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One hour later on Sunday 12th December A chance encounter ?

Author's note: This part of the story is set in the airside portion of Sydney International Airport. I have never had the chance to break a journey at this airport so I have to base the story of what I know of airport's in general rather than this one in particular. I apologise for any glaring inaccuracies (any minor ones, I'll live with)

Mr DeVilliers had spent the first hour of his stopover walking round the airside portion of the main terminal at Sydney International Airport. As this was quite a restricted area in terms of size this had meant doing laps of the shops and food concessions. At one point a security guard had asked him if he was looking for something but Mr Devilliers had calmly explained that after such a long flight from Europe he neeeded to get some circulation back into his legs.

After an hour of wlaking though, and satisfied to have least taken the edge off an entire day of inactivity Mr DeVilliers stopped at one of th airport concession areas, this one made out as an Fair Dinkum' Aussie Outback Bar Experience, and ordered himself a still mineral water. He sat down at the long bar and statred to think about how he would approach matters in Vanuatu.

At that point a man wearing an extremely loud Hawaiaan shirt sat down next to Mr DeVilliers and ordered a large schooner of XXXX. The man looked vaguley familiar but Mr Devilliers couldn't place him, so he turned away from the newcomer and returned to his planning.

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Still that hour later on Sunday 12th December Ships in the night ?

Three hours is a long time I decided. I hadn't intended to drink (much) during the layover but despite the appallingly slow service my 'meal' in the 'Sheila's Bonzer Steakhouse' franchise had only taken up an hour of the three I had to spend in this glorified transit lounge.

A quick look round the shops and the purchase of a Lee Child paperback to read during my week's break had taken another ten minutes, max. So there was nothing else for it but to go for a beer.

In normal circumstances wild horses wouldn't have been able to drag me into a 'Fair Dinkum' Outback Experience, but it was, amazingly enough, the best option available and besides, Aussie lager is very difficult to spoil, as long as you keep it cold.

And if there is one thing you can rely on in any Australian bar it's cold beer so here I was getting a large glass of FourEx. The guy sitting next to me was six foot three and full of muscles, but it didn't seem like he wanted a chat, so I din't find out if he was from Brussels or not. Instead I found out that the barmaid's name was Mandy and she was on work experience from Oxford, England.

After about 20 minutes the muscle bound guy finished up his drink and left the bar. I caught sight of him from time to time as he continued to do laps of the area.

Meanwhile I stayed in the bar and drank beer. Mandy helpfully reminded me when it was time to get back on the plane, and with that I was off on the last leg of my trip to Fiji.

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Sunday 12th December to Saturday 18th December Tropical paradise ? Not Half !

Fiji was everything the brochures had promised and more, sun kissed golden sands, swaying palm trees and a holiday so relaxed I was practically horizontal by the end of it.

Time flew by and approximately 27 Strawberry Daquiri's later I was on my plane back to Australia.

Don't you hate it when holidays go that quick ?

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Saturday 18th December Meanwhile in Vanuatu

It hadn't been an easy week for Mr DeVilliers. Sure Vanuatu was the tropical paradise that he'd expected but finding a miscreant who was trying to blackmail your boss was not easy.

He'd left the message at any number of bars that a representative of the 'Belgian' cartel was in Vanuatu and was ready to deal with the man who had the information they wanted, and finally, after seven fruitless days, a beach bar had come up trumps.

The proprietor of the bar was pleased that he had assisted the big, quiet, Belgian as Mr Devilliers pressed an envelope with ten thousand euros into his hand, just for the information so far. And if the guy the owner had pointed out turned out to be the one Mr Devilliers was after it would turn out alot more profitable than that.

Mr DeVilliers walked over to the table where the scrawny looking guy was sat, nursing a beer, and sat down, unbidden, next to him. The scrawny guy swallowed hard and turned to look at the man mountain next to him.

Mr DeVilliers : "We need to talk...."

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Saturday 18th December A nice chat with Mr Devilliers. Is that actually possible ?

Clive Milton's mind was racing. he knew that trying to extort money out of the Belgian Chocolate Cartel in return for information about Denton Patch was a risky move. That's why he'd come to Vanuatu, as nice an out-of-the-way place as you could hope to find. And he'd never told Mr DeSmet his name, so how come this giant of a man calling himself Mr Devilliers was here ? Running seemed like a plan, but how to get away ?

Mr Devilliers spoke.

Mr Devilliers (Mr DeV): "I believe you have some information we might like to know, Mr...?"

Colin Milton (CM): "C...c..colin...Mmmm..Milton"

Mr DeV: "Well, Mr Milton, My boss, Jan DeSmet would like to know why yoiu won't trade the information we want for the price we offered, a hundred thousand pounds is a lot of money"

CM: "It is. It is, I'll Deal."

Mr DeV: "Good. Trouble is the deal's off. You're going to tell me what you know for nothing."

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Sunday 19th December It's Good to Talk. No really it is."

Mr DeVilliers has waited patiently for the bar to shut before 'recovering' the information. He'd sat with Colin Milton for four hours, not saying a single word. Milton, immolbilized by fear, didn't move a muscle for the whole time, except for his right eyebrow, which appeared to have a life of it's own.

As the bar shut Mr DeVilliers led Colin Milton out. As he left he handed the bar owner an envelope with the words...

Mr Devillers: "Forget we were ever here."

The envelope contained another 250,000 euros. Well worth forgetting, especially if the bar owner could find a bank willing to change that much cash.

DeVilliers led Milton down to a desetred jetty, tied his hands and feet and strung him up, upside down from a yardarm.

Mr DeVilliers (Mr DeV): "Now tell me what I want to know, or it's swimming time, except you might find that difficult."

Colin Milton (CM): "Let me down !"

Mr DeV: "I will, just as soon as you tell me what I want to know. Now where is Denton Patch ?"

CM: "I saw him in Australia."

Mr DeV: "Where in Australia, it's a big country"

And with that he threw an uncooked steak that he happened to be carrying into the water. within seconds a shark lunged out of the water and took the meat.

CM: "Collins Street in Melbourne !"

Mr DeV: "Good, Now was he acting like a tourist ?"

CM: "No, he had some food shopping with him"

Mr DeV: "Now did he see you, did you talk ?"

And with this Mr Devilliers swung the yardarm out over the shark infested water. Milton desperatly tried to work out what the right answer would be, otherwise he's quite clearly going to be swimming with sharks.

CM: "No we didn't speak, and I don't think he saw me."

Mr DeV: "Pity. For you as well."

And Mr DeVilliers cut the rope holding Colin Milton up, and as he fell he threw more meat into the water.

The screaming lasted for a very short period of time, but bu the time it was over DeVilliers was a distance away from the scene. He pulled out his mobile phone and speed dialled DeSmet.

Mr DeV: "I think I've found him. I'm taking the first flight to Melbourne."

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Monday 20th December Back to work. It could have gone better.

Bad news greated me as I strode into my office on the Monday morning. Our number one keeper Eugene Galekovic had injured himself in training last Monday, pulling a hamstring in the process. The doctor says it's a two to four week job, so it's touch and go whether he'll be right for the resumption of 'hostilities' on Jan 4th (or whenever it is).

But fortunately that was as bad as the injury news got, in fact there was a glimmer of good tidings as the month off would help left winger Andrew Vlahos back towards fitness after his horrific broken leg.

Of course I spoke too soon. The physio, Daniel Milosevic poked his head round the door and told me that our Austrian right winger Richard Kitzbichler had turned in with what looked like the flu. I told him to get him off home to bed and once again hoped that 2 weeks would be long enough for him to recover, and also that he hadn't had time to spread his germs around.

Things only went from bad to worse as I went out to watch the training session. Whilst I was pleased to see the aforesaid Vlahos going through his paces for the first time in six months I was horrified to see central midfielder Micheal Ferrante scream out in pain after a seemingly innocuous tumble in the training game. It turns out he had broken his wrist and whould be out for up to two months. As with Galekovic this was a bad injury to a key player.

The rest of my first day back passed off without incident. But what incident there had been had depressed me greatly and I went home via the bottle shop, and a slab of VB kept me company for the rest of the night.

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Up to Tuesday 4th Jan Not so Silent night as it turned out.

No more injury scares to face in the run up to the resumption of the league. Richard Kitzbichler reported back for duty on December 28th, looking much better. In fact looking much better than either myself or many of the lads as we were still, at that time, nursing post-Christmas hangover's.

I'd given the lads Christmas Eve until the 28th off, let them do whatever family stuff they had wanted on Christmas Day.

Personally I booked myself into a nice guesthouse down in Portsea and spent much of Christmas Day contemplating the ocean with a glass of Scotchman's Hill Cab Sav in one hand and something nice off the host's barbecue in the other. I was in a place that wasn't home with people that I'd only met the day before and yet it was one of the best Christmas Days I could remember.

On Boxing Day though I'd organised a team outing to the traditional Boxing Day test at the MCG. The Green and Golds were playing the West Indies this year and a jolly nice day it was too. The beer was cold, though you had to queue an age to get it, and the entertainment taht kind of stately excitment that only cricket can manage. We followed it up with a barbie and a session round at the chairman's house, nay, mansion in Fitzroy Gardens. There much beer and wine was drunk and a good time was had by all, well into the following day.

That's why we all turned up to training on the 28th looking like zombies. Nevermind, was a hell of a session though.

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Wednesday 5th Jan The season restarts with a ripsnorter of a match

A home game against second place Perth Glory was our entree back into the league proper. Prior to the game Perth manager Steve McMahon, yes that one, had seen fit to mouth off to the press that we'd have to win if we were to have any hope of lifting the title. I responded by saying we'd enjoy beating the Glory boys on the way to the title. Hope that wasn't too much of a red rag to the oppositions players.

Galekovic hadn’t quite made it back in time for the game, and I decided not to risk a half fit player so Theoklitos stood between the sticks. No other surprises in the selection Tadrosse keeping his spot despite Vlahos’s return to fitness.

We started the game very brightly, pinging the ball around, making their players chase shadows. We had a couple of half chances and a couple of wasted corners but it was Glory who scored first, against the run of play when, on 20 minutes, their Omanian(i.e. someone from Oman, is that right ?) centre forward Al-Mahaijri muscled through our defence and shot home from the edge of the box. It has to be said a very well taken goal. We were level, however, only four minutes later when Tadrosse crossed from the left, Vieri rose with the keeper, missed the ball but putting the netminder off so that he missed it too, and ball sailed into the net unassisted. A fluke, but a 1-1 fluke.

The rest of the half was pretty much ours, Vieri getting beyond the defence, but being denied by the Perth keeper, bravely rushing out. The resultant corner was hacked off the line by a defender. But we weren’t going to be denied and when Vince Lia poked the ball through a forest of defenders to find Massimo Vieri unmarked, 12 yards out, and he doesn’t often miss from there. 2-1. And though Glory came back and blazed one over when they should have done much better it was us who, deservedly I thought, went in ahead at the break.

We came out firing in the second period too. After only a minute we should have scored again when Archie Thompson shot straight at the keeper when a square ball would have given Vieri an open goal. But we weren’t to be denied as, on 55 minutes, Muscat and Lia worked some space on the right with the later’s cross to the back post being headed home by Tadrosse, ghosting in umarked. Masi then got one back on 63 minutes, after we lost out in midfield tussle, lost the ball and allowed Perth to break. 3-2 the score now. But this was the high water mark for Perth, as good as it got. It was one way traffic after that and we added a fourth on 73, when Lizarazo was unfortunate to put through his own net under sever pressure from Vince Lia.

4-2 the final score, and, in truth, a relatively easy one. Vince Lia was man of the match, though they all played well today.

Final Score: Melbourne Victory 4: 2 Perth Glory
Qualification for the A-League Championship now guaranteed.

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Saturday 8th January Time for a Derby game

The following week was dominated by build up to what was one of our biggest fixtures of the season. Sydney FC would be the visitors and I was pleased to note no new injury concerns ahead of the game.

If there is one football cliché I know it’s that you don’t change a winning team, and so I didn’t. Come game time it was cold and blowing a gale, how would that affect things ? The answer was not as much as you would expect. The game was open with both sides creating, and wasting, good chances. The game looked to be heading towards half time stalemate when Anthony Danze uncorked a 30 yard drive into the top corner. Sydney would have been upset to go in a goal behind, but, hey, that’s football for you.

The second half was pretty much all Sydney, sure we had some breaks, Archie Thompson being particularly wasteful, but mainly it was Sydney who were the ones coming forward. Claeys and Laurie were giants in the centre of defence and Danze was awesome in the middle of the park. We had one setback when Vieri had to limp off but apart from that it all went our way. Sydney failed to make their domination pay in goals and we closed out the 1-0 win. Theoklitos in goal was named man of the match, and well deserved it was too.

Final Score:Melbourne Victory 1-0 Sydney FC
Theoklitos is going to make it very difficult for me to bring back Galekovic