Top 5: My Best Moments of 2010

So, hot on the heels of the Worst of 2010 is the Best, which proves, if anything, that I’m not just a negative bastard. Not all of the time anyway.

1. Spurs not only made the Champions League but have been doing the business ever since. Now they might not win it but for this particular fan of 25 years, football nirvana has already been reached...

2. My niece – the football prodigy herself – is now officially amongst the best dozen or so in her age group across all of Wellington. I'd like to think my coaching had something to do with it, but probably not.

3. I coached the best bunch of girls, ever, who reminded me just why it is I love coaching so much and revitalised my passion when it was at an all time low.

4. The only thing to feature in both lists – the ending of Lost. Not since the Matrix trilogy has a bit of moving picture moved me in the way the Lost TV series and ultimately, the ending did. Non believers will, of course, take the piss but I don’t give a flying fuck; this is my list, not yours. Oh and did I mention I love you Kate?

5. Weddings – particularly Emski & Melski’s (some of my best MC work) and Sully & Jess’s (some of my best groomsman work). I love a good wedding and this year I was lucky enough to be part of two great ones.

Maybe I should send Kate some pendants...?

Kickin' It With My Girls

Just when I thought that memorable weekends were a thing of the past I have two of my Top Five, ever, in the one year.

First was Melski’s and Emski’s wedding in May. Second was just this weekend past and our taking my girls football team to the world famous in NZ McCartney tournament in Taupo.

Now I’ve coached a lot of football, seven years worth to be exact, but I’ve never had a team that has left me with such a sense of reward as my girls have this season. Don’t get me wrong, I love my boys too, not in an NAMBLA way mind you, but girl’s football is different to that of the boys.

Oh and I recommend you don’t Google that particular acronym unless you really want to see the Department of Internal affairs confiscate your hard drive in a 6am dawn raid.

Girls approach the game differently. They play in the true spirit of the game where with the boys stuff gets real serious real fucken quick and pretty soon no one is really enjoying themselves. Unless you’re winning, then that’s pretty cool.

My girls still have that same desire to win but they go about it differently. They look at the game holistically and understand that to win they all need to play well as a team. Boys will always try and do it alone. Always.

My girls also soak stuff up like a sponge. If I teach one of them a turn I know I’ll see it executed the very next game, do the same with my boys and I’ll be waiting weeks before they decide that they’ll give it a go.

And I had forgotten how much fun girls in a group are, particularly between the ages of 11 and 14 like mine are. Needless to say once someone mentioned that they’d be carrying my balls on the road trip up it became the running joke that I could never quite live down. And here was I thinking I had heard every in-your-end-o comment that could be made regarding balls in a bag...

On the field they did me proud, off it they were just as impressive. Not that they were the only ones; an early highlight of the weekend was a group of older girls calling out to me “nice boots”. Oh yes. You know you’ve made good in the footballing world when shit hot female footballers dig your F30’s..

There is one added advantage of having 11 & 12 year old girls in the car; they don’t mind the songs you have on your iPod that you chose in the hope it would somehow help you regain your youth, because they sing along to Lady Gaga and Ke$ha just as loud as you do. The Jonas Brothers track did raise an eyebrow though, admittedly.

So girls, heaven forbid none of you ever read this because this blog is filthy and clearly written by someone very immature, but if you are or do, you should know that you rocked my world this weekend.

I hereby adopt you all as my own.

It Was The Best of Times...

This weekend I had one of those rarest of occurrences – the time of my life.

Emski and Melski, two of my favourite people, committed themselves to a life together in front of a small group of family and friends. It was an evening filled with trepidation, emotion, laughter and tears and in my experience those things make for the best kind of evenings.

The girls had the considerably good taste to ask yours truly to be their MC for the evening and I won’t lie to you, it was some of my best work but then that’s easy to produce when you’re doing it for people you love. I was so on song that I never once made a two girl one cup joke the entire evening...

Perhaps it was the warm summer air, the fluoridated Napier water or maybe, just maybe it was simply the expression of love in its purest form, but whatever it was it made for a hell of a weekend and one I won’t forget for a long, long time. I’m even going so far as to put it in my top five weekends of all time. It was that good.

Well done girls, you were both magnificent and for once it was I that was a close second.