Speech by Mark Cruise

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Mark Cruise
Speech Date: May2005
Thank you indeed Sacha, for those kind words. Don't think for a second though, that they will save you. Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls. It gives me great pleasure to be standing in front of you today as Sachas best man. Traditionally, the best mans speech involves reading telegrams from absent friends, complimenting the bride and bridesmaids, and then trying as hard as possible to completely assassinate the grooms chararcter. I beg your indulgence as I execute the first two tasks before I execute Sacha.

I would just like to say that Tina and the other bridesmaids: Nikita, Tara and Lauren look wonderful today, and I think that everyone will agree that they have done a fabulous job in helping Emma to get ready and get her to the church on time. Can we have a big round of applause for the bridesmaids please?

First of all, let me say that I am honoured to have been asked by Sacha to be his best man today. I think it was a very wise move in his part to pick me, not just because of my outstanding personal qualities, but also because I didn't meet him until he was 24 years old, which means I missed out on his embarrassing college and school years. Lucky for me then, that his friends and family were climbing over each other in an effort to drop him in it.

I'm sure not many people are surprised to hear that Sacha is a big fan of that wonderful academy of football achievement: Tottenham Hotspur. In fact he's also managed to convert Emma to being a Spurs fan. Which just shows that Emma doesn't have very high expectations of either her men or her football.

However, I also happen to be a Spurs fan, and it was through this unfortunate affliction that I met Sacha. A group of us used to use a Spurs email list to arrange to meet up in Dublin and watch Spurs getting hammered, live on TV. We were all very excited when we received an email from a woman who said she was a Spurs fan, based in Dublin and wanted to meet up with us to watch football. Imagine our disappointment, when we showed up, freshly shaven and looking smart, only to realize that Sacha was in fact, a man. I recovered from that early setback to become pretty good friends with Sacha, though sadly I never got past second base with him (He is a man, right Emma? *Emma Shrugs* ).

As I have mentioned, my knowledge of Sachas early years are somewhat fuzzy. I do know that pretty early on in life, he knew he was never going to make it as a footballer, famously fluffing a penalty in the Overton School cup final as an 8 year old, and also propelling a football at his sisters head, causing her to lose her sense of smell for a time.

Realising that a life of hard toil, rather than a sporting life lay ahead of him, he began to work out ways in which he could maximize his income. This came to fruition when he conjured up an imaginary sponsored swim, complete with a school-stamped sponsorship form, and went around the local houses. By the end of his scam, he'd managed to get $50 out of the poor, trusting, dear old ladies, a tidy sum in those days. The facts about what happened to the money remain sketchy.

Sacha himself insists the money went on a pair of Adidas shorts, but I suspect it fuelled an early sherbet addiction. It's only a full-blown sherbet addiction that can account for actions such as: jumping into a fountain in a shopping centre in order to persuade his mother to buy him new clothes, or running amok in a dentists waiting room to such a degree that his poor father had to pay $50 replace a broken hat stand. For shame Sacha, for shame!!

Sadly, as time is against me, I wont have time to go into the various other pieces of information about Sachas early years, such as when he killed a tortoise and put it in his mothers bed, how he used to ride naked on top of the family dog: Tasha, or the most shameful: how he cut up his 4-year old sisters security blanket……

Before Sacha was under the protection of Emmas wing – he was famous for acquiring a number of injuries, some real and some imagined – which has deservedly resulted in him having the nickname: ‘Sicknote’. The best example of this was when he and I took part in the only game of football I've ever known to occur in a mosque. We were invited to take part in a friendly match by the local muslim community in Dublin. We made the mistake of assuming that men with beards wouldn't be very skillful, and quickly found ourselves being hammered. However, we fought back, and with the game on a knife-edge at 19-all, Sacha made the fatal mistake of trying to actually control the ball with no-one within 5 feet of him. This resulted in him collapsing on the ground, holding his knee in agony. After I had a shot and it went wide, I went over to see what the problem was. The ambulance drivers kept asking Sacha if he had ever actually played football before as he didn't look like he was in shape.

It's not the only time I've seen Sacha slightly the worse for wear. We went on a one week holiday to Malta a few years ago, and Sacha found himself locked out of the room and dying for a wee. You'd be surprised how much wee a stand up ashtray can take, ladies and gentlemen

But this is a day of celebration, so let us not dwell on Sachas shameful past. Let us move on to happier memories. Let us talk about how Sacha and Emma first met. As you all now know, Sacha and Emma met whilst working at the Sports Turf Research Institute, truly a world renowned hotbed of romance. You may not know though, that I was present on the very night these two lovebirds first displayed their affection for each other.

It was a moonlit night in Paris, and it involved poetry, champagne and jazz. Actually, now that I think about it some more, it may well have been a rainy night in Bradford and it could well have involved Fruit machines, alcopop races and Dexys Midnight Runners. Anyway, by the end of the night, I wont name names, but one of the two people who got married today was so drunk, they couldn't remember my name, and had to refer to me as “Mrhairyman”. Ah, young love…young, drunken love.

That was how it begun, and against the odds, indeed, very generous odds being offered in Ladbrokes, Sacha and Emma have persevered, though personally I'm getting a little worried about their sick, sick addiction to going to the gym at least 4 days a week. Some people………

So now ladies and gentlemen, I have reached the end of my speech. I understand that it has become the practice for guests to guess how long in total the speeches will take. Myself, I have $5 on the total being 40 minutes (look at watch), so……..it……….just……….remains………for……nah.

It just remains for me to ask every man, woman, child and Tottenham supporter to be upstanding and to join me in raising their glasses in a toast please, to THE BRIDE AND GROOM. Long may you run.