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Author: Floyd Bennit
Arriving in full colors and luggage the Raiders assembled infront of the group check-in counter of Vietnam Airlines the signage board started blinking in red and white: WELCOME RAIDERS, SAIGON VIKING CUP DELEGATION 2013.
A “Fragile” sticker was attached to Angelo’s Louis Vuitton bag which had already been packaged in safety foil about 200 times to make it look like a “Boule de cannon” Reloaded.
The immigrations officer’s eyes were wide open and happiness tears ran down his cheeks when he saw young Viking Cup-virgin Bao wrapped in a Vietnamese flag. He saluted us with the words: “Make us proud and bring back the Viking trophy to Vietnam”, he went on “if win, no need visa, longtime”!
Much to our surprise, we got up-graded to Business-Class which meant red-carpet treatment. Beautiful stewardesses dressed in short skirts served us welcome drinks and handed us wet towels, accompanied with hugs and kisses on cheeks.
After everyone has taken a seat, the curtain towards the economy class was closed and Raiders started juggling the football in Turkish Airlines-commercial-style…
Arriving at the Viking Concorde Hotel, VIP-treatment continued and all Vikings got separate check-in at the Viking Bar. In addition to our up-graded room keys, we got handed out our sponsor equipment from the organizers:
Sportsbag filled with goodies such as Viking Cup 2013 poloshirt, cap, towels, Viking helmet, umbrellas, speedo trunks for the poolparty, Carlsberg bottle opener, and to top it off, Emborg spray-Whipcream for evening action.
While our cheerleaders were gazing through their gifts, the players leaned in into taking advantage of the 60 hours-free-flow of all you can dream of alcohol!
Even though the ballroom for the sponsored dinner and team presentations was only next door, we almost didn’t make due to lost orientation after too many Carlsbergs.
Bart van Bommel opened the short lasting official part of the evening by welcoming all the 10 teams, their spectators, cheerleaders and dogs. Quite quickly the food was shoveled in to try balance the liters of alcoholl consumed before.
Out of the 250 participants dozens of players were honorably mentioned and received their merits for participation in the Viking tournament for 5-10 years, 10-15 years and even 15 to 20 years.
One of the ways how to win honor and silverware was to give the best team-presentation to the KL Viking Cup.
Have a look for yourself:….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exv0_dHI8yA
- Hong Kong Vikings
- Saigon Raiders
- KL Vikings
- Beijing Vikings
- Jakarta Vikings
- BKK Vikings
- Singapore Vikings
- Singapore Vikings Vintage
- KL Viking Vintage
- Shanghai Vikings
Ranking is in accordance to the drunken Viking votes J. Hong Kong Vikings had a great remake on Hang-over, part IV, probably reflecting the spirit of the Viking Cup the best…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8CfH8BxG3Y
Next morning the teams were trying to count their losses from the evening before and then got onto the well-organized deluxe-busses with real aircon and appetizing KL stewardesses serving the first (?) Carlsberg and / or advil tablets.
Arriving at the Royal Selangor Sportsclub shade-providing team tents were prepared. The Raiders rolled out their sponsorship banners, flags and other equipment to settle in. Not sure what the fruit-basket for each team were supposed to be good for, as Vitamin C was not what we were worried about, and it came too late for some of us anyway.
As Raiders were short on team players, the organizers had prepared for us some
U18 National team of players of Nigeria (cannot disclose names because of conflict between religious beliefs and the drunken Thor, Odin and the Northern Gods).
With that support we had just about enough players for the starting 11. Who needs subs! Completely overrated these days, especially when it is only 40 degrees in the shade and about a 95% humidity…
Our newly purchased players were VC-experienced and immediately fitted into the Raiders spirit.
Loosing the first game against the Beijing Vikings still trying to memorize new names, we were glad to see the overdue arrival of the Singaporean Raiders reinforcement, better know as Finn Thor Carlsberg Straten with his personal drinking coach and mentor Joey Carlsberg Straten!
He just came on time for the second game, where Raidres already suffered their first cultural overexcitement collaps: Angelo. Wrong dosis of heat, smoke and Carlsberg. No Peroni in sight at that time. And dispite his “Lawrence of Arabia” head-gear the relentless KL sun had done its damage already
Replacement was found through legendary multi-out-of-position-playing Swiss Wall J-Onas! After some amazing and unexpected dives on the goal-line, the KL-Geological Institute for Earthquakes reported sudden Richter-eruptions with showing the epicenter to be around the Selangor Royal Sportsclub.
14:00: Filing first missing Raider report at the Royal Selangor Police Station for Oliver the-no-show Roche.
After a heavy rainshowers and welcome greetings from Thor the God of lightning and thunder the games recommenced 30 minutes later completely electrically recharged!
Because Sascha did not wear the double-horned safety-helmet handed out on the first day of arrival for all participating players, he fell victim to ruthless Anders the Rusty Axe.
Viking Blondes helped to close the wound on his forehead which now guarantees him an honorary spot in the scarred Head-Bangers-Raiders.
Dinosaur Floyd made a strong re-appearance after not having played nor secretly trained for exactly 365 days! He was called MIA in BKK after knee injury and not seen on Raiders green for a year. From 0 to sudden 200 minutes of football he ended the day with a few good shots on goal and walking off the pitch in one piece.
Following the footsteps of (biological) Virgin Minh, “Love-Glove-Bao”
made his first appearance outside of Vietnamese boundaries. Excited by the well-shaped big breasted blonde cheerleaders, blew out the balls in VC-style (you can choose what VC stands for Viking Cup or …). Him and Vincent formed what has now become known in Malaysia as the true KL-Twin-Towers!
Return to the Viking Bar at the hotel drinking away the results, the heat and enjoying the depletion of :
5070 beers,
150 liquor bottles,
120 wine bottles.
While most of us where chilling with some chilled bears, Love-Glove-Bao went to his room to put on some Nivea whitening-crème and to get ready for the dinner feast.
Team Dinner localities were allocated by Bart van Bommel and surprisingly KL-Vikings and Saigon Raiders shared the VIP section in the Beachclub while other teams had to eat outside in other designated Michelin-star-rewarded restaurants
While the free-flow buckets of Carlsberg were guaranteed by the organizers, the Club paid the team dinner of mouth-watering steaks. When Angelo was the only one ordering Chianti white wine the waiters immediately retaliated by not serving any food to our proud Italian stomach. They should feel the heat after not feeding the Italian tiger for 60 minutes.
The Beachclub being KL’s Apocalypse Now had lots of eye-candy becoming prettier by the Carlsberg bucket!
Next morning a great breakfast feast helped to overcome some of the massive hang-over feelings of some of the true Vikings. The scenes were definitely providing enough footage for the next Viking Cup presentation, Hangover, part V.
By this time in the bus ALL the cheersleaders were looking great, even those with head-scarves on them.
The second day of footi was showing effects from too much free-flow beer from the evening before. But with some crushed ice in your underwear, running on the pitch became possible again.
Amazing from the KL organizers was the police convoy escorting the team busses from the Royal Selangor Pitch back to the Hotel.
At the hotel a big pool party with DJ was waiting for us to refresh.
Teams dressing up in their creative team-dresses, Raiders wearing tribute to their true heritage:
A big Viking high-light was certainly the Gala-Dinner’s Beer Drinking Competition:
Big Thanks to Bart van Bommel and Rune van Rommel organizing and paying for our strong KL-support. Without them we would have earned the “Wooden Spoon”-trophy coming out last of the Cup. Finishing 7th was only possible due to our talented KL squad giving us the life-support that we certainly needed. All you guys became part of the Raiders:
Vincent “Essien”
Adam Roadrunner, Top scorer with 5 goals for the Raiders,
Yahaya “Toure”
Jeffrey “Giggs” with more than 10 Viking Cups under his belt
Zul the cannonball
Uncle Sham
Dany “Wunderkind”
Noie “Alves”
