After a few years in retirement, Tom steps back in for a special guest writer’s role- Enjoy.

Well, it has been a number of years, but the most infamous RA reviewer of them all has returned. I have been on a sabbatical for the past few years, but have been tempted out of retirement by KW.

The day started as most RA trips do, standing around the frozen tundra (Kingston Railway Station) at 8am, trying your best to avoid the inevitable quota of pest and menace opposition supporters that grace us. In this case, there was one particular individual who fit this category. RAGE (Raiders Army Gold Elite) quickly branded him Wonky Eye Watmough. Luckily for us, WEW was having a hard time figuring out the mechanics of the sweet machine inside the station. This incidentally had striking similarities to Homer getting his hand stuck in the vending machine. Luckily for him, he realised if you let go of the can, your hand is released WEW boarded the bus shortly after.

And we were away! You could smell the optimism that was permeating throughout the bus! That was until some cheeky little struggle and grunt that it would be nice to delivered a machine gun fart buffet (this is defined as a rapid succession of ballistic farts that hang around for an extended period, and may be revisited for another helping due to the ongoing stench).

I think this may have starved oxygen to the brain of the driver, who I think was wearing a t-shirt with the saying I am the Stig on it (that old chestnut), in addition to a cap with Captain emblazoned on it. He was only missing a bbq apron with Worlds best Dad on it. While it was good to say the driver had a high opinion of himself, and thought he may be able to smoke it through hammerhead and gambon at 100mph (see Top Gear if unsure what these terms mean), his driving was akin to the flying skills of an Garuda pilot. I counted at least three occasions where Captain Stig tried to crush cars in adjacent lanes. There was also the bizarre incident where he stopped behind a ute on the hard shoulder of the M5. Ute bloke then picked up a dead pigeon from the back of his ute, throwing it into the middle of the M5. El Capitano de Stig then pulled onto the M5 again, and we were off. This was one of the stranger incidents Ive seen on a RA bus. The only explanation I can think of is that WEW and Marko thought they could smell a smorgasboard, and asked the Stigalicious to pull over.

After taking the Clark Griswald scenic route, we arrived at Brookie at about midday. I know a lot has been said about this hovel in past reviews, but it must be said again. In my view, you can define a true shithole in two ways.

1. By the people who reside/inhabit the area.
2. By the physical characteristics of the area.

This shitpot fails on both counts. I was disappointed to see the locals of the Insular Peninsula hadn’t taken on board my description of them last time (something similar to fat, inbred, swamp donkeys). Whilst the incest and swamp donkey bit may be hard to shake, the protruding sack of fat which extends from the lower abdomen to the upper genital area of many Manly fans surely isnt.

The physical characteristics of the ground also continue to amuse. I still find it amusing for a so-called professional sport, people have to stand on a mud slope to view it. The gradient on the rear of the slope made the trek to the toilet more dangerous than negotiating the Khyber Pass. One of the victims of the Pass was a little lad, who cut himself in the process. The lad sprinted off when one RA member said Come here little boy, I want to help you. Garry Glitter has since been deported from Australia.

Anyway, everyone knows what happened in the game. The Raiders played a good five minutes, and Des Haslers side got away with the two points. Everyone trudged back to the bus, and we were on our way home.

This was an interesting bus trip home. While the bus did have a plastic throne at the rear, it was obviously not ready for the onslaught of gypsy kisses that RA members were going to inflict on it. Within an hour, it was filled to the brim, until WEW realised there was a flush peddle on the side of it (he was still trying to figure out how a lolly machine works). However, this was only a temporary reprieve. An unfortunately placed crack on the side of the throne began to leak, and soon there was a raging torrent of excreta coursing down the middle of the bus. This stopped anyone from using the toilet to syphon the python or pinch a loaf. Any attempts to flush the toilet were now stymied, as the toilet emitted a mist of piss and stench whenever it was flushed. Luckily Brave Stig pulled over, and emptied the chemical toilet into Sydneys water catchment area.

After this was done, the party was on again. WEW and his mate (a lardy version of David Howell), came down the back and joined the party. The songs were being belted out, and everyone was having a great time, except Marko. As usual, Marko had a number of ditties dedicated to him, including Nothing sweet about Marko, Markos got a chub and Thats what you get for waking up in Marko. Unfortunately the RA cocktail (piss, blood, beer) was now covering most of the floor of the bus. This didn’t concern some, and the songs continued to come.

The now shitpot on wheels finally arrived back at Kingston at 10pm. Another funny, but ultimately worthless expedition to see the Raiders have their pants pulled down, and someone do the nasty to them.

Anyway, next week the Raiders take on the Storm in Canberra. Lets hope the Raiders win, inshallah, we need it.

Each season there is one away game which you simply cannot miss. In 2009, the Manly game at Brookvale is THAT game. Sunday afternoon, packed hill, sun shining, suburban ground, it doesn’t get much better than that. Put Sunday June 21st in your diaries, it will be an epic adventure talked about for years to come. I have booked a 48 seater coach with a toilet for this epic journey. The bus will depart Kingston Railway Station at 8:15am and head straight to Brookvale. There will likely be no pre-game meet with the Sydney RA, we will head straight to the ground and cheer on the Toyota Cup boys. We will be back in Canberra around 8:30pm. We need at least 40 attendees to make the coach viable, and I have had strong interest thus far. You will not get a better opportunity this season to head to an away game in Sydney. I implore all of you who consider yourselves a true believer to get involved and get on this bus.

Cost of the trip is $55. Please note that this covers your travel to and from the game, as well as a few beers on the way home. It does NOT include your ticket to the match.

To reserve your seat please send an email to kw@raidersarmy.com to get the bank account details.

A great win last night, matched by an equally great review penned by our #1 Stalwart KW.

It was a great performance by the mighty green last night, and one that we have now come to expect when they face the Rabbitohs. That’s three straight away wins against the bunnies, no mean feat for a side renowned for travelling poorly. Our day kicked off at 1pm when I collected Loz, Marko and the Tarago (that’s right people, a meagre 8 die-hards made the trip north, another very disappointing turn out). A couple of quick stops later and we were on our way North (only 7 minutes after the scheduled departure time, a new RA record). In a not to be repeated mistake, I had earlier allocated the task of filling the esky to our token eastern European member Melancholy. When we reached Lake George and decided to crack the first brew, it was noted that Marko had actually put the ice in first, the beer on top of the ice and the rum cans on top of the beer. A new low for the 2008 RA member of the year. Making her RA debut was Robynne Earl, mother of former regular Tom (aka Ultra) who has moved to the top end and formed our newest chapter; RANT (RA Northern Territory). Membership of RANT doubled recently when his girlfriend joined up. Exciting times up north.

I decided to drive to the Nest to give Shaw-man a well needed rest as he would be navigating the return leg. First beers were cracked at 3pm, with everyone weary of not hitting the bottle too hard with work commitments the next day. Playing scrabble on the mobile phone has become a popular way to kill time on the drive north, and Loz, Shaw-man, Nick and Marko engaged in an epic 4 way battle. We were all a little concerned how Marko would go considering his lack of English (he was even given a 12.5 point start), but it turns out he goes alright.

It decided to rain when we made our only stop on the venture north at Pheasants Nest. A quick steak and cheese pie later and we were on our way again. Shaw-man took over the drivers seat and preceded to cut off a Toyota Starlet, the driver of which decided to display his disapproval of the maneuver with a one-fingered salute as he overtook us (it must be noted that Shaw-man did an admirable job from here on in trying circumstances). A discussion erupted regarding the Army’s patented “Believe” slogan, with Frank suggesting it be changed to “squiggly smooch”. This is why we encourage you to keep your thoughts to yourself mate. Another classic Frank moment came when we were discussing the Matt Johns affair. Frank brought a cease to the ongoing discussion by announcing in a rather soothing priest like manner “we can argue about it all night but what’s done is done”. Indeed Tank, indeed.

At the Brewery, popular RA identity Rupi produced a wad of free tickets, which were snapped up by the green faithful. Once inside the ground, the small but very vocal crew found their voice, and basically owned the cavernous stadium. It was a special night, with the cameras paying us plenty of attention. They seemed to be singling out Central Coast based regular Marc “beetelejuice” Pooley, as well as another regular in Nick “69” Townsend, who was deliberately holding his scarf upside down for some unknown reason. The banner got plenty of air play and is proving to be a great investment. Even Sean “the” Ferrari joined us for the second half, a rare treat as he normally likes to sit with the white collars on half way. In another RA first, Marko was a tad confused at the ANZ Stadium signage and somehow ended up utilising the ladies toilets instead of the blokes. His sidekick Townsend also fell for the same trap, but realised the error of his ways much earlier in the piece than our lovable Serbian.

As is now customary, the players thanked the fans by embracing them after the game. This is always a great moment and the fans were loving it. We have had some great times at ANZ Stadium and it really is starting to feel like a home away from home.

I must make mention of the efforts of two former RA Heavyweights who have now consigned themselves to the RA Reserves alongside Leethal Leeroy Clayton. Former front liner Boing shunned the pre-game drinks and preceded to view the match from the comfort of a corporate box, only showing his face at the end of the game when the players embraced the Army. Similar to Boing’s disappointing effort, Sydney based veteran Craig ‘Sully” Jensen continued his jekyll & hyde approach to supporting the Raiders in 2009, making only a token appearance at the pre-game before heading to his own corporate box and never to be seen again. A far cry from his normal position, front and centre and leading the Sydney boys into battle. No doubt both gentlemen regret missing out on the scenes of jubilation and frivolity that took place in Aisles 101-103.

Upon exiting the ground and engaging in some friendly banter with sullen faced bunnies’ fans, one particularly unenlightened individual attempted to prove to us that John Sutton deserved to be named man of the match. He was laughed at vigorously. The trip home was a little more relaxed than the usual, Marko decided to kill the atmosphere in the back row by playing trivial pursuit on his mobile for 2 hours (whether or not he actually got a single answer correct remains to be seen). At some stage someone removed basically all of the head rests from their slots and put them in the boot. Not sure why. We stopped off at a servo on King Georges road (again, not sure why) where we bumped into Canberra based journos Tim Gavel and David Packwood. As per every away trip, the under 20s side were at Sutton Forest McDonalds when we arrived there. Marko and I have a new favourite Toyota Cup player, Steve “5 cheeseburgers” Naughton, whose new nickname is pretty self explanatory. Somewhere around the Bungendore turn off we pulled into what we thought was a rest stop, but turned out to be the entrance to a farm who luckily enough were selling Horse Poo for the bargain basement price of $2 a kilo. We couldn’t believe our luck. A short time later we were saying our good byes and thinking ahead to the Sharks home game in two weeks time, and more importantly, our trip to “Fortress Brookvale” on June 21st.

As per usual, there was some lost property reported. Aimee has lost her mobile, anyone with any info should send me an email. (kw@raidersarmy.com)

Until next time, BELIEVE

KW

To everyone who is about to read this review this is my first time doing this so be gentle

My day began roughly about 11am when I landed in Mexico(Melbourne) after a nice beverage or two I was feeling pretty good. After arriving at my hotel I gave two of the army’s best a call (Nick & Katie) who were in Melbourne at the time.
I met them a pub called “Young & Jackson” if I had known the prices of the drinks down there I would of taken out a loan. The average price for a pint was $9 so going shout for shout was getting expensive but I didn’t care at the time, I was just happy I was on the ground.(I’m not a big fan of flying)

A short time later young Rick James came from work to join us, all four of us were discussing many things from the raiders chances of winning to how Nick is more of a girl cause he did more clothes shopping then Katie. Eventually Nick and Kate had to leave to catch there flight back to their homes in Sydney and young Rick James had to go back to work, as for me I just went around the town sightseeing and bar hoping. Many people were looking at me weird as if they were looking like they have never seen a green jersey in their life. One random local even stopped me in the street to ask me what team it was. [Great to see Rugby League making great inroads down there, it’s only been 11 year] After a few hours and a $9 pint or two it was time to rendezvous with Rick James. At about 6:15pm we caught the tram down to the game, it was an interesting moment to say the least when we saw a Richmond fan celebrating when his attempt to throw a water bottle into a bin from a distance missed by only 2 metres, I think that showed just how deeply entrenched the AFL culture is down here..

We arrived there just in time to see the Raiders along with that club s**t Brett Finch run over the athletics track and on to the ground. . As for the stadium it self it looks like a glorified version of Shark Park, it was at this moment I wished KW and the QBN crew were here as this joint had a resemblance to a 1968 version of Seiffert Oval. The match was underway as the ball was taken just inside the 4 metre in goal area. For the first 10 minutes we looked good the when big red scored in the corner there was just me and Rick James cheering and believing that this might be our night, could we finally snap this 13 game losing streak??. But unfortunately that was the last of our celebrations for the night as not long after Billy Slater scored off a Cameron Smith kick and then when big Lima ran straight through the middle of our defence we knew it was going to be a tough night. Half time came about and we weren’t out of the game, but really had to score first if we were any hope of beating these purple wearing News Limited Storm, the fact we were also up against a vocal home crowd would only make our task harder. The second half came along and me and Rick James were still staying through and believing that the Raiders can come back. But when Slater scored his second try of a Alan Tongue grubber deep down we knew it was over. However we refused to give up hope. The Storm then went on a scoring spree and being only two people wearing green in a sea of purple we were starting to cop a bit of stick. To the storm supporters credit most of them were really nice and friendly to us, one of the storm fans shouted out to Hinchcliffe “hey Hinchcliffe you’re playing for a real team now!” even I found the funny side of it.

Full time finally came and me and Rick James made our way to the trams. After getting on I was reminded of how sardines must feel. I finally got off near the pub the Young & Jackson and stopped in for a disappointing pint then made my way back to the hotel for the night.

I hope you enjoyed this read and it was what you expecting to read just remember everyone to still believe and don’t give up hope.

Our next home match is on this Sunday against the Warriors, I encourage everyone who can get to the ground to make the effort and support the boys. Remember people form is temporary and one win can be the trigger that starts something special, you only need to look back at 2008 to see evidence of this.

Cheers,

Frank the Tank

Next Monday night the Canberra Raiders tackle the Melbourne Storm down at Olympic park. While we have not had the best start to the season heading into our first Bye, I think it is important to remember that we are not a club in crisis. While the ladder may say 2-6, we have been in every match and would have arguably won some of these if not for a few very contentious refereeing decisions.

The law of averages suggests that these decisions balance out by the end of the year, so surely we are bound to see some 50/50 decisions go our way, with a bit more luck we might even get some correct decisions awarded to the boys in green.

The effort is definitely there, this may sound clichéd, but it is true. When things start to click just watch how our side goes. We have blooded a lot of Rookies this year, who have all shown they have what it takes to match it in the NRL, these players are gaining valuable experience and the rewards will be shown in the future. Our new buys have also shown some quality form. All the ingredients are there for us to be successful.

The Raiders Army just want to remind all Raiders fans to get behind the side when they need you the most. It is very easy to get on board and show support when the side has won five in a row, but it is times like this when the support in the crowd can really help lift the side on the field.

Our next home game is against the Warriors on Sunday May 24, we would like to see a big turn out at Canberra Stadium to support the boys.

If you live in Sydney and are interesting in getting on A Raiders Army Bus to the game please contact Jed on jangus76@hotmail.com for further details.

Our next home game is against the Warriors on Sunday May 24, we would like to see a big turn out at Canberra Stadium to support the boys.

If you live in Sydney and are interesting in getting on A Raiders Army bus to the game please contact Jed on jangus76@hotmail.com for further details.

We encourage you all to leave some messages of support below, we think it is important for them to know that their Supporter group is still 100% behind David Furner and the team.

BELIEVE

- Raiders Army