7-11 v Slicked it Back
DC 2 m, JH 2, AW, Joel in Goal m, James the Prince 2 m, Mischa 1 (son of Joel)

School holidays are always a bit of trick. Fielding a team of true-blooded Nannas can prove rather difficult, what with all the holdidaying that needs to be done. And so it was on this evening with but 3 steadfast and unflinching THONs making themselves available. The ring-in register was similarly affected but thankfully we were able to engage the services of 3 True Heroes of Ringin (THOR). First choice back up goalie Joel did some sterling work between the posts. True, as he pointed out upon co-winning MOM “you know I let 11 goals in, not scored 11 goals” but he also keep out another 20, including some massive one-on-one duels when the Nannas defence went AWOL. Joel’s son Mischa saw a welcome return to the Nannas ranks, bringing youth and footskills and a Gyökeres like goal, half twinkle toes half bull dozer with a howitzer to finish. James the Prince® was the third of the trusty ringin threesome. Before the game we lamented the generation of children so roundly fucked over by Victoria’s covid lockdowns, but on court the Prince celebrated a brace including a most tasteful header.  Of the THONs who stepped up, as true THONs do, Andy brought his trademark hustle and steeze, though it would be hagiographic to omit a handful of defensive lapses, that said the opposition were freaking fast. Jim, largely anonymous in the first half, finished the game with two, nearly identical, screamers. I forgot to mention in last week’s musings on memory, the adage that people, for reasons of neurchemical efficiency, only remember an event by how long it took and how it ended. If this is true, Jim freaking nailed it! Running hard down the left channel onto a through ball from the author and rifling into the top of the net from the most acute angle, hell yeah! Rinse and repeat. Hell hell yeah yeah. The author also scored a brace. The first from a sweetly timed corner kick from The Prince® and the second a midcourt intercept and toepoke. Nice.

Après, to the Union for a fishburger.

Meanwhile the world continues to implode. The National Guard are sent into Chicago, Nigel Farage is polling 31% of the popular vote and Pauline Hanson has over twice the support of the Greens. It’s looking more and more like the imminent AI apocalypse, as prophesisied by Eliezer Yudkowsky, will come as a relief. At least the Grifter in Chief can still be trusted for a quote

“I said: ‘It’s not our president. We can’t have it.’ I’m very careful, you know, when I walk downstairs for – like I’m on stairs, like these stairs, I’m very – I walk very slowly. Nobody has to set a record, just try not to fall because it doesn’t work out well.” 

1-4 v Lieutenants
CBm, DC1m, CG, RH, TW, AWm

Memory is a strange thing. It is arguably the most fundamental facet of human experience. Without memory there literally is no experience of experience. Like the inaudible falling tree in an observer-less forest can a system be said to exist without persistent data storage. Shit happens but if you can’t remember it happening then what’s the freaking point? And what, may you ask, is the point of stating something so obvious. We all know, from countless artist statements, that it’s all “about memory and place”. But without memory that leaves only place. I know the game was played at Brunswick Secondary College. A few breadcrumbs left on Amazon’s web servers point to the fact that we played The Lieutenants. Those same AWS servers would also, however, point towards two other contradictory crumbs of data. a) That we also played the Lieutenants last week and b) that we in fact played another team, Gabriel 5. So where does this leave us, which is it? In days of yore one would have turned to ones onboard neurochemical storage system. But alas, it is weak. Through a combination of manual cognitive overrides in late adolescence, voluntary middle aged recall outsourcing and basic mental laziness, there is nothing there… ah well.

3-11 v Harchester
DC(2,M),CG, TK, TW, SJG (1)

So that was that, possibly the last game the Nannas ever play. On Thursday it was all elbow bumps and half jokes about who would be struck down first. Joel assured me kicking goals was the best way to fight off a virus. The main concern at that point was Rhian and Chassy yet again prioritising their weekly date night over a commitment to their brother Nannas. Adding insult to injury was the Captains gas-lighting claim to have contacted Guido as a ring-in. Turns out he had been lining up a bi-twin with “Guido” in Geelong… “if you’re available ?”. But at least he made an effort, unlike the the other members of upper management who were just palming out lobsters and graceless facials. Giller on the other hand got nude in public for the Nannas, well, he got changed during a live broadcast ( the sound of his underpants and what lies beneath only mm from the mic ) in order to make it to the game. Kondo was there, Tao was there, and so was Si, the most dedicated of ring-ins. 5 True Heros of Nanna™ against the green hooped celtic foes of old, Harchester. It wasn’t a great game but at least we kept our pants on, 2 goals from corners and a third near the end was some small quantam of solace. After the game Giller, Kondo and I went to Miss Moses for some live funk ( careful not to touch anything, apart from ‘touching it”, obviously) and the partook of the perfect post match beverage (when you’re not drinking alcohol, like an idiot (except giller, who is not an idiot))); a lemon, lime &  bitters but with half lemonade/half soda, not too sweet, not too austere, perfect. I then finished the night with a falafel from Very Good Falafel , which was slightly crazy given I’d already had a falafel pita for lunch, but it was, as the name would suggest, very good – super crunchy without being serrated, and excellent use of jalapenos…

But what now ? The novel corana virus Covid 19 (or “the Chinese Virus” as the hopefully-soon-to-be-dead-from-it POTUS prefers) is cutting a path of destruction through the world. As at Wednesday 18 ASPIC is still open for business, but the Nannas won’t be there and its hard to guess when they will return. Is this (SARS x10) + the stock-market crash of ’87 + (the GFC x3) ? or is it the Spanish flu meets the Great Depression or is it The Walking Dead meets the Road ? Should the nannas be activating their long hatched climate apocalypse plans to hijack a Russian nuclear icebreaker and head for the oceanic hills? should they just be kicking back at home riding it out, gardening, reading great novels and playing parlor games with their just-a-joy-to-be-with teenagers, should they be scouring the internet for expert analysis and insight from religious american internet startup tech bros with all the numbers “just crunching the math”… or is it actually time to push on with that long-postponed opium addiction and just chill the freaking hell out !! who knows. crazy times.

Time Stamp: 1:40pm 18 Mar 2020:
199574 Confirmed Cases
7975 Deaths

6-9 v 6 guys 1 Cup – Mt Alexander College (no Dolan)
CB(2), DC(4,m), CG, JH, RH, TH, TK, TW

A rare and precious thing, 2 subs and not a ring-in to be seen… so it was on this day of crazy weather. 39 degrees and winds that were blowing large trees almost flat to the ground. The captain mused that it’s what you’d expect if the devil was put in charge of the weather. Not only was Beelzebub at wheel with infernal heater but s/he switched it up hitting the air-con mid afternoon with a cool change (and more wind, fans still on high) just to further add to overall the sense of impending climatic doom… ScuMo, eat a massive bag of salted dicks you preposterously massive fuck !

anyway.

We were 6 brown (actually white cis hetero) men warming up on the ancient and glorious (yet now confusingly non-blue) wooden floorboards of the Mt Alexander College gymnasium when we were greeted by the pleasant and unheralded arrival of Mr Weis from the adlands or east gippsland. The warm up continued; long passing, short passing, 1 touch, shots on goal, a spot of ‘the old hack’, yet no sight of the opposition was to be had. Stan hobbled around the court like a 90 yr old, the warm up continued and finally a bunch of smooth faced 17yr olds in purple tops arrived. And so to kickoff.

The Nannas were up for it. The youth may not have had much in the way of facial hair or bitter life experience but they had foot skills and pace to spare. But the nannas were rightly fortified by their collective, nearly 20 years of hive mind thinking, 2 decades of communal mental and physical labour… and that warm up.

By halftime we were 4-1 up. Goals: from a ‘stuppashin’, a free kick and some great setpieces (kind of ) Nannas running onto perfectly placed corner kicks… it was looking good. Then they swapped up their goalie at halftime and shit went downhill, fast. ah well. It was a freaking good game and the Nannas were totally boss !

Aprés Kondo suggested a malaysian joint and ordered up a storm (even without the Beef Rendang) the only downer was the warm beers… Then we headed to Joe’s on the off chance that Wal might take a break from blowing smoke up our collective hive arse, which he did, which was awesome! As we headed into the night the authors resolve, weakened by that last pint, finally evaporated and he inveigled his way into Liz Smileys tin of funk, barebacking little brassy in a high street alcove. Suitably elevated it was then on to ‘Top Shelf’ for single malts and self deluded Javascript insights… oh sweet Object, how much I love, yet how little I understand thee…

Fuck Scott Morrison, you dick !!!

7-2 v Dynamo Tehran, Brunswick Secondary
CB (2), DC (5, m), CG, RH, TH, TW

–

2019 is really proving to be quite the nostalgia trip. Drinking beer at the Lounge; playing retro arcade games; going to ACMI. And tonight’s game of futsal totally went there with a veritably archival display from the Nannas against our old friends Dynamo Tehran. This was golden era Nannas, like David Milch was show running the game, like Vince Gilligan was writing our moves. 

It started off slow, keeping the audience expectations low, the Nannas going a goal down early on. But then the Coach, finding himself on the right of midfield with nowhere to go, opted for a scoop pass over the top. The author followed the graceful arc of the ball over his right shoulder, at which point the script called for an outlandish waist height half volley, like that was going to happen, but it’s actually the early 2000s now and the Nannas aren’t middle-aged old farts anymore and bang, in it goes, unbelievable. But to keep the audience guessing Vince now throws in a second goal for the Bike Powered Iranians. Ooooooo. The Nannas rose tinted fairytale has clouded over. But no, freaking hell no, freaking hell-will-freeze-over-before-I-wear-clothes-I-didn’t-personally-scrounge-out-of-massive-bin-and-pay-for-by-the-kilo-in-the-90s no… this is not how it is going to go. The rose tinted fairytale is going to become a vermillion saturated orgy of engorged goals, golden showers of golden era massive testicular defensive impenetrablity. 

As the credits roll on our standard definition 4:3 dreamscape the camera pans past the scoreboard. In bright red LED (because although it’s really 2003, strangely, LEDs are already in widespread use for scoreboards) we see the numeral 7 and the numeral 2. We hear the cheering of the crowd and we can almost hear the smiles on the faces of the Nannas. Like some kind of hot tub time machine the Nannas have been rinsed in the glories of the past, bathed, cleansed and spun out with the sparkling glow of a vintage win against an old and noble foe.

From there we moved to an EXT – NIGHT shot of bikes sliding through the brunswick balm towards a thursday porterhouse at the retreat (Tao got jibbed), pints of beer (Tao got anti-jibbed with the first round of Panhead pale ale) and a presage for the Coach and the Author of the combustion apocalypse that was going to engulf Chasbenis™ on his birthday paddle… oh dear.

7-6 v Phil with the Big Moustaches’s Pink Team from the League Above Us Due to a Forfiet

dc(3,M), ec(2), cb(2), rh, th(GK), tw,  aw(AC), sb (supporter)

Great game Nannas. It was a forfeit for so we had the points in the bag and Phil with the big moustache’s men in pink had already played a game beforehand but still, it was great game. Complete with comebacks and a narrowly averted reverse comeback draw. 3rd String Goalie Sir Coachalot was massive in goals, shutting shit down with the ancient reptilian back brain hockey goalie muscle memory. Chasbian was the hustle master, harrying and hounding those in vermillion, forcing turnovers left and right and slotting home a couple of tidy little numbers to boot. Toaser was also in fine hustling form and worked the wide channels to great effect. Elliot brought his usual youthful energy and some deft foot skills, at one point taking a long ball from the coach and turning two of the opposition in one fluid move before sliding the ball into the bottom left corner of the goal. The Captain was a constant outlet, making run after run and peppering the goal from both flanks. The MOM managed a hatrick but also a few wayward passes and a couple of should-have-looked-and-passed-instead-of-shooting-from-halfways. Sol was a vocal supporter and Wal turned up for the second half earning another badge for his Holy Order of Arse Coaches Cassock. The game was also documented in a rare moment of mid 2000s gopro flashback (followed by the mandatory day of javascript fumbling trying to write an auto-retiming algorithm)

post game we went to the Retreat for cheap steaks and some suspiciously thin Steam Ales.

post pub we went to Gello Bar ( Chasbian’s failed attempt to distract from the Slurpees that Sol and El were angling for) where Tao tried the Avergae, apparently a mix of Averna and Algae “You wouldn’t think it would work, but it does”.

meanwhile: Robert Mueller appears to be closing in on Individual One as Michael Cohen admits to lying. Labor absolutely smashed the Victorian election, which is good for  a solar rebates. Michael Kroger ( who I think might have some indigenous ancestry, which would be deeply ironic) has resigned after Jeff Kennet said he should on live TV. Knickers the cow (steer) is actually quite big and Arsenal finish top o father group in the Europa League with a game to spare. Perhaps most importantly though Andy ‘Walmartin’ Wong, the Life Coach’s Life Coach, dropped a bit of a bombshell of this own, yes, a blatant heritage violation, removing a drunken chimney from his property, outrageous. He also mentioned that his appearances on the court of battle may be significantly reduced due to osteoarthritis in his big toe. It sounds a lot like some kind of greek euphemism but apparently it’s true. Some fluid came out when Andy’s bone went in ? or something like that. In any case it would appear that Andy’s HOAC cassock and brown tie may be getting more of a workout than usual… RIP in the chat.

ps. it was Sillustani in Peru with the crazy awesome pre-incan funeral towers, but I can’t find any definitive internet proof that the name refers to the bit of land where the chulpas are located being shaped like a “toe” poking into the lake…