Wombats Shafted By Legends

Game Date: 13/11/2002

It was another night of shame for volleyball tonight. The opponent was the Legends, captained by the old fart whose primary occupation seems to be doling out the glass premiership trinkets to the winning teams each season, the time was 8:15 and the turf was court 3.

The bulk of the Wombats arrived well before game time, and were hardly surprised to see Kempy v3.01 shuffling slowly past reception, having played his final game the previous week. Passing the bionic former Wombats team anchor, the team formed the usual rough semicircle and started playing the usual game of volleyball-squash against the wall. Inspirational team captain Damo arrived shortly before game time, and was seen to take several large gulps from a hip flash before joining his charges on the court. Thus, the team comprised Damo, Bayls, PJ, Kel, Craigie, Totti and Rick. Kel was again without the red volleyballing strides that have struck fear into many foes over the years, Bayls was without his Karate Kid bad-guy outfit, and in a telling sign of in-depth strategy, Rick's chin was now as bald as an infant's pudenda, devoid of the goatee he'd been religiously cultivating over the past season.

The opposition meanwhile were a cluster of broken down old wheezers with barely enough air in their wizened lungs to dispute umpiring calls. The Wombats though can never be accused of ridiculing either the physical appearance, mental state, or volleyballing prowess of any opposition, embracing the noble art of volleyball in its purest form; mere servants of the great game, upholding the precious tenets of fair play and good sportsmanship.

Having said that, the 'Bats were in for a disappointing night as the Legends would be playing with a 7th team member in this match. POON team member and part time amateur umpire, Eddie Clitlips, was obviously playing for the Legends team from the very outset when, with shades of Dirty Sanchez, the rigged toss went against the mighty Wombats. Damo, disgusted with the outcome, took a consolatory shot from his hip-flask and then joined his team on court for the opening stanza of the match.

Said game proceeded much the same as the remainder of the season for the Wombats. Serves either cannoned into the net, or flew off at right angles to the court. Bayls in particular was disgusted at this tawdry display of serving ineptitude, regaling the team again and again about the fact that 960324 consecutive easily-spiked lollipops have looped perfectly from his mighty fist over the past 5 seasons. On the occasions when a Wombat serve made it in though, the team was relentless, pummeling and pounding with aggressive fury.

The umpire too was pummeling and pounding, hand thrust down the front of his POON happypants in a loosely clenched fist, as he ruled again and again against the Wombats. On one hilarious occasion, one of the Legends senior citizens fapped a "spike" clearly out of court, only to watch the umpire stare blankly into space. Appealing to the Legends for some trace of reason, the Wombats watched in disbelief as, to a man, the Legends claimed that none of them possessed the ocular dexterity to track the lazily drifting ball as is plopped softly a good metre out of court. The umpire, pausing to remove his hand from his chafed member then issued the double-fonzie to restart the point.

To the 'Bats dismay, this was merely the beginning, as the umpire's ineptitude rapidly began to resemble the cocaine-fuelled hopelessness of Dirty Sanchez in the dawn of the 2002 Summer season. More lineballs were called wrongly, one vicious block was called against the Wombats, despite the wrinkled old geezer on the Legends team croaking "Your point, sonny!" just softly enough that the umpire, now firmly ensconced in the blissful deafness of vinegar-strokes, couldn't hear. The farcical nature of the refereeing came to a head during the 3rd game, when one tottering old Legend stumbled into the net, causing Damo to take a spectacular catch, midpoint. The umpire, seemingly oblivious to the obvious net contact, and also the Legends pensioner weakly pointing with a bony finger towards his osteoporosis-addled elbow, now viciously etched with the pattern of the net, mumbled some nonsensical drivel about the contact being "incidental" to the point. It was ridiculous, it was cheap, and it was stupid, but it was what the 'Bats had come to expect from this umpire over his short tenure on the rickety podium.

The only upshot of these ridiculous calls was the awe-inspiring effect they has on the Wombats big guns. Like the characters in whatever the last movie you saw was where the underdogs get shafted, get pissed off and fight back, the Wombats stomped on the loud pedal and took the game into overdrive. Rick in particular, already pissed off about losing his perfectly manicured goatee, took the umpiring retardedness personally and made it his mission to right the wrongs after every miscalled point. This generally required him to jam the volleyball back down the throat of whichever blowling-club bandit had "won" the previous point for the Legends. It was a stirring display of petulant hostility, accompanied by a chorus of trash-talking from Bayls, Craigie, and PJ, the latter opening his trash-talking account in hilarious style.. The usually reserved Damo, fueled to the eyeballs on cheap liquor, had also found his belligerent side at last, and was backing up the main guns with carefully selected trash of his own. Kel kept the mouth in neutral and as always, let the fists do the talking, stopping furious spikes in their tracks and raining contempt on those who dared serve them up. Totti meanwhile, merely swaggered around the court radiating an air of quiet supremacy as he parried shots back with the casual flick of the back of his wrist.

In the end it was Wombats 1 - Legends 0 - Umpire 2, the 'Bats yet again succumbing to the woes of moronic umpiring. After the game, it was an angry Damo who offered the following bitter words to an eagerly awaiting press contingent:

To add final insult to injury, the geriatric Legends captain conceded in croaking tones that the Wombats were robbed by the umpire on the night, hobbling quickly away before offering any hint of an explanation as to why he didn't raise the point earlier when it might have been remotely useful.

Still, the Wombats are a solid, mature and sportsmanlike unit and never dwell for a second on the vagaries of the game. You take the good with the bad, and don't complain, even when you're obviously shafted by corrupt and useless umpiring. With 2 games remaining in the season, it will be a tough road back for the Wombats. Fortunately for them, one game is against the ESLF, the sponge-hard pushovers whose main claim to fame was miraculously arsing a season victory against an emaciated and decimated Wombats lineup so many seasons ago.