Gone in 60 Minutes

On the 24th of October 2015, at approximately 12:00, a motley crew of Novocastrians assembled in Sutherland Car Park, the destination Sunderland. As was customary everyone arrived in dribs and drabs hoping to secure the highly sought after “Marshall Lateness Award”, an honour eventually bestowed upon the slightly hung-over Andy Gardinder. After the assembled team recounted tales of how they had been out the night before and licked the face of a ropey looking transvestite (John Marshall), it was time to head off to the bright lights of Sunderland.

Readers, this reporter opted to enter the Glorious Leader’s pimp wagon accompanied by HRH Selkirk, a man claiming to know the area we were heading to “like the back of his hand”- more on this later. The convoy didn’t get off to the best start as we were notified that we had left our new French debutant Vincent Wiel back at the club house so had to immediately return, adding unwanted additional time to the journey. Finally, once fully assembled, the long march down south began, safe in the knowledge that we would be able to make up any lost time thanks to the local knowledge of Mr. Selkirk, the Sat. Nav, was subsequently ignored and we were subsequently very lost and very late.

Upon arriving with minutes to spare before kick-off, we felt assured that the rest of the team, who had arrived earlier, would have been warming up and organizing one another in preparation for the match. Needless to say, everyone was stood on the pitch not warmed up having a chat- not a great start. After the authority of the Leader graced the pitch, things were promptly organized and disciplined, and the kick off delayed by fifteen minutes to allow for a brief warm up.

Unsure as to what to expect, Novos received the kick off with the mindset to play an organized and expansive game plan thanks to the promising halfback pairing of Justin Taylor and Christian Selkirk. The first ten minutes demonstrated what this team is capable of with a good platform set by the forwards and fast, fizzing passing in the backline allowing a speedy and skillful set of backs to tear the aging Sunderland defence to shreds. After the ten-minute mark the thread began to unravel, after some contentious offside decisions, HRH Selkirk decided to have a polite discussion with the referee, as did Captain Pratt. For some reason the referee had an aversion to the polite conversation he was being subjected to and sent both players to the bin, Novos down to thirteen men.

In the next ten minutes, Hooker JP ironed out the confusion amongst the ranks and some ferocious tackling from the likes of Josh Floyd and Ollie “The Hulk” Dearden set the tone for the rest of the team. Despite conceding a try within the ten minutes, Novos scored two themselves I cannot remember who scored at this point but it was probably Nick Byrne who bagged a handy four tries- the pick of which was a catch from the kick off and him beating the entire Sunderland team en route to the try line. I could spend the rest of this report recounting each individual try, however there were twelve in total, honourable mention must go to the irrepressible David Marshall, whose brilliance never ceases to amaze us, for his length of the pitch score.

A man of the match performance was given by Ollie Dearden, a man clearly happy to be back in the fold and with the immortal words of Lil’ Jon ringing in his ears he took to the pitch and “got low”, tackling everything that moved, scoring two tries and causing multiple ructions from the Sunderland team. Despite concerns about his weight in the pre-match build up, he proved the doubters wrong, impressing everyone and inspiring a generation much in the same vein as his lookalike Kris Akabusi.

Upon returning to the club the awards were handed out and a jolly good time was had by all, Vincent Wiel proved his worth by downing a dirty pint that Dearden was unable to, and discussions were had as to who actually scored and how many.

Written by Jack Salt