Surprise finalists win big on banter
ADAM Hollioake has never seen passion like it, which is pretty scary considering he’s played in an Ashes cricket series and punched on as a mixed martial artist.
“This has been something else,” the former England one-day skipper said of the fallout of the “Steve Bradbury” moment that has guided his latest sporting team to the grand final of the Thursday Night Division 2 indoor cricket comp at Ashmore’s Gold Coast Indoor Sports.
“I thought Steve Waugh took his cricket seriously but he’s got nothing on these blokes.”
“These blokes” are the wannabe athletes of Jesus Brian and the Pecking Ducks, two sides that epitomise the dozens of social men’s sporting teams that battle for middle-aged bragging rights each night.
Grey hair galore, beer bellies aplenty and an insatiable desire to relive their sporting youths despite their ageing bodies screaming at them to stay on the couch.
“But that would mean missing out on seeing your mates,” said Brian Usher, the man who puts the “Brian” into “Jesus Brian” and oversees a team including Hollioake, radio host Sean “Flan” Flanagan and Big Brother alumni Trevor Butler.
“Just because we’re all hopeless doesn’t mean we can’t have fun and there’s nothing more fun than qualifying for a grand final despite losing miserably.”
Which brings us to that Steven Bradbury moment.
In last week’s semi-final, the boys from Jesus Brian were thrashed by the Pecking Ducks. Walloped. Hammered. Choose your verb.
The only problem was the Ducks used a non-qualified player and were subsequently disqualified, leaving the Jesus crew to rise from the dead for this week’s decider.
And that’s where the story would have ended, except the boys from Jesus Brian uploaded a photo of speed skater Bradbury’s accidental Olympic gold medal-winning moment to the team’s Facebook page, along with tongue-in-cheek references to being an “honest” side and the Ducks’ “shifty” play.
Cue a social media war.
“It was on a technicality,” a Duck commented on the post. “Labelling us as cheaters is a low blow.”
After a day of back-andforth comments, most of them highly entertaining, even the officials felt the need to step in.
“It’s great to see such passion,” Gold Coast Indoor Sport wrote. “That said, I wish to assure everyone that … there is absolutely no suggestion of cheating.”
Such banter resonates with every man who knows how it feels to leave the couch on a midweek night in search of his social sporting dreams.
As Usher noted: “It’s great to see such passion from all these old blokes. They live for the contest – and the beers after the game with no wives or children.”