Yellow: Richard, Kevin, Daniel, Matt, Colin
Red: Oz, Ahmet, JP, Tufan
For the first 15 minutes.
Muddy. Even though it hadn’t rained much when I confirmed the game late on Friday night, it then decided to rain consistently so the ‘firm’ pitch from last week was not, as I had foretold, better. However, despite three comments trying to attribute blame in my direction under some misguided, though flattering, assumption that as El Capitano I am all powerful, I cannot alter the weather. And this swapping of players with late arrivals or people pulling out through injury during a game is playing havoc with my statistical records. What to do….?
Matt got us started with a calm finish but then Red pulled away to a 6-2 lead after 20 minutes with Tufan causing the most damage, surprising as they were a man down.
And then John arrived. For those not in the know, John has trouble with time. In 2011 he won the ‘Most likely to turn up late’ award (well-earned) yet he turned up a week EARLY for curry night.
So the teams changed to:
Yellow: Richard, Kevin, Daniel, Matt, Tufan
Red: Oz, Ahmet, JP, Colin, John
5-a-side. It’s just a blur of goals in my memory so in no particular order, things of note include…
- Tufan immediately scoring for his new paymasters to give them hope.
- Oz looking like a cow had shat on him after heading the ball that left a large splat of mud on his forehead. He also patted down a shot in a rather effeminate fashion, I was up the other end (fnar fnar) so missed the homophobic comments but still muttered something to myself about Larry Grayson.
- Matt cheering enthusiastically for number 53, one of the British Military Fitness people. Why he chose that particular man is anyone’s guess.
- Tufan with his back to goal on the left wing tried to flick a volley over the advancing keeper – stunning effort but the woodwork saved the blushes with the ball bouncing off the bar.
- The woodwork came to the rescue on least 9 occasions, deflecting the ball to safety each time.
- Several blind backheels, Matt being the instigator. None of them worked but the disease seemed to spread to the rest of the team.
- Colin’s ‘skip’ manoeuvre down the wing that we’d seen a couple of weeks ago was met with a similar enthusiastic cheer when he bamboozled Daniel down the wing.
- JP has struggled to find the net since that goal against the Hairdressers on his return France but he was merely saving them up for today and couldn’t stop putting them in.
- An unfortunate own-goal from Kevin who earlier had mentioned Gareth Barry’s howler from yesterday.
Everything worked for Red, nowt for Yellow and the lead kept on increasing after the interruption. In response Yellow ploughed forward to restore at least some parity. It wasn’t to be found, but as a result neither was any defence so the gap got wider. And wider. And wider. The shouting of the keeper didn’t help with the reply being that Yellow weren’t going to win. Which should have meant limiting the damage then, surely? No, apparently not. All it meant was the biggest goal difference since records began and a rather rugby-looking result. And who’s Shirley?
Final score: Red 22 – 9 Yellow