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Week Seven: FINAL SCORE: CLAYMORES 19 THUNDER 27 |
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CHEDDARHEAD CLOWN-O-METER FOR THE WEEKEND Once again Claymores fanclub FTP are awarding the points this week ... |
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Preston: 18 out of 10
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Shuggie: 18 out of 10
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CHEDDAR CAM RECAPS THE WEEKEND |
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Game Day Morning ... well late night anyway at the 'wrong' hotel. Carnage broke out when Preston decided that a 2 ton plant pot would look better inside the room and Shuggie accidentally pressed a wrong button on the remote crontol that cost is 25 DM in the morning. F'in clowns! |
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Game Day morning for real and let the rain begin! Note the very handy Thunder plastic cups complete with handles - German Technology!!! However more beer was split on this day with them ... |
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Dom gets in some pre-game FTP with Antonio Dingle! |
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It had to be done didn't it? |
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It is stipulated in our contract that we show you at least one gratuitous cheerleader shot every week so here it is ... |
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First Down's Ben Saunders was flown out with Webby still on IR from his Dusseldorf experience! |
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Coach Pete Vaas - always ready to lend a helping hand! |
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Frank Seidel who MC's the power party is the man! After dancing with us last year - he invited us up again. Plus when Coach Vaas was on stage he said "Good luck Thunder ... but if the Claymores win we congratulate them and party with their fans after the game!!!". This was much to the coach's amusement ... |
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Here Frank plays "Boom Boom Boom" and gets Shuggie to fill in with key backing vocals! |
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Then Frank invites Shuggie on stage - but the slippery conditions are treacherous and the Shuggie takes a tumble losing 2 beers that are flung over some unsuspecting Thunder fans. But the Berlin fans help him up and he makes it up on stage, albeit wet and beer-less! |
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CLAYMORES WARM UP IN SOMEBODY'S GARDEN SHOCK! |
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And where there is Claymores there is a DOC-TOR!!! At the 'right' hotel lobby in Berlin the elevator played an old hit by 80's beat combo The Thompson Twins called "Doctor Doctor" which we are pulling to be the team's new anthem! |
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Preston beats ten shades of s**t out of Shuggie with a large padded pole in the name of football science. We can exclusively reveal that the 1923 Canton Bulldogs leather helmet that Shuggie is wearing failed the Aikman concussion test and will be not be used as part of "Throwback Weekend" next season ... |
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Dom has a new drum that works in the rain! It was so damn impressive we are going to plug the store - It's Murray Seatons Drum Centre on South Clerk Street. |
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Could it be that we spotted a snowman in Berlin???? After Stuart the Snowman made a legendary appearance at Hampden last week, we think the craze has caught on!!! |
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Roy ruins his "Helmet of the Week" spot by not wearing a helmet! However full marks were awarded for a whirring Claymore. It was a whirlwind weekend all round for the Mad Hatter who managed to stay in Berlin for less than 24 hours! |
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Central auditions for the new #3 QB spot with Lionel Hayes in Frankfurt ... |
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It only took 3 plays for the Thunder to score as Madre Hill got free down the left sideline on a blown coverage for a 64-yard TD pass from Jonathan Quinn. THUNDER 7-0 |
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With the FOX power still down, nobody got to see that TD or the Claymores response seconds later. Let us talk you through it ... Clint drops back to pass at his own 21 yard line ready to heave a big one down the field ... |
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Dante gets free behind his man and catches the ball on a dead run inside the Thunder 40 yard line ... |
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He-may-go-all-the-way!!! Indeed he did, shaking off a last gasp attempt by Billy Gustin to scoot into the end zone for a 79-yard TD. The last time we scored on a passing TD this long was when Jessie Haynes went 86 yards 2 years ago in the same stadium. CLAYMORES 7-7 |
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But sadly that was all the Claymore pay dirt for the day as we decided to use Rob's bare foot the rest of the day as our offense! This 1st quarter 39 yard FG gave us an early lead. CLAYMORES 10-7 |
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T-Bird, the Thunder mascot, got all kilted up which we salute! But the rain kept coming as the game started to fizzle in the 2nd quarter as both O's struggled. The Thunder tied it with a FG, but we were getting bored so it was time to ... |
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Take the field at half-time! We really earned clown points on this one. Using our Rhein Fire fan passes (kindly supplied by the Fire Pl@net) we managed to bluff our way past security onto to the field!!! So it was time to head for the team tunnel! HALF TIME 10-10 |
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There we would meet, greet and ultimately harass the players! First up -special teams. Donnie Icsman was finishing up his Claymores stint while Brad is on Honeymoon Reserve. Again he had a good game. Chad Holleman was hassling Preston for the phone number of some girl he called on his phone last week but lost - but so had Preston! |
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Rob Hart, who had already violated the code of conduct of football by playing without a chin strap in Week 1, attempts to take his maverick behavior too far by wearing a plastic bag as a face mask. Naturally we talked him out of it and he had a great 2nd half complete with helmet and chin strap! |
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We know Shuggie talks a lot of hot air but this is ridiculous! Among the nuggets - "2nd half is ours baby" "Kick their sorry ass"! "It's all about the 2nd half" Once again the players failed to take our advice ... |
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Kohei makes the long walk back to field in the chuckin' rain ... |
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Although the Claymores lost their way in the 3rd when the Thunder scored an early TD, a ray of hope emerged when Gus came on for a gimpy Clint. He immediately fired a 12 yard completion, then called Time Out and got pulled! But at least it gave us an excuse to don the "Cooking with Gus" hats again ... |
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The Manhattan Ice Dreams say no but the Zebras say yes!!! Yep it's Rob Hart's team record 4th FG of the game to pull the score to 24-19 in the 4th quarter. THUNDER 24-19 |
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Forced to stop the Thunder, Madre Hill breaks away for another 1st down despite the efforts of Reggie Hunt. The RB killed us with big plays all day, scoring 2 TD's and accumulating over 150 yards of offense. |
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That led to a Scott Bentley field goal to extend the Thunder lead to 8 with a minute to play. If you are wondering how we got that nice close up of the Ump's butt it was because the Clowns were on the Field again!!! |
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And there's the FG ball to prove it! Any attempts to steal the ball and forfeit the game, were put to rest when security finally figured out we really shouldn't be there and we were led away back to the stands. Does that count as another arrest??? THUNDER 27-19 |
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And so that was the final score and it was heads bowed all around from the GM to our star kicker. This 4th tough road loss of the year leaves our World Bowl hopes in serious jeopardy. |
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So it wasn't to be a happy birthday for TE Stevan Fontana - despite the nice little gift bag he was presented at game's end by Dom. Doesn't he look cute??? |
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Shuggie suffers some post game cheerleader taunting. Despite his insistence that was a Five-Yard Grope Penalty he came up empty handed. Again! |
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Birthday kisses from the birthday boy! |
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The perfect cure for a gutting loss in the Berlin rain was one thing and one thing only - A PARTY BUS!!! Once again the magic passes did the trick and we managed to sneak about 10 fans onto the bus for free beer and a wee tour of Berlin! |
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And Claymores front office, in the guise of Kenny and Debbie, also joined the party bus too! This mainly took the form of phoning poor Fester who was stuck back in Scotland lamenting his canceled trip as Kenny hurled abuse down the phone at him. Party on! |
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Once off the party bus it was time to head to Axel Kruse's sportsbar, flash our 'passes' and get inside the VIP section - which included tons of free beer and cheesecake. Did we mention the free beer? Here Shuggie offers Thunder GM Michael Lang some advice on how to get more fans at the game. One word - SCOOTER!!! THUNDER 24-19 |
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Boilermaker Billy Gustin raises a smile as Shuggie strips down to his Purdue vest. Billy convinced us to go to Purdue last year as part of our Cheddar-lennium. We were not disappointed! |
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Jonathan Quinn fired a couple of TD's to raise his total to a season leading 15. If he stays hot the Thunder have a good shot at the Bowl ... |
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Who is the mystery man with the beer soaked slacks courtesy of another Preston spillage??? |
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Why it's none other than FOX's Nick Halling - the newly crowned "Inter Gender Arm Wrestling Champion of Berlin"!!! Nick took on 4 lush ladies and beat them all without raising a sweat! Wait till we set Bill Maas in drag on him! |
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Here Nick faces his stiffest challenge of the night from Karen who had an extraordinary pair of biceps. But the Southampton Strongman improved his record to 4-0 with a 53 second TKO! |
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Who is the mystery man behind the 4 beers??? |
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Why it's none other than ex-Packer, ex-Jag and ex-Brown defensive tackle and all round good guy John Jurkovic!!! John, or 'Jurko', as we called him all night is a legend. Simple as that really. |
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Whether it was telling us what he would do if he ever caught up with Erik Williams (who cheap shotted his knees in the 96 NFC Championship Game), or singing the Notre Dane fight song solo, or having to listen to our rendition of Flower of Scotland, or hassling Halling for being Enlgish all night it was top stuff all round! |
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So we signed a flag and made a special presentation. It was emotional stuff. Then Jurko performed a flag folding ceremony that didn't leave a dry eye in the house ... |
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Finally with the flag wrapped up, and to the applause of Dom and other onlookers, he carefully placed it in his jacket top pocket gave a closing speech ... and then grabbed himself some more free beer!!! And why not??? And with this closing ceremony the night slowly faded away ... |
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Left luggage keys & 'switched on' handy in 'check-in' bag on way home -3pts
