Farts Player gets top Naenae award

Well sports fans, the end of the season has come and only the back slapping and shouting was left.

And last night that event took place at the NaeNae club rooms.

It was sitting room only, and the crowd was friendly, although it felt strange to be turning up to the end of year prize giving in full and very warm sunshine.

All the usual suspects where there, although the Farts second team (Partners) was a bit thin on the ground with only Jenny, Ains, Maree and Jude (although Cambo came and sat at our table for awhile to bolster the womens numbers) .

After a meal of roast vegies and meat, with lots of gravy (good food to feed the Farts backs) the prize giving got under way. There was the usual pre awards, and the crowd started to build in eager anticipation as the Farts Manager Trapper was called up to announce and hand out the team awards.

First up was the "Most Improved", Trapper got that last year and was odd on favorite to retain the trophy but was pipped at the final post by the deserving winner, Willie! Willie had strong season, with incisive running and some greta goals, and he always has that smile that seems to melt away the problems of the world (even if he dopes always turn up late!).

The lights dimmed and the room hushed as the crowd waited for that ultimate Naenae award, the one every player wants to get at some stage in their life, the Silverspoon MVP of the "Farts".

This year it was a close race, and the winner only just pipped Trapper into second place at the final post - Scotty!

What a result, the crowd went wild. Scotty certainly deserved it, although not his best season, certainly a strong one, with lots of running and effort, some awesome passes (that's what we call long balls in the Farts) and also top goal scorer. His fitness regime must have paid off, as he still had enough breath to make "suggestions" to the umpires in almost every game.

The crowd had settled back into their seats, and started to re hydrate when the President announced some new "appreciation" awards for efforts above and beyond the call of duty etc etc (sort of a Congressional medal for Naenae hockey!

Trapper was called up to receive one, it appears his efforts at herding the team (yes, its like herding cats sometimes), providing a team card every game and a match ball finally paid off.

We caught up with trapper after the event for a one on one interview, and all he would say was that its important to spell peoples names right on the card, and this had obviously been noted by the heirachy of the club, thus the award).

Anyway, back to to the awards, there was a couple more important ones to be handed out, Top Goal scorer went to Cambo (with a measly 17 goals this year), he gets a mention here because, well, lets face it, he gets a bit of stick in this blog and given its nearly summer we thought we'd give him some support and praise.

Well deserved, and got special mention for helping his fellow forwards to last out the season by not causing them to undertake any hard work, in other words he never passed the ball this year either!

And finally, the penultimate award, one that has many seasoned campaigners names on it, names such as Hoskin, Hoskin, Hoskin, Hoskin and Hoskin, was to be announced. The Barry Ebert Cup, For the overall Naenae Hockey MVP for 2011 - and the winner was .........Scotty.

The judges felt his constant performances, leaving it all on the park, along with his indepth knowledge of the rules and volunteering to mentor lesser ability Umpires was enough for him to secure the ward.

One last item was to occur, and Trapper was called up to announce a new award that had been donated to the club, The Gok Shield (actually think its the McNie shield) for outstanding dress standards in the face of the enemy.

Seriously, this year was Robbies last year, 30 season with the club, an amazing record, and he had donated a shield to be engraved with all players that had played 25 or more seasons for the club.

well done robbo, but we are really hoping you will come back for another year next year!

And so it ended sports fans, as the crowds sloped out, some happy with their spoils, some dissaponited, it was a great end to another year of Farts Hockey.

Good bye 2011, Roll on 2012!

Well dfone again Scotty