Yellow (8): Phil, Pete, Tommy, Femi, Sunny, Prit, Stuart, Alan
Red (7): Kevin, Colin, Gerald, Julius, Oz, Daniel, Ahmet
Welcome back Julius and Gerald. All three maybes turned up, and with John usually late but having replied “yes please” to the email, we opted to play against the other team. Another enjoyable game. To a man, Red put in a great effort, firm tackles, interceptions and a solid defence was complimented by Oz, a magnificent attacking midfield general, holding the ball up and distributing red attacks willy-nilly. Somewhere in there Stuart made a great reaction save to a header. Colin regularly got in behind the Yellow defence and was extremely quick to close them down and there was some good support from Julius. But Yellow always seemed to have a man leftover to thwart the final ball. What Oz needed was a holding midfielder just behind him, someone calm on the ball and equally good with their passing. Red looked longingly in the direction of the Clockhouse at the end of Barry Road where John usually appears from…..nothing….
0-0 at half time.
A low speculative shot from Tommy soon after the break looked to have been blocked by a Red foot but (from the point of view of Daniel in goal) said foot appeared to be withdrawn at the last minute which was enough to make the keeper hesitate and the ball rolled in.
The rest of the half was much the same as the first. Tommy was equally in control in the middle, Pete and Stuart behind him were solid in defence although Gerald did get in a lovely pass through them but Daniel fired wide when he should have at least been on target. Femi cut in from the wing, passed, carried on with his run and received it back, splitting the Red defence in the process only to fire over – move of the game. Gerald tangled with Stuart in the area…Penalty? Who knows. It wasn’t given but during the discussion Stuart petulantly hoofed the ball over the other end of the pitch. There’s no need for that. Sunny, who’d hit the bar at the beginning but who’d also been kept quiet for most of the game, was released and slotted in past Colin. Red had done enough to deserve more than that, especially a man down for the whole game and so Julius stole a last minute consolation but the clocked beeped just after the restart.
Final score: Yellow 2 – 1 Red
Epilogue: In honour of Yellow departing with bragging rights this week, I’ve written a short ode as to why.
John.