MacDaddy reminisces with some of his favourite match reports since the inception of harbourrugby.com
21 August 2010

Right, f**kers, listen up. Rattue and his crowd at the Auckland Herald - 'Mouthpiece of the Scum' - have come up with a new way of getting news. They say shit that's controversial then get someone else in the office to report it. F**king genius. Miracle that I didn't think of it. So, with my own juices going through a dribbly spell and with Lindsay Knight's own powerful release on the history of Harbour now on the shelves, I thought I'd go back through a few match reports of yesteryear which some of you c**ts out there might not know about. Because we're into all that interactive shit here, you can find the reports by clicking on the 'Match Reports' section of your computer box machine. Or maybe the editor will use some of those highlighty things that take you direct to the page, [Editor: Done] thusly helping you avoid having to rip your PC from the wall and fire it out into the neighbour's yard. Whatever: this is a time for reflecting, reminiscing, and getting mothered. Much like any other time.

1. v Counties, Saturday August 12th, 2000. Won 58-15

Sample: As the huge and typically passionate masses sat - packed into the North Harbour Stadium Theatre of Dreams like two grapes in a miniskip - and watched Harbour systematically destroy the uncultured Barbarian Hordes from the Bombay Hills in befitting manner, only one truly accurate conclusion could be drawn: Counties/Manukau are arse and deserve to be relegated.

Our first match report. Full of youth, we were, tinged but with creeping melancholic suspicion that our union's best days were behind us. Perceptive articulation of how many fans we don't get to games, even when we're winning by mountains. Guys like Te Nana, Ellis, and Buddha McFarland were on the scoresheet that day, and I'm pretty sure I was a bit pissed.

2. v Auckland, Saturday September 1, 2001. Won 16-5

Sample: Forsooth, the Gods blew forth the fretful elements hence to the Stadium of Echoes and, contending with the swirled winds and the lashings of the sulph'rous all-shaking rains, the true and devoted legions did huddle together to crack nature's moulds: to throw defiance at Nature's germens; to consign the evil, despised sea-serpents back over yonder bridge; to ingest much ale-of-merriment; and - for but one of the hardy souls - to cast off clothing with gay abandonment.

If the world was in shock through September 2001, you wouldn't f**king know it by reading our website. After the win against the Scum, we got the decaying corpse of Will Shakespeare drunk and asked him to knock up a few passages. And who doesn't like getting drunk and knocking up a few passages? Frano Botica got himself on the scoresheet - nice connection back to the days of inception - and 10 days later, nutty c**ts murdered people by driving planes into shit. Four days after that, we spanked the Bay. Great days.

3. v Waikato, August 24, 2002. Lost 16-28

Sample: Where Paris sticks its Tour d'Eiffel or London its Benjamin Grande or New York its Tours Double (or not), Hamilton erects a couple with a baby, a dog and a cow - a suggestion as frightening as it is pertinent. Just where man ends and bovine begins is as shady an area as the back of the milking shed in that dark hour before dawn when dreams and reality, man and beast, merge.

What you get from our reports is hard-hitting factual social commentaries combined with the sort of high-falutin' literary genius that middle-class Remmers mums wet their panties over. Montana f**king Poetry Awards, here we come.

4. v Otago, September 14, 2002. Lost 23-29

Sample: Below I have detailed a satirical plan to be implemented at each home fixture to ensure we continue to lose and treat our fans (of which there are four) like complete monkeys.(no offence to our Southland cousins six times removed)

1. Pipe Band
As part of the amazing and atmosphere-building pre-match entertainment extravaganza, employ the services of a pipe-band or similar display in order to make our respected opponents feel like they are at home. This pleasant and harmonious sound will ensure that the away team are well settled and comfortable. This extension of the "fellowship of rugby" should give them at least 7-10 points start on Harbour and make for a more friendly and enjoyable game all-round.

Brilliant. Especially the bit about Southland cousins, which simultaneously damns them and us.

5. v Wellington, September 15, 2003. Won 15-3.

Sample: Wellington - A Diary of an Alcoholic and friends.

12.00pm
Arrived in the capital and made our way to the inner city hotel accommodation. Lovely vista of the tower next door and no indication of the excitement that was to unfold.

1.15pm
After paying a courtesy call to the Beehive and retrieving our tickets from the Union's sparse living quarters we headed to our first bar of the day. (Malthouse)
Alcohol consumed: Guinness (on tap)
Quantity consumed: 1 pint
Quality: Surprisingly good

If you c**ts read nothing else, this is the sort of genius that you'd better not go to your grave missing out on. Our intrepid roving reporter - who would go on to shag rodents and give birth to a hamster - was in his alcoholic element.

6. v Canterbury (RS), September 24, 2006. Won 21-17.

Sample: Christchurch is never much fun, trapped as it is in a sort of tumbleweed land where bestiality, buggery, and oily incest sit easily with Hitler Youth and Asian-bashing. Rugby is pretty much all they've got down there which is why they're usually so good at it, apart from Caleb Ralph.

This match report has an associated photograph of George Pisi looking good, the Shield, and a drunk fan doing a retarded re-interpretation of Edvard Munch's 'Scream' painting. You know you love it.

There you are then. Don't say I don't spoil you. Six of the best and not-so-best writing you'll ever see, so get onto it, all you fans who prefer your history from the common man. Pull up a tankard, send the missus off down the shops, and take a stagger down memory lane. Better still, have a read while you're at work and tell the boss to go f**k himself. Worked for me. Still unemployed, but.