It’s taken 25 years into the 21st century for us to move into the 21st century, Welcome Flo…our first female player!
Much hokey-cokey with the squad list but eventually 11 showed up.
JP and Dan braved the M25 closure.
Colin came from Devon for his first game since 2021.
Jeremy picked dubious teams.
The rain stopped just as we started.
Red (5): Jim, Adam, Joseph, Dan, JP
Yellow (6): Jeremy, Colin, Flo, Matt, Tufan, Jared
In no particular order things went thus…
Yellow got two quick goals so Matt asked what the record score was.
Joseph headed a wonderful goal…into his own net.
JP played keepy-uppy and swivelled to volley in, nice.
Adam rabona’d a cross in to….no one, side netting? It deserves a mention.
Jim launched a goal kick, it went over Jeremy, it bounced over Colin and Daniel swiped at the ball and in it went off the post.
To return the favour, Daniel shot at goal, it was off target but Jim side-footed in at the far post.
JP fired in a rocket from the right channel.
Joseph handballed a shot off the line, Jared scored the penalty.
Jeremy “handballed” a shot at the other end. It was a soft decision but Joseph also scored that penalty.
Daniel evaded some defensive tackles with tricksy fluky footwork to lay off for Adam to side-foot in.
At half time Matt offered one, maybe two, of their players.
Adam tidied up some very gloopy dog poo. He also realised the calibre of integrity on the pitch as everyone stepped away and left him to it.
“It’s only a goal if you defend it for however many minutes” was prophetic advice several times.
A Red clearance ricocheted off a Yellow attacker back into the Red goal.
Someone cynically tripped Tufan
Matt saved a point blank shot with his head.
JP fired a low shot with Daniel putting Jeremy off so he misjudged the trajectory, fell over, and the ball rolled gently in behind him.
Yellow seemed to side foot into an empty goal a few times…attacking en masse, they usually had a man leftover and made the most of him.
It was a great game, very open, fast, counter-attacking and despite the score fairly even possession.
With the above description you’d be forgiven for thinking that Red won because I can barely recall a single Yellow goal, but they did score 14 of them. I asked for input…they mentioned a JP goal and dog poo.
Matt, the highest scoring Pagan game was 18-17. This one was 13 goals short.
Final score: Yellow 14 – 8 Red