Match report: 13.01.13

Sterling turnout and welcome to the fetid and white micro-worm invested swamp and a general conferring of bite stories from last week. And isn’t the January transfer window busy?! New signings in the form of Martin, Toby and Rich – welcome gentlemen, ‘Arry would be proud. And six from the other team join the muddy farce to make a 10-a-side. Thank you to Matt, Oz, Rich and Keith for swapping over to even the numbers.
Way too many people for me to remember it all. It was quite a small pitch and therefore crowded so there were lots of interceptions. It was also very soggy – the ball either splatted into the ground and stayed where it landed or skidded off the surface – very unpredictable. So to avoid these two problems a lot of route one football was employed by both teams, a bit like tennis between the two defences. Moments of note:

A crazy amount of defensive headers from Ahmet. The mud left on his forehead looked like Rooney’s hair implants. Daniel ran for a loose ball, and got there first but an outstretched opposition leg sent him flying into the mud and he got up looking like Al Jolson. Matt got two goals for them, the second a bundle through a forest of legs after successive failures to clear the ball. Pete took a long throw, Daniel had it covered and was ready to catch but Colin decided to handball it too safety instead – penalty! Chris stepped up and although the keeper got a hand to the ball, there was too much power to stop it. Moment of the match was Julius dithering to the left of their goal with the ball. The moment to shoot had clearly gone with defenders and keeper blocking all avenues. So he chipped it instead and the ball seemed to take an age to arc over them all and into the top far corner. Very impressive. And in the final couple of minutes, Yellow surged forward, Tufan with the ball down the right wing and three advancing team mates to cross to for a simple tap-in. But he was selfish and went for glory – and got it! Relief for Yellow to ensure the victory, and a downcast Red who had been threatening a draw. Handshakes all round and a trudge to the shower. If you were saving this game to help influence your voting, good luck with that – it wouldn’t have made anything any clearer.

And I covered my knees in tiger balm before the game – No bites!!!

Final score: Red 3 – 5 Yellow