Derby fever hits CT

There is a growing misconception amongst many of you, it would appear, that 21 May looms as the biggest day on my sporting calendar, and that thoughts of a cold night of European football in Moscow are keeping me awake at night. Yes, I’m looking forward to the game, no, I don’t think Roman Abramovich will have the entire United squad shot if they win, and without doubt, George Dearneley will be arrested at some stage during his trip to the final.

But thoughts of football will only begin tomorrow (and may well be diluted by Super 14 for a week or two yet); far more pressing matters are at hand. I haven’t slept properly for a week, and not just because my cat has responded to moving house by developing a fondness for sitting on my head at two in the morning. Chelsea and United might have a monster night in Moscow lined up, but I have a far greater challenge tonight: the Mighty Dodos versus the Red Squirrels in the Pinelands hockey derby. It just doesn’t get bigger than this.

The Dodos have received limited coverage this year (that SuperSport aren’t televising the games verges on criminal — I don’t know how Imtiaz Patel sleeps at night), so a quick recap for those who’ve missed the start to the season. South Africa’s leading band of celebrity hockey players (under my assured and inspirational captaincy) picked up two wins out of two, before going down to a canny team of pensioners from Central, who took shameless advantage of the fact that half the team had been at a bachelor’s party until five o’clock that morning.

Still, a solid start to the season, particularly when one looks at attendances thus far: seven, two (away to Durbanville, so not bad) and four, which is 42 percent up on the same stage a year ago. Expect the numbers to rocket into double figures tonight, though, for one of the fiercest derby games in sport.

Winning the championship last season sent the Mighty Dodos spiralling up a league, which puts us alongside Andrew Savage (a singularly appropriate name) and his scarlet rodents. They’re an unpredictable side, largely because you never know how many of them have made parole on any particular week, and are vested of a style of play a New York Times correspondent famously dubbed “frenzied, bloodthirsty lumberjack” in a column last year. Think Wimbledon under Vinnie Jones and Dennis Wise, and you’re heading in the right direction.

No grace or subtlety to the rodents, then; a far cry from the Dodos, for whom hockey is more art form than sport. The incisive bursts down the left wing of Big Lurker Fleming; the majesty of defence of Grant ‘The Wall’ Holton’; the implorations of Rhodes Kent to passing spectators for a glimpse of their cleavage… ah, but it’s magical stuff, and never more so than in a titanic derby clash.

So who’ll triumph tonight? Well, the skipper kept himself to two glasses of chardonnay at the Shape Cover Look final last night, and the rest of the squad promised to be in bed by half past eight (apart from the Zimbabweans in the team, who had some copper phone cable to collect in the small hours of this morning); veteran Mike Dabrowski, signed two seasons ago from the Wanderers for what remains a Dodos transfer record (eight cases of Black Label quarts, and a year’s subscription to Loslyf magazine), is still nursing his midlife crisis — training for the Comrades — but otherwise we’re at full strength. And we may or may not have Robbie Kempson on the bench, in case we need him to eat one of the opposition…

The rodents, as usual, are anyone’s guess; not in doubt, however, is the magnitude of tonight’s clash. The lush Pinelands surface (it’s never quite recovered from the ladies’ thirds training on it after heavy rain) and 40-watt floodlights provide the stage for an epic encounter; there’s a definite smell of blood in the air. A couple of Heinekens, and we’ll be raring to go come 7pm; for now, I’m off to McDonald’s for some good, athletic nourishment.

Contact Dan at dan@metropolis.co.za>

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