What is Nil Desperandum?
1.
"Never despair": the apt motto of Dorset Desperadoes amateur football club.
NIL DESPERANDUM aptly describes the attitude and unbroken spirit of the Desperadoes, a team which perennially finishes each season last but undaunted at the bottom of the fourth division of the English Southern Amateur League.
Cheerfully chafing against their nearest rivals, each and every member of the club has always been acclaimed for exemplary good sportsmanship.
Badge and colours: A great-crested grebe, with wings flapping and an ivory beak, on a shiny silken ruby-red shirt.
Average age: 69 (but each player believes that he's Superman's uncle).
Average attendance at Butterfield Park: 221b ("b" refers to "bodies present", including humans, dogs, cats and the club secretary's pet parrot).
Inspirational coach/manager (and coach-driver for away-games): silver-tongued 76-year-old Nils Horowitz.
Club secretary, doubling-up as team physiotherapist: "Desperate" Doris Melbage, a lively 72-year-old who arranges matches, washes the kit and cleans the players' boots. (Traditionally, she also joins "the lads" in the after-match communal bath, and later for an old-fashioned sing-song and knees-up in the boardroom.)
Stalwart team-captain and centre-forward: bald-headed Big Jackie Blumenthal (the English 1966 World Cup icon).
Five-star fleet-footed-wizard, covering both wings: the stellar French ball-maestro "Gentleman" Jean Atrois, an indefatigible artist and entertainer in every area.
Aged, yet amazingly-agile goalkeeper: that evergreen custodian and singing soccer-sentry Jumping John Lenin ("save the planet - you know it makes sense").
The situation after last season's final game found the Desperadoes, defeated but undespairing, finishing immediately under Clacton College 2nd XI.
The club's other, nearest rivals, in ascending order were:
Putney Institute 3rd XI; Dorking Dynamo; Wimborne Valley 7th XI; Nutwood Forest; Penzance Privateers; Newquay Unicorns 1st XI; Wal Mart-Asda Family United; Whitechapel Hornets.
The Desperadoes' score-card - a typical end-of-season tally - was as follows:
Played-35; Won-0; Drawn-0; Lost-35;
Goals For-1(og * ); Goals Against-219.
( * In the match against Bushey Marines All-Stars, when the opposing captain G. Bush scored an own-goal in the first four minutes .)
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2.
never dispair, never say die
nil desperandum sir, im here
Cheerfully chafing against their nearest rivals, each and every member of the club has always been acclaimed for exemplary good sportsmanship.
Badge and colours: A great-crested grebe, with wings flapping and an ivory beak, on a shiny silken ruby-red shirt.
Average age: 69 (but each player believes that he's Superman's uncle).
Average attendance at Butterfield Park: 221b ("b" refers to "bodies present", including humans, dogs, cats and the club secretary's pet parrot).
Inspirational coach/manager (and coach-driver for away-games): silver-tongued 76-year-old Nils Horowitz.
Club secretary, doubling-up as team physiotherapist: "Desperate" Doris Melbage, a lively 72-year-old who arranges matches, washes the kit and cleans the players' boots. (Traditionally, she also joins "the lads" in the after-match communal bath, and later for an old-fashioned sing-song and knees-up in the boardroom.)
Stalwart team-captain and centre-forward: bald-headed Big Jackie Blumenthal (the English 1966 World Cup icon).
Five-star fleet-footed-wizard, covering both wings: the stellar French ball-maestro "Gentleman" Jean Atrois, an indefatigible artist and entertainer in every area.
Aged, yet amazingly-agile goalkeeper: that evergreen custodian and singing soccer-sentry Jumping John Lenin ("save the planet - you know it makes sense").
The situation after last season's final game found the Desperadoes, defeated but undespairing, finishing immediately under Clacton College 2nd XI.
The club's other, nearest rivals, in ascending order were:
Putney Institute 3rd XI; Dorking Dynamo; Wimborne Valley 7th XI; Nutwood Forest; Penzance Privateers; Newquay Unicorns 1st XI; Wal Mart-Asda Family United; Whitechapel Hornets.
The Desperadoes' score-card - a typical end-of-season tally - was as follows:
Played-35; Won-0; Drawn-0; Lost-35;
Goals For-1(og
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nil desperandum sir, im here
