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...?

I Love A Wedding - Even In Oz

Off, then, to Australia for me old mate Sully’s wedding.

And what a week it was. He showed us the bright lights of Brisbane town, I got a tan and spent the day itself surrounded by and looking out for, four gorgeous bridesmaids. Where I come from we’d call that a result.

Now admittedly Australia is a grand place, but there’s something about the thing that just gets on my tits. And not just because it’s full of Aussies.

Actually I met several nice ones whilst there and spotted just as many on their lunch break in the city centre. The inner city girls are a very stylish lot who clearly take a pride in their appearance, so much so I wonder just how anyone manages to work around them. I know I couldn’t.

It got me wondering what they’ve done with all the average looking folk, because I didn’t see many. Maybe it was just that I was so busy trying to check out the female cast of Home and Away that I didn’t notice anyone normal.

Oh and the little school uniforms they wear on shows like that? No one wears anything remotely arousing as that in inner suburbs of Brisbane town and believe me, I checked. Several times. How many disappointed paedophiles have travelled to Australia on the basis of that one I wonder?

Somewhat bizarrely the only crowd that stood out more from the nubile and well dressed were those moving about in small gangs that were neither goth nor emo, but yet all looked like they had hepatitis. It must be an Aussie thing.

The one thing that they do really well, in Queensland anyway, is their roads. They, like slavery, just get shit done. Everything is two or three lanes, minimum and that’s just the residential areas and whereas here in NZ it takes years to fill a pot hole at the end of your street, the Ossies erect things like main arterial bridges between your Gold Coast visits. And we were only there three years ago!

But then the place is so damn big they have to really.

Everything is about carving the quickest route from Point A to Point B and minimising disruption while they do so. Whereas in NZ every second road worker leans on a spade as you take an hour to crawl through 50 metres of roadwork, they just get on with it. In Brisbane they shut down one lane, leaving three. No fucken dramas.

All of which was secondary to the real reason we were that and that was, of course, to see my good mate and fellow World Cup football sweepstake conspirator, Sully, marry his gorgeous misses, Jess. I had the honour of being a groomsman which has all the coolness of the best man with none of the responsibility!

I did take it upon myself to look after Jess and the girls whenever I could. I won’t lie to you; it is an unpleasant job looking after five stunning young ladies but I think I managed to pull it off and what’s more, I have the photos to prove it. I don't think it's a job I'd ever get tired of either...

So well done Mr and Mrs O’Sullivan; you two were outstanding and it was I, for once, who was a close second.

And So Endeth The Fever.

The football World Cup was decided this morning with the very sexual Spain defeating the dirty Dutch in a final that saw the two form sides of the last 18 months line up against each other.

The Dutch are a feisty bunch though aren’t they? I wonder why that is? I’ve known a few Pastry Eaters in my time and they have almost, to the man, been complete nutcases, especially on the football field.

One I knew quite well carried a baseball bat in his car to football matches he was due to play in, just in case things got ‘tasty’. He also took great delight in telling me all about the latest pornographic emails he would get at work which would get through the work mail sweeper because they were written in Dutch.

Perhaps it’s the marijuana in the Daddy’s semen that fertilises the Mummy’s egg, or the hypnotic effect of all those bloody windmills turning over and over...

Anyhoo. Until this morning the Oranje hadn’t lost an international game in 24 matches and the Spanish only twice in the last two years, one of which was at this tournament, so there was an air of inevitability around proceedings I thought.

I did, of course, pick Spain in an earlier blog and had the remarkable fortitude to have them in not one, but two sweepstakes, which given that I ran them both has cast a few eyebrows around these parts. God only knows why.

Must I reiterate again that the sweepstake fixing scandal of 1998 is long forgotten and I went to great efforts to ensure that the ‘lost entry’ scandal of that particular competition was not to repeat itself some 12 years later. Besides, it was all Sully’s doing anyway in 98. He’ll deny it, of course, but it was no coincidence that he and I pocketed some of the winnings that year.

But what a strange old tournament it’s been, what with players being sent home (Anelka of France), goals that weren’t given (Lampard of England) and some that were (Tevez vs Mexico). Talk of over inflated balls and the crazy goalkeeping it produced, four South American teams making the quarters but then none the final and them vuvuzelas. Oh them fucking vuvuzelas.

New Zealand were there of course, drawing all three games and as that idiot Martin Devlin kept telling us at every possible opportunity, right up till the final minute of TVNZs coverage no less, remained the only unbeaten team at the World Cup.

He’s quite correct of course, but a fact that would be made all the more impressive if that extended to seven games and not just the three in pool play before the flight home. Not that that will stop anyway from wheeling that little gem out at every opportunity. Look for that trivia question on Tui stubby caps any day soon.

As the interest of competing nations dropped off at the demise of their teams thus increased the excitement over a certain mollusc, Paul the Octopus, picking results, primarily of Ze Germans but once The Hun was eliminated, of the final too. It was so exciting sometimes you almost forgot there was football to be played at the end of it all.

But at the end of the day football was the winner and not just in Spain where they’ll be partying like they’ve won the World Cup for the first time (which they have), which will make for a nice break from the real estate market collapse which is threatening to bring the country to its knees financially.

For us football fans on this side of the world it will be back to a full night’s sleep and nothing to whack off to in the shower before work anymore other than Pippa Wetzell on Breakfast.

It’s quite the comedown, is going cold turkey after four weeks of quality football, so don’t be surprised if a football fan near you starts to go a bit emo over the next few weeks. At least until the Premiership starts in a few weeks time.

Now, what am I going to do with $75 cash and twelve chocolate bars....

The Pastry Eaters left their mark on Spain, but not the trophy...

...we wouldn't mind playing Dutch Ovens with some of their fans though.