Yellow: Nigel, Josh, Oz, Daniel, Bruno
Red: Richard, James, John G, Tufan, Gerald
We live – Huzzah! It rained – boo! Another 5-a-side.
Bruno returns from his work/study exile for his first game in nine weeks & Nigel introduces his 15 year old son, Josh.
Daniel got us started, snapping at the dithering heels of defending Gerald and poking betwixt James’s legs. Not to be outdone, Richard offered himself up as Mr Nutmeg, allowing all and sundry to dribble between his legs during the first half and not much else worked out for him either. However Tufan made amends, poking in a couple after some scrappy defending. Bruno swept home a cut back from the right and I don’t recall much else.
4-3 at the break to Yellow.
As a result, they had a complacent silence at half time. Red discussed much.
It paid dividends. They ran rings around the bamboozled Yellow defence and popped in four without reply – John, Tufan and James were transformed from the first half and linked up like a dream. Gerald’s goal was a peach, wrong footing the keeper who stepped out to block the anticipated cross so he fired into the gap left behind. Yellow took about 15 minutes to react to the demolition. Nigel stopped the rot, controlling a chipped cross from Josh (I think) with the first touch and firing in on the volley with his second. Nice. They got a few more too with Oz distributing well from the middle, Josh regularly attacking from the wings and Bruno dribbling anywhere. They were threatneing to draw level when Daniel parried an initial shot into the air and Richard only had watch gravity in action for the ball to fall onto his chest and bounce in. He got another shortly after, coming down the right wing unnoticed and pinging a chipped cross from the left into the far corner. James was very vocal in his celebration but it was goal of the game and if you want a visual reference, just look at Dennis Rommedahl doing the exactly same from a Stig Tøfting chipped cross, Denmark vs France, World Cup 2002. A carbon copy, only from the other wing.
A couple of goals here and there kept it exciting and Nigel’s boots once again failed him, 5.8, 5.7, 5.2 for the splits. Daniel could have drawn level with Bruno rolling the ball across the goal but he hadn’t believed by about an inch. It was cleared down the other end for a Yellow throw which fell for Tufan to stroke into the empty net a second before the whistle. Apologies that I can only recall nine of the twenty goals – feel free to describe your omitted contributions in the comments below!
Final score: Yellow 9 – 11 Red