Musing' From The Shitter

Musings From The Shitter: Volume Nineteen A Detour Backwards, A Step Forwards There’s something vaguely absurd about showing up to play with a team you haven’t worn the jersey for in five years, especially when your usual team...by which I mean the “Masters,” the club’s sanctuary for those of us whose knees have issued their solemn retirement notices but whose brains and hearts stubbornly refuse...didn’t need you this week. The Masters, of course, is where the “older heads” gather, a euphemism that sounds both tender and vaguely euphemistic, a place where one plays not quite for glory, not quite for fitness, but mostly to stave off the creeping sense of athletic obsolescence. To feel still relevant, still slightly fast, still slightly young. But no. This Saturday, fate (or perhaps the cruel but generous hand of the schedule) delivered me a different platform, the Bs, the reserves, a team I once captained, a place I once called home. The one I hadn’t touched in half a decade. Walkin...

Musings From The Shitter: Volume Eighteen Sometimes, It’s Just a Puddle of Mud There’s something simultaneously absurd and quietly profound about lying on your back in a puddle of cold, brown water, mud sneaking its way up past your ears, your chest heaving in that way that reminds you just how much you’re still alive, your lungs burning, legs feeling like they’ve been in a slow-motion battle with gravity for days. You just threw yourself at a ball—maybe even missed it—but somehow that’s irrelevant. You went . And in this context, that’s the whole point. This was Saturday. Just been. To someone on the sideline…maybe a mate holding a coffee, maybe a stranger scrolling through their phone…it probably looked like a mistake. Like two grown men in the waning light of youth playing some local game that nobody will remember in a week, let alone a year. But I turned my head and saw my mate beside me, also flat on his back, sharing the puddle, sharing the silence. No words exchanged. Just...

Musings from the Shitter: Volume Seventeen Dear Feilding Women’s Socials, From the Subs Coordinator I know there are still two weekends left in the season. Maybe it’s too early to be writing something like this…maybe you’re supposed to wait until the final whistle before trying to name what something meant. But sometimes, when you see it clearly enough, you have to say it while it’s still happening. While it’s still alive and unedited. This isn’t about the end of a story. It’s about recognising something mid-chapter…before memory can tidy it up or turn it into a highlight reel. From April through to now, I’ve watched this team…the Feilding United Women’s Socials, play in the 2nd Division…and what I’ve seen isn’t just football. It’s not just the scores or the formations or the slow rhythm of a season unfolding. What I’ve seen is something harder to name. Something that, if you stand back far enough and look at it with the right kind of eyes, looks a lot like trust. And trust, re...

Musings from the Shitter: Volume Sixteen In which football is briefly benched, and something heavier takes the pitch. Right…so usually, these musings spiral (or stagger) around football…my team, the beautiful game, the not so beautiful bits of it, the tribalism, and the soul sapping banality of mid table mediocrity. The usual. But not this one. This one veers. Swerves. Takes the off ramp into something messier, more human, and frankly less enjoyable than a 3-2 away win on a wet Saturday. It’s not about football at all. No red cards, no dodgy referees, no "we go again next week." It’s about fucking up. And what happens after. Or doesn’t. Now…if you're already rolling your eyes, waiting for the punchline, there isn't one. This isn’t some tidy parable dressed in sports metaphor. This one comes from the same place…literally, physically, yes, the loo…but also from that low, unvarnished part of the mind where you actually think, stripped of the daily bullshit and wh...

Musings From The Shitter Volume Fifteen Not Trying, becoming They’d played this team before. Same ground. Same colours. Same rhythms in the crowd. That time, they lost 3–0—hard and clean. You could see it in the shape of the game, in the weight of each pass, in how little they believed the match was theirs to shape. This weekend, it ended 1–1. Against the top team. A draw on paper, but something heavier in the air. They weren’t just playing differently—they were different. The younger players especially—no longer just shadows or placeholders. They carried something with them now. Not just skill, but a kind of stubborn heart. Not waiting to be useful— being useful. Each movement said, “I’m here. I’m part of this.” About 25 minutes in, one of them came off for a quick sub. On the surface, routine. But she walked over, and I noticed something—quiet tears, the kind that don’t shout but settle heavy. That’s what caught my attention. In the quiet between the chaos, she told me somethi...

Musings From The Shitter Volume Fourteen 100% Disclaimer: This ain’t some polished story to sip with your morning coffee. It’s raw blood, smoke, and broken teeth — half truth, half fever dream. Light a smoke, hold on tight, and decide what’s real before it’s too late. The Koro Lounge tore down the Foxton Straight, twenty minutes out of Feilding...a rolling cage of smoke, noise, and desperate souls. Shotgun sat the meat pack hustler, king of the soundtrack to impending madness. In the back, the joint roller worked like a bomb defuser...every flick precise, every inch deadly. Abdul sat silent, eyes wide, absorbing the chaos like a ghost drifting through a storm. Then the smoke parted. Clarity hit...sharp, brutal, unforgiving. Life laid bare, raw and bleeding. That’s when you burn. 100% fun. Not safe. Not clean. The wild moments you never saw coming...naked, unfiltered, real. The call came...last-minute gig, easy to refuse, safer to hide. But no is for ghosts. Yes is the bea...

Musings from the Shitter: Volume Thirteen Ichi Go Ichi E I caught up with a friend. The kind of friend I don’t know how I still get to keep. No real reason why they’re still here...just kindness, plain and simple. Most people pass by, nod politely, and disappear. Not this one. Always time. Always space. Every time we talk, I walk away with something I didn’t have before. A little wisdom tucked in my pocket. And maybe, just maybe, I’m not the asshole I wake up thinking I am. We talked about ichi go ichi e . One time. One meeting. This moment’s got a shelf life, and it ain’t long. Those words...they helped me hold onto what I couldn’t before...that the everyday...isn’t bullshit....It’s the whole damn point. We played a friendly on Saturday. No pressure. No scoreboard worth remembering. Just a bunch of broken souls chasing a ball, laughing like idiots. I laughed more than I should have...the kind of laughter that sneaks up on you and knocks the wind out of your chest. Fun. Yeah, that’s wh...