PCFC: James, Kevin, Jeremy, Richard N, JP, Matt
Ruski FC: Daniel + 5 non-English speaking Poles/Russians
Daniel awoke, a dull incessant pain disturbing him from his slumber. He wearily opened his eyes and looked at the clock, 8.30am. 3 hours sleep, such is the life of a rent boy.
“Must get to football” he moaned as he got up and left the house. He got on the Perivale to Peckham express (tube, another tube, bus) and arrived hime just in time to put on his kit and cycle to the Rye. He relished a Sunday morning kickaround to clear his hangovers and was looking forward good little scrap. As they walked over to the pitch, he had a jolly chat with Kevin about recent Spurs games, the only other fan on the team – a friendly bond he thought. Only seven people turned up but that was enough. But then another group was invited to play. Daniel wasn’t asked though, which he thought strange considering his position as captain. He carried on putting up the goals and then sauntered over to the other end to fetch a clock.
“We’ve decided to put you with the other guys,” said Jeremy, and then added “because you’re wearing yellow.”
Daniel looked shocked, eyes wide in amazement that his teammates could be so…so…. He couldn’t think of how to describe the sudden loneliness, the betrayal, the treachary. He looked at them one by one, and then finally at Kevin.
“Et tu Brute?” Kevin looked shamefully at the floor. Daniel turned and slowly walked back to the other team, the muffled sniggering behind twisting into his already pierced pride.
He introduced himself to other team. Nothing. He tried again. They looked blank. They started laughing, muttering in a foreign language, Polish? Russian? He didn’t know. He didn’t care.
The game kicked off and the Peckham Commoners ran rings around Daniel & Ruski FC (who barely got a shot off) reaching 8-0 at half time.
Daniel trudged back to the other end to fetch his water.
“I tell you what,” said Jeremy, “we’ll swap you for James or someone.” Daniel’s eyes flickered with relief, his faith restored.
“Nah, only joking.” They all burst into laughter.
He decided there and then to step up a gear and remained solid in defence, a one man army denying Kevin on every attempt (who’d been put up front as the only man not to score – a showboating, insulting gimmick of a tactic of the ungracious opponents). They only scored three in the second half. 11-0. And then, in the final two minutes, a shot was saved by JP in goal and Daniel, playing valiantly with a broken toe came storming in from the left wing. He slammed the rebound into the far corner of the net, obliterating the clean sheet that Kevin had been boasting about minutes earlier, clean into the stratosphere .
High fives all round for the final break through.
Later that night, the moral victory his, Daniel shared an evening with his true friends. Not a single member of the commoners slept well. JP’s nightmares were full of a million shots from Daniel flying into his net, Richard Norman sobbed in the dark cupboard under the stairs, Jeremy dreamt of becoming a rent boy and then, when he finally fell asleep, had nightmares of perfectly folded red and yellow bibs raining down from the sky. Kevin just gnashed his teeth in guilt-ridden despair. James dreamt he was a Everton fan.
Final Score PCFC 11 – 1 Ruski FC
The moral: Sepp Blatter was right. Too many foreign players on a team is bad for the game.