bit to see the green and gold adorning the tiered stadiums of Germany and a dream date meeting somewhere along the track with the Poms, preferably in the final.
In his die-hard Aussie mind the ultimate sporting rivalry fought out on a neutral field in the midst of cosmopolitan Europe. One of the oldest sporting rivalries resurrected at the World's greatest single sport competition. Now, that's got a very romantic and poetic ring to it don't you think?
The weather has turned and the sky is predominantly blue, the beach is suddenly the focus of Antipodean life and thoughts have turned to the coming Summer a time that defines this Great sunburnt land. The God's are smiling, the planets are in alignment and will this signal a change of luck for ErimusRed?
So all the Omens are there in the planets the stars and the ether. A nation of proud Smoggies expects and will stand united as one in support of their red & white Gods. I'll wear the bad luck if it means Middlesbrough 1986 engrave their moniker on another piece of silverware, or maybe two.
Why not, if you are in the hat you have potential. I feel it in my bones.
Enough Said!
ErimusRed.
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