news:8ILj8.7182$W8.58861@news.indigo.ie...
> Thanks.  I get here early.  Not quite as early as Zeigermann though.
> He gets here incredibly early, puts a towel on everyone's cock and
> then comes back after lunch and sucks them off.  It's a clever tactic,
> I must admit, but it's not a particularly sporting way of giving head.

Trouble is, he's so good at this that he can apply the system to seemingly
anything. I remember one time we played on the same reserves team, against
UKSFC-MU Reserves. I was just starting to make a name for myself as a
promising youngster, and hoping to maybe impress enough for a chance in the
first team, while Zeigermann was recovering from a short-term caps lock
injury.

I was having the best game so far of the five I had played in- relaxed,
confident, commanding in midfield and very dangerous going forwards. In the
opening thirty minutes, I scored two goals. The first, a simple tap-in from
a well worked counter-attack started by myself and involving Zeigermann, Dat
and a streaker named Clyde. The second, a blistering strike from all of
thirty yards, which beat the keeper by miles and ricocheted in off the
underside of the bar. Early in the second half, I put Dat through for our
third, with a beautifully flighted diagonal pass.

As the game drew towards a close, and a three-goal win looked in the bag, I
noticed that manager Michael Cunningham had taken up a seat in the stand,
presumably having been alerted during the interval as to the outstanding
performance his young proteges, recovering injured's and useful
squad-players were producing for coach Conlan. It seemed like it might be
too late for me to make any immediate impression on him, but I wasn't too
worried as I had enjoyed the game so much, and anyway news would be sure to
reach him of my efforts.

Then, in the dying seconds of injury time, a chance! RedDevil, having a
dreadful game for UKSFC-MU reserves, handled in the box, and the ref gave a
penalty. For a moment, I assumed someone older would take it, but then I
realised most of the players on both teams had turned round and were looking
straight at me. One of their players even rolled the ball towards me with
the underside of his foot, and whispered "time to collect your hat-trick
son, you've earned it". I couldn't believe my luck, and felt suddenly and
surprisingly relaxed about taking the spot-kick. It's like, I just _knew_ it
was going in. My mind was completely focused.

I picked up the ball, and as I did so my field of vision began to close in
on the goal. Other players, the stand behind the goal, the ref, everything
except the goal itself faded to a blur. What's more, the goal had started to
look enormous, and their goalkeeper had started to look tiny. He certainly
didn't look like he was about to save a penalty. In fact, he looked like
even _he_ knew it was going in.

As I leant down to place the ball on the spot, all was silent. The only
things I could hear were my own heartbeats, my own breath, the goalie
shaking a little with fear, and...what's this...a voice? Who's voice?
Zeigermann's. It said- "_Not_ so fast, yer young scamp. Have a closer look
at the penalty spot."

He was grinning broadly. I looked down at the penalty spot, and saw...the towel.
Zeigermann's towel, as it turned out. It had been there since before the
start of the game, but none of us had really taken any notice of it,
stupidly assuming it to be just debri strewn from the crowd. Most of us had
never played in the first team, so we didn't know until then what he was
like. If we had, maybe a different story.
Of course, and to everyone's dismay, we all knew we had to let him take the
penalty. No-one really saw the point as it was obvious he would be back
scoring for the first team soon anyway, so how could scoring a meaningless
goal in a reserves match mean anything to him? But, we also knew the rules
were the rules. And so it was to a backdrop of slow, muted applause that
Zeigermann thumped the ball past the predictably ineffective goal keeper and
ran to the touchline to show his shirt number to the onlooking manager. Even
the ref looked gutted for me.

To be fair, and for many of the reasons given above, I don't think that
episode in itself really made any difference to my chances of a place in the
first team, but you can imagine my frustration when I went to look at the
new team-sheet that Friday to find that it too was covered by Zeigermann's
towel. During the resulting tantrum I broke three toes and a trophy-stand,
and it would be another three months before I would make my full debut.

Joe