Dear Revolutionaries de Futebol Mundial,

Just for your information, last week there was no Newsletter.  Okay, technically there was one as you can click on and see it but, in reality,  Nico Sanders, our beloved webmaster, found a timeless piece from three years ago and pasted onto 'No. 2' and sent it out as a recycled bit unbeknownst to me who opened my email and saw Newsletter 2 shyly awaiting me Monday morning.  I thought to myself, 'What the heck is this!'.  Then I opened it, started to read and then began to chuckle.  Nico cleverly made a statement about promptness and regular delivery just as he did for all of us at the league meeting about the prompt reporting of match results immediately after the conclusion of each match.  Well done, young man.  Point well taken and lesson well learned.  So... what do we have to talk about this week?

I could start by mentioning that DOIT Satu Lagi seems to be on a rampage to win the league this year... so I will.  So far undefeated and going into this Saturday against the defending champions and league leaders the Wanderers, DOIT ran up an obscene score against Arrario last Saturday which verges on unsportsmanlike behavior in some of the better social circles.  But 12 - Nil just tells me that Team Korea must have come totally unprepared and must have played without a proper goalie that day.  Sounds like the scores of several years ago when we regularly had 10-0 & 12-0 scores in various matches around the league (and even the record of 18-1 once happened).  I thought that those days of cricket scores were over but apparently not.  This just goes to show every JIFL club to ensure that they take the matches seriously and show up with a proper squad of at least 11.  So rather than berate DOIT for crushing the opponent, I can just as easily praise them for being well organized and defending their ground as any proper club should do.  This is competition after all, and, as Bernie once said, 'It's always about winning'.  (See Newsletter No. 6 Season 3 for a more in-depth discussion regarding this famous quote).  And the object of the football match is to put the ball into the opponent's goal.  That is, indeed, the premise isn't it?  So DOIT, just to be clear here, I will not hem and haw at you about behaviour unbefitting a gentleman but await Saturday's game to see if sporting behaviour will finally triumph over the maniacal desire to win in yet another match against ancient and justified rivals. 

Another issue that comes to mind this week is the choice of venues and the quest to discover which is generally the most preferred JIFL venue.  Actually, it should be that each and every club should enjoy its own home ground firstly otherwise why play there?  Even so, some people still prefer JIS to ISCI.  And this still surprises me (See Newsletter No. 4 Season 3 for a more in-depth discussion regarding this topic).  I always thought that grass was far superior to plastic but yet I understand the desire for plastic as well.  It is reliable.  Rain and storm do not affect it.  Keep in mind though that if any club so desires than they can always request to play on the bottom grass field at JIS under the lights if the request is put promptly in time to Jurrien and Dr. Mark Gray aka 'the Life Saver' (See Newsletter No. 20 Season 1 for a more in-depth explanation regarding this incident). 

In the end, ISCI won the prefered venue poll by 1 percent over JIS.  Final score:  29% for JIS and 30% for ISCI (Hmmmmm.... I wonder if my voting 34 times for ISCI in order to cancel out Jurrien's voting 34 times for JIS actually affected that final result...?).

Ciao for now and see you 'Live on the Pitches',

- Your Hero

P.S.  The refs didn't show up last week to the BuGils -vs- Lions match because the BuGil Boys forgot to tell either myself or Erwin or Phil or even my wife that the match was moved from Stadium Olah Raga to Stadium Simprug and that the time was changed.  Therefore, the refs were at the correct venue and the correct time but neither team was there.  Anyway, the Lions had Super Dwi to ref and he is officially qualified and should be reffing regularly in our league (if Erwin is paying any attention at all).

P.S.S.  Lens... as I have told you a hundred times already, it was Lokomotiv Moscow and not Spartak Moscow.  Are you listening, sir?  Are you listening?  'Can you hear me, McFly?'