So another calendar year begins, the year of two thousand and twelve of our lord. But before reminiscing the glorious start to the year, we must wind back the clock to the Christmas party, and most importantly, this:

Raiders graced the five-star Legend with their presence. The clinking of wine glasses, light patter of conversation and amiable laughter soon gave way to a raucous, drunken din. Leading the way was Roberti, who found great entertainment in instructing the staff into fetching the most ridiculous food combinations possible. This culminated in the now famous ‘banana cake topped with liver pate’. Hoff volunteered to join Roberti in this gruesome taste test, and let me say, it was great – but that was probably more to do with a palette obliterated by 13 glasses of wine. Upon leaving, Roberti did what every red blooded male who has visited the Legend Hotel wants to – mounted the giant horse in the lobby. If this was in Europe or the US, he would have been tasered.

The night continued on to a German bar in the InterCon where much table banging, general incomprehensible shouting, and singing occurred. Singing was led by Koetz, who after popping out for 5 mins (judging by his condition on return it was to down a litre of gin) led the Raiders chants. And as they sang well past midnight in drunken haze, one Raider of Italian decent went to the toilet and never came back. And it wasn’t the goalkeeper.

Anyway, back to the football. Due to two cancellations beyond Raiders control we are still to play an SIFL league game this year. In their place two friendlies have been played – the first saw a convincing 5-1 victory and a Fred hatrick. I can’t provide much more detail as I wasn’t there. The second, I can, because I was. This one was a 2-1 victory. Having dominated the first half we endeavoured to concede a penalty and found ourselves 1-0 down. This only galvanized the team and we quickly turned it around. Craig scored twice before half time whilst Hoff and Dawson struck the frame of the goal. The second half saw a similar pattern and Craig nearly notched his hatrick after rounding the keeper and seeing his shot come back off the post from a narrow angle. The game should have been put to bed with a much more comfortable scoreline, but with a really solid defensive performance, the game was closed out and Raiders are unbeaten in 2012.

This will be truely put to the test in our next league encounter with Olympique de Saigon, coming after TET holidays.