Berlin Crocodiles newsletter

Rheinland Lions vs Berlin Crocodiles – July 21st 2007

“What a beautiful day to kick a goal!” were probably the thoughts of newbie Thomas when he grabbed the ball and nailed it with pinpoint accuracy between the post. These were the first moves of the match and the first actions in Thomas’ AFLG-career. What a magnificent start! Unfortunately, it was the last time we were in the lead. “We” actually means only 7 Crocs and additionally 8 Lions wrapped in crocodile-leather. At the meet-up, Lions coach Rob pressed a piece of paper in Johannes’ hand. It named the Lions-Crocs-bastards in their preferred position and a few empty spaces. Johannes just had to fill the gaps with purebred Crocs. Rob actually played as our ruck and with his talkative nature eventually took over our coaching position as well. Surprisingly, this caused more controversy within the Lions than with the Crocs. Anyhow, it turned out to be good and at some stage quite physical game on a sunny summer day. Rob did a great job winning those rucks. Dangerous Daniel, rebellious Sean and low-flying Benno tried hard to control the centre, but were unfortunately outclassed during most of the game. This made life hard for Georg. Georg had probably the most unappreciated and difficult job to do that day, taking the full-back position. He was in demand most of the game and managed to take a few great marks. Well done, Georg!. Our seasoned die-hard Frank, our captain Johannes and our skyrocketing rookie Thomas were shifting around the field, being frequently involved in a lot of midfield action. In the end, an humiliating 15.17.107 to 3.5.23 was the score.

After the match, we all jumped in one of two small buses to drive to Frankfurt. This was made possible through the Lions. After already making it to the Grand Final, they were keen to see who’ll make it as their opponent. The decider was to be made in the game between the Frankfurt Redbacks and the Bavarian Kangaroos. With a lot of pressure on both teams, we saw a hard-fought and spectacular game. The Roos turned out to be eventual winners after catching up from way behind.

On the trip back to Cologne, the Lions started to show their real face, making an astonished pack of Crocs speechlessly shake their heads in shame. It all started on the autobahn when the two minibuses passed each other. The Cologne players started to use sign-language to communicate between cars. In particular, there were some very expressive gestures with the buttocks. No wonder swirling disputes within the Lions came to surface and lead to a spectacular show-down between archrivals Rob and Scott at the next petrol station. Scott started with a surprise attack and jumped on Rob in the bus, causing collateral damage to some of the Crocs sitting next to the targeted. Rob, despite a high level of alcoholic infiltration, reacted quickly and wrestled Scott out in the open field. There he suddenly came under crossfire from ice-cubes, taken from the stations refrigerator. He then successfully used an ancient Japanese grappling technique on Scott, nowadays well known as the “common one hand wedgie”. The fight ended with a technical k.o. for Scott through a torn pair of sports-underpants. Rob bound the remaining piece of cloth Rambo-look-alike around his head and tried to take the nearest Imbiss-table as a trophy. Luckily, it did not fit into the back of the van, otherwise we would have ran into serious trouble with the service personnel.

But if you think this is the end of the story you are far from right. But it would take too much time to tell how Luke lost his t-shirt, how Dino showed everybody his inguinal hernia or how Rob woke up in the car-park the next morning, with his head lying on an unidentifiable pillow-object and how after revitalization he started chasing his girlfriend in the streets of Cologne, being dressed in nothing but boxer-shorts – far too much time! To make it short: we made it back home safely and finally Daniel deservedly got his first shower after leaving Berlin on Friday afternoon!

But before we left, Scott proudly asked us if the Lions are truly the worst-behaving team in the AFLG. I guess, the answer is simple: it’s a simple “yes!”.
(bb)