Explosive Dukes Cup Action

By Juno Lister

Four thousand expectant fans crammed into the West gate stadium to witness the inaugural Dukes Cup Tournament. The Rams had arrived in the city a few days earlier and the festa atmosphere from the San Pedro fans has been a real focus point for the citizens of Valroma. These strange loud folk from San Pedro seem to have a strange fascination for hand held whistling fireworks and loud petards which have been going off at infrequent intervals all over the city launched from the roofs of their inns and accommodations. When not indulging their frankly dangerous obsession with pyrotechnics they seem to love walking aimlessly up and down the streets in their best clothes staring into people’s doors and windows. Their opponents in the first semi-final Harbads Heroes on the other hand arrived a few minutes before the opening match against The Rams their location in these last weeks still a mystery. Officials insist the team did infact present themselves before the mandatory registration 24 hours previous to the start of the tournament but as no-one seems to be witness to this, this reporter has to wonder if bribery and skullduggery are afoot?

So the Rams lined up hoping that maybe, just maybe, this was the game that would get their first win. This rather hopeful dream was soon banished into a nightmare in the form of a complete blunder by Rams no3 Kalcidon Il-Fatat who fumbled the ball from a Skudd kick-off allowing Heroes Skudd to run him down, push him aside and scoop up the ball to trot into the Endzone. The crowd went wild 1-0 to the Heroes.

From the re-start the plucky little San Pedrians attacked down the flank with No1 Mikiel Mufsid calling for the ball. Kalcidon trying to make a mends for his earlier fumble threw the ball to no7 Wenzu Il-Haxxej but over cooked. il-Haxxej had several Heroes running at him full pelt, but though they came off worse stunning themselves, it was enough to slow il-Haxxej and he couldn’t reach the ball in time,which was scooped up by Skudd for the Heroes.
The remainder of the first half saw the ball bobble about in the Heroes half as SanPedro piled on the pressure but couldn’t find the break-through they desperately needed. The Heroes just absorbed everything The Rams could throw at them.

The second half was much the same, Skudd was having a great game and was sprinting into the Rams half ball tucked into his body until Rams no 6 Cenzu il-Bari made a b-line for him, the clank of metal against metal was deafening as the pair of them ended up in a dented heap.
Then the killer blow! With ten minutes left to go Gripper Khan easily took out Rams no 4 Pietru il-Hafi scooping up the ball and passed it to his team mate Zaargh who was skipping into the endzone as the ball sailed into his hands, the Heroes crowd erupted and a few scuffles broke out on the terraces. The Heroes, now in the final, could sit back and watch the next match closely and plot against the winner of the second semi-final, only a step away from winning silverware. As for the Rams a long journey back to San Pedro, battered, bruised, winless and clueless.

Final score Harbads Heroes 2 San Pedro Rams 0