Keith and Kev.s Daily Diary

Day 1.
We arrived in Sheffield with no major terrorist threats encountered along the way. This unexpected good fortune put us in high spirits until we had to walk a couple of miles to the accommodation. Initially we thought the place was a dump but they are some Spanish neighbours which make it bearable. The Weekly shopping which was undertaken by Turlough consisted of 10 tins of sardines , some tins of tuna and a bag of pasta! To his credit he did make a nice meal out of it, but we would have eaten the crotch of a low flying duck at that stage.

So we got to the pool to play our warm up games against the Aussies and the Kiwi.s , we didn.t keep scores because No.1 we didn.t have any to count and No.2 they scored too many to count, we reckon they just edged it though. So far we.ve had one injury to Brian who got a puck in the face , hence we all went and bought the regulation mouth guards.

So back to lodgings that night and we managed to entertain ourselves for a couple of hours with the official programs , some interesting photos in there!

Day 2

Up early to get ready for what we expected to be a pretty exciting opening ceremony. Got to the pool at about 11.00 am. We than had to wait outside with all the other teams for an hour in the cold. We were just behind the Hungarian team in the Queue to enter the arena, by the way the Hungarian.s had one guy there with a flag. We assume there will be more players arriving to help him out.

When we finally arrived in the arena we got a chance to catch up on some much needed rest as the Sheffield water polo team gave us a demonstration of their .skills..

The lord mayor of Sheffield , gave a speech about Sheffield , where she managed to say the word . Sheffield . about 50 times. The English head of underwater hockey also gave a speech we gathered it was about how boring English people are when they give speeches , but we don.t know because we beat ourselves unconscious at this point because it seemed less painful.

Later today we.ll play the U19 Kiwi team , most of whom look like they.ve been beaten about the head with a puck since birth. ( the pictures are in the program ). That.s it for now.

Day 8

Well the gsme against Belgium went very much according to plan , we stuffed them 7-4, that shut the F*#kers up. Captain Mick Boland set a bad example to the rest of the team by getting thrown out of the pool. Apart from that there was no notable incidents in the match apart from the fact that I set up a goal for Turlough, Keith that is. At this point we'd like to mention how great Kev is.

The Belgium match was officially old man Nolan's last game as an Elite Man. So we threw him in the pool and tried to rip his kacks off in front of the kiwi U19's girls team. We'll take a moment to pay tribute to old man Nolan.

Ode to Nolan
Old as the hills , bald as a coot,
He moves through the water like a diseased newt
Whiny by morn , grumpy by night
Oh those bicycle shorts they were a sight.
In his eyes could be seen a sad soul
He inspired the team with a meaningless goal,
He Infected us all with his septic throat
But we have to say we’ll miss the old goat.

By Keith and Kev
We love you old man .

Moving right along, Peter Cunningham has been traumatised by the slur on his name and at this juncture we'd like to point out that any sniffing is alleged and may not actually have happened.

Today we played Spain in a must win match which we went ahead and drew 3-3. This put us fifth in our group overall. We were slightly disappointed as we now don't get a shot at the top eight. We would have had a match against South Africa who already beat us 16-1 (thanks for the one, Hugh). So without our goal machine that was Hugh Nolan we'd have had no hope. So as it stand we now have two days off and will probably have to play Spain again on Wednesday to ensure 12th overall.

To celebrate getting through the group stages we went to see snakes on a plane and I'll tell you now to save the money on the cinema ticket and wait til they show it on tv, and when it's on watch the other side there'll probably be something better on. Turlough "geezer" Remedios now holds the world record for worst ever chat up line; holding a tub of ice-cream, and saying "So how do you cook this?" We would also like to congratulate Ciaran on both replacing Hugh as the seediest facial hair wearer on the team, and on finally working out how to use the toilet brush. We welcome connor Cassidy, the new sheriff, and the fastest mouth in the west.

Finally this is my sad sign off, (Kev) as my last game was today. Its been emotional. I will leave my team in the charge of Mighty Mick, and my beloved column in the care of my boon companion and fellow columnist, Keith. Look after her mate. Look after her like she was your own. Which I guess she is in a way. Goodbye to my adoring public. You may see me again. Probably on a supermarket commercial.

Kev "puckmeister" Chisholm