Ghost writer Wenty Spook has put together this week’s review, thanks Wenty! wherever you are………

LOSE Stadium Tour – 2010 Edition, By Wenty Spook

The start of my day was pretty disgusting. On my way to the Railway Station, a fellow passenger was rather hung over and this necessitated an emergency stop so she could have a yack in the bushes outside the swanky new apartments on the Kingston Foreshore. Cop that, yuppies! And so began a day where the theme of spewing would be recurrent. My chucky friend didn’t make it onto the bus.

A full Lyneham High School bus left Kingston at 9:30am ready to head to Wollongong to watch the Dragons take on their bogey team, The Mighty Canberra Raiders. With only four regular Raiders Army members on board it was a fairly tame trip up. Highlights of the journey included watching RA Stalwart, KW’s face darken as he read a piece of fiction, written by Jessica Wrong, that had been published in that morning’s edition of the Canberra Times. I can’t even say that KW had been misquoted, because to be misquoted you actually need to provide a quote or two. The accompanying picture was also rather horrific and probably gave non-Raiders loving readers the impression that Raiders fans are all retarded nuffies.

After a stop at Sutton Forrest Macca’s the first Scrabble match of the season took place and it was Nick (Vandal) versus Marko versus Loz, who vowed to destroy the other two as she was a female and therefore had a much larger vocabulary than both of the lads. The challenge was made in the knowledge that Nick lived in Queanbeyan and probably didn’t know how to spell properly and Marko is from Serbia and only has a basic grasp of the English language. She was wrong. Vandal absolutely spanked the pair of them. We don’t know how he did it, but he kept pulling out with thousand point words such as ‘affy’, ‘gu’ and ‘li’ which were accepted as words by Marko’s (probably Serbian) phone. We know for a fact that Nick is a cheat and that’s why he’s moving to Melbourne.

This was my first ever trip to the ‘Gong and as we rolled into town my first impressions were ‘This is Campbelltown by the sea’. Luckily the closer into town we got, the more things improved. As we pulled up across from the Entertainment Centre we were promptly told that we were not allowed to park our bus in the bus parking area and that the bus had to be moved to the Lighthouse, thus continuing the RA’s strong association with Lighthouses. After bumping into Ness and James, who’d appeared from behind some bushes, we made our way to the Five Islands Brewery where we were met by a sizeable contingent of the Northern RA faithful and Michael. It was still early so Pooley’s most recently digested meal remained safely in his stomach (the accepted alternative location of Pooley’s stomach contents is on Knights fans. See ‘Marc Pooley – More Beer Than Man’), which was fortunate for Kaity as she had already been puked on by another RA member in the previous 12 hours. Suffice to say if she didn’t much like Coldplay before, she definitely wasn’t a fan now. Toby also showed up despite having PMS.

After the downing of several bevvies the RA made their way into LOSE stadium in dribs and drabs. While the setting of the ground is picturesque, it is in need of the upgrade it’s about to get. Hopefully the proprietors update their attitudes too. Apparently if you have GA tickets this obviously means that you are poor and of a lower social standing than those in the stands and therefore cannot be trusted drinking full strength beer. Not only that, Loz was absolutely outraged to discover this was probably the only ground in the NRL that didn’t sell goon, well not to the bogans on the hill anyway.

As the match started it became apparent early on that it was going to be a decent game. Campese has returned to form and Thommo is playing for a contract. The Raiders completed the first half leading 8 – 6. I missed the half time entertainment, but I think it may have been Kristina Keneally. The second half begins and it’s better than the first half with three tries being scored by the Mighty Green in a space of six minutes, pretty much putting the Dragons to the sword – I’ve never understood why the ‘St George’ team would have a Dragon as a mascot, didn’t St George slay the Dragon? Isn’t that like shooting yourself in the foot? – A late consolation try to the Steelers (that’s better!) made the score 22 – 14, but it wasn’t enough to save them and the Mighty Raiders walked away with their 3rd (OMG 3RD!!!) away win for the season and their first free-to-air victory since… I have NFI…

There had been a fair bit of wank in the Sydney media about how the Steelers had a depleted team due to their stars being called away on State of Origin duty. Diddums. Well done to them for ignoring the fact that our boys have been playing with an under-strength team for most of the season due to injuries AND we had our own rep players out for Origin too.

At the end of the match, the Raiders made their way to the hill to thank the fans and then the crowd slowly dispersed at the behest of the LOSE stadium security jerks, but not before we made a Brooke Burrito followed by a round of Stacks-On. We rejoined our bus mates as we waited for the bus and got better acquainted with our fellow travellers while sticking it to as many Steelers fans as we could.

The trip from Wollongong to Sutton Forest was uneventful, apart from marvelling at Vandal’s ability to be able to spot a BWS sign from 5 kms away, but that was all about to change once we hit Maccas. In the past, we always seem make it to Maccas in time to see the Toyota Cup team clean out the restaurant and once were privileged enough to witness Steve Naughton put away 5 cheeseburgers in one sitting (see ‘Run Rabbit, Run Tour – 2009). The following away game saw Marko try to better this by eating SIX cheeseburgers – he succeeded. We didn’t get there in time to see the Toyota Cup boys this time, but word of Marko’s amazing exploits had landed on the ears of the lads in the backseat and one hero decided to give it a crack himself. Our newest friend joined the RA4 armed with six cheeseburgers, and as he fortuitously claimed that he was no stranger to a good vom, everyone gathered around to watch the unfolding spectacle. He got off to a good start by downing the first cheeseburger in a matter of seconds, a second burger joined the first in equally quick succession and just as he takes a bite out of the 3rd burger things went pear shaped. Loz, Marko and Nick were 1/2 of way through (unsuccessfully) finishing a family box when our man turned green and had to make a bee-line for the gents, leaving the remaining burgers fair game to the circling vultures – AKA his mates, who had to be prompted to go and make sure he was OK. And the best part is we’ve got it on video. But I do think if our new anti-hero really wanted to be a serious contender he should have bought seven cheeseburgers… and a bucket…

The remainder of the trip saw Marko, Nick, KW and Loz move to the back of the bus and Pukey McSpew move closer to the door because the windows (when they can be opened) won’t open wide enough to stick your head out for a yack. And for the first time that any of us can recall we had to pull the bus over for a ralph-stop. At least P. McS. managed to set one precedent. Congrats.
So far the LOSE Stadium tour has been the away trip of the 2010 season and I’d like to thank our new friends, Ryan, Sam and Liam for help making the trip more entertaining than we could have ever foreseen and for providing Loz with the goon she missed out on at the stadium. Thanks also goes to Jamie for getting into the singalong and providing some fresh tunes. And last but not least thanks to Jamie’s mum, the Collins 3 and Bernie for being good sports for putting up with our shite singing.

Next up, the boys take on the Titans at Bruce. I’ll see you there! But you won’t see me… SssspPPPppooooOOoooKKkkyyyyy

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