At the beginning as the U18 "Colts" we were akin to the Bulls not being able to beat the bad boy Pistons (aka the Wongs, Jared, Lee, Richard, Martin, Roger, Daryl who killed us back in the day!!! etc).
We also had troubles with Horewhenua (the Lakers) with their showtime offence lead by:
Lawrence "Magic"
John "Byron Scott"
Nathan "Worthy"
Some weird looking halfies "Vlade Divacs and Kurt Rambis"
We'd usually beat Manawatu "Cleveland Cavs" cos they didn't have enough size:
Jo "Mark Price"
Mike "Craig Ehlo"
Matt "Larry Nance"
Glen and I had help from:
Craig "Jud"
Jason Chin "Bobby Hansen"
Richard Chen "Early Horace, even had the goggles"
Roger Chang "Stacy King"
Elsdon Yee "Jack Haley"
Then we signed Clifford to a
"never-before-heard-of-contract" that would make a Centre player move over to the "other side" and we gave him a sniff at our number one asset: the Dragons girls! (much like the Laker Girls but less, much less)
Much like the modern day move of Ben Wallace from the Pistons to the Bulls, Cliff brought the heart and passion to our team and in turn took away the desire and leadership from Centre.
From that day forth we dominated like there was no tomorrow. And the dynasty was built thus.
Lee Young (Randy Brown) joined the team briefly, after spending a year with me in University and liking the lifestyle of a winner. However, his brief stint involved a shocking loss to the Phil Chin-led (Kevin
Mchale) Dragons B team (veteran Celtics) and a last minute dagger from Paul Wong She (Larry Bird) in the Queens Bday B grade finals. Lee quickly disappeared after that and his game never quite recovered. Only making brief stints in the Centre A team but disharmony between him and Chiu (Mahorn) forced him to dwell in the B and C teams.
Devon (Ron Harper) came over after spending time in the deep South and realising that the 'Ship would be firmly in his grasp if he donned the blue and gold.
We also had new blood coming in and out that fortified the glory run:
Glendale (Pete Myers, complete with gay Breath-rite) Lawrence (Toni Kukoc) Kevin (Luc Longley) Sander (Will Perdue) Terry Chung (Dickey Simpkins) Jake Tai (James Caffey) Iwen Yong (Antoine Walker, was never in Bulls but can't get over the resemblance. he's also got a name starting with a vowel.)
I think we fielded our strongest team during one Queens Bday tourney with:
the Wongs
the Joes
Shane
Lawrence
Glendale
and maybe Craig
That was the fateful year of the "Malice at the Palace" versus the Beagle Boys. Instigated by Ben Wallace on our team with his constant snides about every player on the other team "he looks like a sidekick.." and his trade mark "road runner on top of the fallen opponent".
Other great memories during that run:
+ Lowest scoring finals in history. Against Centre at
Centre I think the score at halftime was 6-8 and the final score was in the mid-20s.
+ Queens Bday in Auck. We had a rag-tag team of
myself, elsdon, gdale, lawrence, egg and i think jake.
We beat off Ping and Sing in the finals. Elsdon was playing like a terrier all tourney but succumbed to cramps in his sprinter-like calves in the finals.
+ Beating down a Centre team that had new confidence
and really thought they had a chance with help of new import coach "Burgertime"
+ Glen bringing down an Auck team to Dragons tourney
and trying to beat the crap out of everyone that stood in his way.
+Hooking up with Glen a couple of years later for an
alley oop and a reverse dunk the very next play, as Stu Chong (playing with Centre) complained about us beating them too badly.
+ Goober somehow inexpicably getting caught with his
head in my singlet and spazzing out like the retard he is.
Those are just the on-court memories. Can't even begin to recollect the off-court stuff. Good times, good times.
Sweet just wasted a whole 3 hours at work reminiscing.
Cheers boys,
MJ
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