Another memorable awards night last night for the MBFives. I thought I’d collated all the votes and prepared all the comments by cutting and pasting them from the e-mails received from the players when, late on, I received a mail from Martin Evans in Israel, who, like me and Jim Park, is one of the original footballers from way back in the early eighties.
Until I received Martin’s votes, we were headed for quite a few secret ballots on the night to decide tied categories, but his votes settled all but two of those. I blended Martin’s votes and comments in with what I’d already prepared and then came one last late ballot entry from Euan Sinclair. His votes settled the last two remaining ties.
So I arrived at the venue at 7:30 to find just one other member of the troup there. We didn’t start the ritual reading of the comments until around 8:45 by which time ten players had shown up – me, Jim Park, Nigel Simpson, Colin Asquith, Euan Sinclair Mick Moynihan, Paul and Dom Grillo, Gordon Cooke, and a guy called Liam who I’d not met before because the group plays three or four games every week, with some people playing in them all while others, like me, may only play in one.
The money collected each time there’s a game is usually slightly more than necessary and so, over time, a slush fund builds up. Jim famously once put the entire fund on a horse to try and boost our finances – and lost the lot.
Tonight there was enough to keep the drink flowing all evening and we had a great laugh. Jim Park, me and Stu Whittle will all now have awards named after us after we each won particular categories for a third time in a row – a bit like Brazil getting to keep the Jules Rimet trophy in 1970.
Jim won the Coventry City Away Strip 1987 Award for Worst Dressed Player, I won the Statue of Stanley Matthews Award for Most Static Player and Stu, who wasn’t there but whom we texted re his triumph, won the award for Player Most Likely to Shoot and Hit the Roof. Nigel would have the award for person most likely to e-mail anyone about anything named after him after winning it for a third time - but it's already named after him.
Euan Sinclair was player of the year, by dint of receiving three awards - best dressed player, worst goalkeeping gaffe and being the main element in the event of the year – he ripped open his finger right to the bone one night as he tried to jump over a fence to retrieve a lost ball and got his ring caught on part of the fence – ow ya!!
We were finally asked to leave the pub around midnight and I was ready to head home. But Mick and Colin decided it’d be good to get some more drinks (as if I wasn’t drunk enough – it only takes two pints to send me over the edge and I was slurring rather badly by this time). So Me, Jim, Mick, Colin, Gordon Cooke and Liam headed down Leith Walk.
The pub we chose to make for turned out to be shut, but like the true alchies we are, we homed in on another with its lights on. We had a few more drinks and set the footballing world, and quite a few other worlds to rights while Gordon and I compared tracks on our Jukeboxes – he has an I Pod. After the ubiquitous visit to the Chippie, we hailed a cab. I eventually rolled in out of the taxi around two in the morning very much the worse for wear, having dropped off Jim and Colin on the way back to Crispycat Towers.
Man, did I have a stonker of a headache this morning? Oh yes indeedy. Four 400mg Ibuprofen tablets only eased the pain slightly and it took me at least three separate attempts to get myself up and ready for the day ahead (by which time it was half over). It’s now 5:30 and the overall effects of the celebrations are still taking their toll.
We have Martin and Michelle coming round tonight for dinner. Martin’s the IT Guru who put together our new computer and Michelle’s his fiancé. We’ve known them both for probably about five years but this is the first time they’ve been to ours for a meal.
Anne’s preparing the food and is in great spirits as Hearts have just thrashed Celtic 2-0 at Parkhead – I’m buoyant too as the mighty Queen of the South dumped Partick Thistle 3-1 this afternoon and now sit fourth in the 1st Division on goal difference. This is excellent for a part-time side and amazing to think they’re in the top fifteen sides in Scotland.
I just ran through a quick set of the eight songs from "Deeperdown" that I'm reasonably satisfied with and now I’m listening to the new Janacek CD I bought yesterday and it’s a great buy. I thought I had more Janacek but I checked and I have no single composer CDs by him other than this. Superb music. The last movement on the disc, "The Barn Owl Has Not Flown Away" is probably my favourite...
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