Can't Beat A Bit Of Friendly Banter!

Banter is an essential part of any sports club, and my club, Wapping Hockey Club is no exception. A perfect example is what happened recently after my last hockey match.

Last Saturday, my team, Men's 6ths, of which I am captain played against the Men's 5ths of Wapping Hockey Club. Both of us are in the same division, so it was a very big intra club match. The M5 were pretty confident of a victory. They even brought a stereo to play "Eye of the Tiger" as they warmed up before the game. Compare this against us, the M6's who were playing in only our 3rd game together. The M5's haven't lost a game in over a year.

To cut a long story short, it was a big game and it ended 2-2. We were winning 2-1, but they pulled it back. It was a very good result for us, even though we should/could have won it. In the pub afterwards, everyone was in great form, all taking part in a good bit of banter. I guess 2-2 was the best result, as both teams can hold their heads high.

During the week, I posted a match report here giving my biased view of the game, purely just to stir things up. And it worked. The M5's posted this report completely trying to mock us. Even if you don't know any of the background, they're worth a quick look.

I especially like this bit:

Side effects may include overconfidence, an Irish accent, and an inability to clearly remember things that happened on Saturdays.

It's better reading the M6 report first, followed by the M5 report. Hope you enjoy! I did.

I Love My Company

I got an e-mail yesterday, which was sent to the entire company telling me that I can take a half day to go Christmas shopping! I can take it anytime from now until December 16th. Talk about a sweet deal! And then today, my manager who's in NY for the week, e-mailed me encouraging me to book the half day soon!

So it's a long weekend for me 16th December. I'm taking the Friday afternoon off. But obviously I'm going to go shopping.....online shopping from my bed that is!

It Pays To Complain!

A few months ago I set up a bank account with my flat mates to pay bills and stuff. They got their debit card within a week, but it took about 2 months to get mine. It took so long because of a load of mess ups on the bank's part.

I wasn't just going to let this one slide, without finding out why. So I wrote them a long letter telling them how they had screwed up, and if they didn't give me a valid explanation, I would "re-consider my relationship" with the bank. I got a letter back from them a few days later saying they would look into it and get back to me soon. But they never did.

However, when I logged into my account last week, I was nicely surprised to see an entry for £50 with a description of "Compensation"! I still haven't received a letter from them explaining it, but I'm assuming they gave me £50 for my troubles!

Nice eh? I guess it does literally pay to complain!

Sport yet again......

Most of my blogs recently have been about sport, and this one is no different. On Tuesday I played yet more cricket with people from work. It's a great way to hang out with people from work outside of the work setting. There were 4 teams of 7, so we had a little tournament.

Anyway, if you've read my previous posts about indoor cricket, you'll know we've always lost and at times gotten beaten really badly! But all changed on Tuesday. We won both matches quite comfortable, scoring 180 runs and conceding about 60 runs in total between the 2 games.

In the first game, we managed to win in spite of the umpire's best attempts to completely and utterly screw up the scores and also his changing of the rules for our fielders to try and even the game. On a few occasions, we had the batsmen out, but because we hadn't thrown or caught it with our left hand, he didn't give it out!

The second game was much better. We scored 98 runs, almost our first century, but we just missed out. The best thing about the second game was when were fielding. Towards the end of the game I tried to make a catch, but it only deflected off my hand. But Ben a team-mate caught it. A few balls later, the exact same thing happened, except Simon caught it. This was beginning to get weird, but got even worse when I did it again and Ben caught my deflected catch.

I just started laughing when it happened the 3rd time. It has never happened me, and then within about 3 minutes, it happened 3 times! Even the opposition even clapped us for that play. I had calls of "Butter fingers" thrown in my direction, but I feel I actually pulled those catches out of the bag and deflected them upwards for a team mate to make an easy catch!

Billy, my flat mate was playing against me in the second game, so anytime we played agains teach other, the play had extra meaning. It was all good fun though. Afterwards we went for a few beers with the other 3 teams. A great evening all around, and more importantly we banished our cricket demons!

We Kicked Ass

What goes around, comes around as the saying goes. It was never more true than yesterday, when my hockey team dished out a fair beating to Romford Hockey Club, by beating their 4th team 6-1! We hockeyed them off the pitch, you could say, a total turnaround from last week.

In what was essentially our first real game (because last week we only scraped together 5 players), it was critical that we play well. And thank God we did. We scored early in the first half, but only went into half time 1-0 up. We had a hatful of chances, but couldnt finish them. I had two real chances, one of which shaved a layer of paint off the goalpost. I really should have scored. Next week maybe!

In a vast improvement from last week, we had 14 players, so we had a good squad to choose from. We did have the graveyard shift, playing at 4pm meaning it was dark by the time we finished. Yesterday it is was Guy Fawkes day so there was loads of fireworks going off which was cool. But, I think the fireworks going off around the pitch were actually celebrating our victory!

Not surprised really!

He just seems to attract attention no matter where he goes. Ol' W himself is in Argentina these days trying to set up the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) but is meeting resistance from all quarters, including Maradona!

I'm not going to get into a political debate about it all, but I'm following the story quite closely, mainly because I've been in Argentina and enjoy reading about the wonderful country. From my travelling around there, it comes as no surprise that they're protesting. When I was in Buenos Aires, there was a protest every second night. My grasp of Spanish isnt the best so I could never make out what they were protesting about, but they sure as hell made enough noise.

It must be a hobby at this stage for some people: "what are you doing tonight?", "oh, I'm going on a protest march again tonight" Nice way to spend the evening I guess. Out walking in the fresh air! The only downside of this hobby is the tear gas and batons of the police, but I guess that adds to the enjoyment of the hobby!

Argentines (or Argentinians, never sure which) have had a rough time of it recently. I was reading the country profile on The Economist and it makes interesting reading. The countries history is quite interesting and the article on Wikipedia is worth a read if you get a chance. The map of the Argentine territory includes the Falkland Islands and part of Antartica. Which reminds me of something else I need to add to my wishlist of things to do: go to Antartica. I can do it after my trip from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego!