The challenge was to lose by less than 20 goals and the mighty, mighty GroupThinkFC rose to the challenge, losing by only eight goals. With a final scoreline of 11-3 against the best team in the competition, GroupThinkFC is into the finals series! Bring on the slaughter (of us)!

Respect our authoriteh!

Today is possibly the most momentous day in the history of sport. Ever. For tonight the mighty GroupThinkFC, barring monumental fuckup, will go through to the finals series of its soccer competition.

Is it possible that this uniform could finally demand a little bit of respect?

You read that right, GrodsReaders: GroupThinkFC + finals. This is the same team that has spent three seasons getting predictably and embarrassingly creamed on a weekly basis, but getting gradually better in the process. Better enough, it seems, to clock up a couple of genuinely good wins in the past few weeks and make it into the top four. Of course, given the form of the top three compared to GTFC we’d be slaughtered in the finals, but it would just be nice to play.

Take that, Emos and nerds!

So tonight’s the last game of the regular season and Roger Rogenous (Ant’s brother) has calculated that if we lose by less than 20 goals we’re finals-bound. Mind you, if anyone can lose by 20 goals it’s the people’s football team. Cross your fingers for us and I’ll post a match report tomorrow morning.

And not a moment too soon.

(May or may not be a trophy I “won” for participation in primary school soccer)

After the past few weeks of humiliation we had reached crisis point, where a loss to soccer’s favourite emos would result in GTFC members self-harming. But we won, we won by playing rooly good soccer, and we won for the first time as a complete team with nobody missing. Six glorious goals to two.

Suck shit, emos.

Luckily the game wasn’t without its funny moments thanks to the tall ginger emo who spends most of the game in goal laughing maniacally at things that aren’t funny. At one point he was on the field and marking Jeremy when he shrieked, “Stop looking at my balls! Why are you looking at my balls?” I swear that Jeremy only glanced at ginger’s balls. It was hardly a stare.

Then when the freak was marking me he said, “You look just like my friend Scott. I liiiiike my friend Scott.” Exactly how do you respond to that?

Anyway, despite the late finish we retired to bar for a quick victory beer (or cola for one member — guesses in comments.) Cheers to the mighty, mighty GroupThinkFC!

Bartender! Make mine a cordial.

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of mongs.

The sweet, sweet taste of third place

Remember the bunch of pathetic Emos that facilitated GroupThinkFC’s only win last season? And remember how we were scheduled to fight them for the wooden spoon in the final round but they got scared and didn’t show up? Well, tonight sees the highly anticipated rematch between GroupThinkFC and Target Practice, and this time it’s personal. But a win is not at all a foregone conclusion for two reasons:

1) Champion goalkeeper Ant Rogenous isn’t playing due to “other commitments”, whatever that means; and

2) I’m playing, and I’ve missed every GTFC victory due to “other commitments” or injury, causing my teammates to wonder aloud if my presence at matches is a bad omen.

Place yer bets in comments and wish us luck. Match report later.

UPDATE: A glorious GroupThinkFC victory: 8-7. Suck shit, Emos.

Last night Jeremy Sear, Ant Rogenous and I played the first game of GroupThinkFC’s third season, and at the end of round one we’re sitting pretty in third place with one win. But we lost the game 10-3. I’ll leave it up to you to study the table and work out why.

Purple Cobras? WTF?

Still here! No seppuku as predicted, although last night didn’t exactly go as planned. We showed up at the sports centre only to be told that the gutless emo sops had forfeited the match, so the four points were ours and, most importantly, the wooden spoon wasn’t. However, beating such a sad excuse for a sporting team in the race away from the wooden spoon isn’t exactly an achievement to be proud of.

So we were offered two options: go home or play a replacement team for shits and giggles. We chose shits and giggles, even though there were a lot more shits than there were giggles because the team was from a couple of divisions above ours and they wiped the floor with us 10-0. They were a smart arse bunch of pricks who were head-over-heels in love with themselves. Here are the names from the back of their jerseys in reverse order of fucktardness:

• JOHNNY
• TTFU
• BOT DIDDLE
• CUMB DUNT
• SO… GOOD
• 69 HURRICANE

Plus I — how you say? — did a hammy after only four minutes on the pitch. That makes two injuries for the season and officially makes me the most pathetic and injury-prone member of the team.

But whatever. A victory is a victory and we’ll take them any way they come — that’s the GroupThinkFC way. Bring on season three.

GroupThinkFC is gearing up for its last match of the season tonight, and it’s going to be a fierce battle to avoid the wooden spoon. Remember the team of aggressive emo mongs that we (um, everyone except me, that is) defeated several weeks ago? Well, they’re our adversaries this evening and everything’s at stake.

It’s a bottom-of-the-table battle for ultimate mong status

Only three points separate Target Practice and GroupthinkFC on the table and the winner tonight will walk away with four points. So in a nutshell: a loss tonight will force all members of GroupThinkFC to commit seppuku which, besides from creating a bloody awful mess on court four of the sports centre, will leave Bron, Bridgit and John in charge of GrodsCorp, and put Anonymous Lefty into permanent hibernation.

Actually, when you think about it that may not be such a bad thing.

It’s GroupThinkFC’s second last game of the season today, unless, of course, we make it to the finals. And that’s a real possibility when you consider who we’re playing tonight.

Think Geelong vs. Hawthorn and then unthink it. It’ll be more like Geelong vs. the Brunswick under-8s.

The uniform worn with dignity in defeat

Before I headed off for tonight’s GroupthinkFC match I mentioned to a friend that I had to pay a fee to play. “You mean,” she asked while thinking about our dismal record, “that you’ve got to pay to lose?”

Good point, well made.

But if Jeremy asks make sure you tell him that we’ve won every match while he’s been away. It’ll burn him up inside and ruin his holiday. Sweeeet.

Last night the glorious football club of the people, GroupthinkFC, played their best ever match losing by only 9-6 in a nail-biting thriller. We led for most of the first half and only let through a few sneaky unanswered goals in the second half when our defences dropped for five minutes. Given our opponents are the division leaders we are holding our heads high and are convinced that our forward march to glory is bound for success.

In a personal blow I repeated this injury in last night’s match but on the right ankle this time, which is lucky since I’ve only just regained full mobility in the left ankle. Rather pissed off to say the least. McBec’s starting to make those “I’m not sure you should be playing” noises and I’m not sure I can blame her. At least I was able to justifiably take today off work and sleep in until 11am. Cloud, silver lining and all that.

A quick message to the courageous members of GroupThink F.C., playing tomorrow night short two of its bedrock players, including the captain. A quick message to the remaining members of the team, and the two fill-ins they’ve organised, who are hopefully of a lower standard than the players they’re replacing. (Wouldn’t filling-in with better players be cheating somehow? Certainly against the spirit of the competition.)

That message: take it easy, guys. There’s no need to risk painful injuries. If you play too hard you could twist an ankle. You could be involved in some kind of horrible collision. If you’re standing with your back to the goal and an opponent belts the ball at you, for god sake duck out of the way. Is one goal saved really worth the potential of testicular suffering? No, it isn’t. Not this week. Maybe next week, when your captain returns, but not now.

Now is a time for practising new moves, new strategies – seeing what works, what doesn’t. If you find something that looks promising, that seems to be working, file that information away for future reference – and go and try something different. Let’s concentrate this week on exploring strategies that have never worked in the past and may never work in the future. Let’s make absolutely certain that they’re a bad idea before we abandon them completely.

Also, Ant will probably be giving you useful directions from the goals, because he can see what’s going on. Whilst listening to him is usually a good idea, this week let’s just see what happens if you don’t. This way you’ll be able to have confidence in the future that following Ant’s suggestions is a good idea – and you’ll know that because you tried the alternative, and lost abysmally. See? Then we’ll know.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD don’t let our first victory be the first game I’m forced to miss. Okay? Guys?

The people’s football club, GroupthinkFC, has been a deserving target of ridicule due to its string of poor results that make the Melbourne Demons look like a genuine premiership chance. But last night things began to change.

You see, the person at the sports centre who is in charge of grading made a monumental error when placing us in division three. Despite the awesome presence of our captain first-among-equals, Jeremy Sear, and the daunting confidence of Ant Rogenous and myself, this person at the sports centre graded us well beyond our actual ability. After our fourth humiliating defeat in a row Jeremy approached this person at the sports centre and firmly suggested that we should drop a few divisions — a suggestion that the person at the sports centre took on board after checking our results and breaking into hysterical laughter.

So last night the glorious GroupthinkFC ran onto the field as division twelve’s newest team and brought honour to the people by narrowly losing 5-4. Our five game plan seeks to ensure that by round ten we are consistent winners and that our prowess with the soccer ball has communicated our message of socialism for the people far and wide.

Stay tuned.

Last night I was walking my dog around the local park, where there’s a soccer club and several pitches. A young women’s team was playing a practice match on one of them.

As we walked around this pitch, my dog noticed a player taking a breather from training. She was on the outside of the pitch, leaning her forearms on the waist-high fence and watching the match. He bounded off towards her, as he does when he sees anyone at the park — and as he’s a gentle, friendly hound, I saw no cause for concern.

Neither did the girl, at first. She turned around and gave him a quick pat on the head, then turned back to the match. And that’s when the trouble started.

Suddenly he registered an interesting scent. He began sniffing at the air around the oblivious victim, then gradually — cautiously — turned his attention to her legs.

I sensed strife but was about 20 metres away. I walked as briskly as possible towards them and began calling out to him to come to me — to no avail.

I was about five metres away by the time he threw caution to the wind and zeroed in on the source of the scent. And it wasn’t your dainty “what a lovely rose”-type sniffing either — it was like a vacuum cleaner sucking biscuit crumbs from between couch cushions.

It’s hard to say what startled her more — my yelling or a large dog’s snout up her arse. She was remarkably good-humoured about the incident, but I’m not sure who was more embarrassed as I clipped the lead on my dog, apologised profusely and dragged the dirty bastard away.

A short time later, when I’d judged that we were far enough away, I unclipped my dog’s lead — and, you guessed it, back he ran for one last desperate, lunging crack at her.

She was far less amused the second time around.

In this episode The Editor, John Surname, Prophet, Jeremy Sear and Craig discuss the following:

* Kardboard Kevin
* MX
* Bike riding
* Tennis grunting
* Immature international cricketers
* World Cup 2018
* Melbourne F1 Grand Prix
* The Oscars
* Much, much more

** For some reason Episode 4 seems to play when you click “play now” instead of Episode 5. I’m looking into this error — probably something to do with the cache. For now, click on “play in popup” to make sure you hear the latest episode **

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