Match reports

Red (6): Matt, Jeremy, Ned, Jared, Nick, Stan
Yellow (7): Richard P, Jim, Damon, Paul (new), Joseph, Daniel, Tufan

Youth and no beards vs Wisdom and beards….on an actual solstice!

Hot. The pitch remained the same size! Jeremy filled in a divot with some questionable mud. Hydration breaks half way through each half.

It very quickly turned into quite a fast, open, and end-to-end game. Yellow struck first with the ball coming in from the left wing, Tufan bluffed and left the ball leaving Damon to fire in low back across the goal into the far corner. Nice. Red were quick to reply and then take the lead. Nick ended up with a lose ball and one on one with keeper fired in. Stan drove through the middle and distributed out to the right, continued forward and received back the low return and fired in. Damon levelled the score shortly before half time, ending up with the lose ball and fired high in at the near post at a tight angle. Half time, 2-2.

The second half was slightly slower, slightly more scrappy. A shot was handballed by Jeremy (confirmed by video footage) with Damon sending Matt the wrong way to complete his (first ever, apparently) hatrick. Ned finally got a goal for his numerous endeavours, at the far post Tufan was a whisker away from touching in a ball across goal and an unmarked Daniel failed to turn in a low corner…missed opportunities. At the other end Jim palmed away two stingers from Ned and Joseph nodded in an own goal whilst trying to deflect a cross out.

Great, open game, quick passing, good tackles, a respectable score. Thanks for coming, especially Tufan who was quite possibly the illest person we’ve ever had on the pitch.

Full time: Red 4 – 3 Yellow

Red: Jeremy, Jim, Tufan, Ned, (new) Paul
Yellow: Dan, James, Joseph, Adam, John

Jim in goal with broken foot.
Ned got first four goals for Red and Wins award for most nutmegs in a game.
John chipped jim only to see it come back off bar.
Dan bamboozled himself and two defenders with some dribbling trickery to cross for Adam to head in.
Dog on the pitch. Claggy.

1-0
1-1
2-1
2-2
3-2 Half Time
4-2
5-2
5-3
5-4
6-4
7-4
7-5
7-5

Final score: Red 8-6 Yellow

Red: Richard, Damon, James, Jeremy, Colin
Yellow: John, Joseph, Matt, Tufan, Colin

Two contributions for the report:

“Colin played for whichever team was losing, so couldn’t really win. But given he scored a cracking header to open proceedings, we should probably put him down as a win for the purposes of record keeping.”

“I think there were three headed goals, a whole year worth in one game!”

Final score: Red 9 – 10 Yellow

Red: James, JP, Richard, Adam
Yellow: Jeremy, Tufan, Matt, Joseph

Paul: “I watched the first half. 3-0 to Red. What happened in the second half?”
Tufan: “3-2 to Red. Another missed penalty. Your advice worked but only for a short time.”

Final score: Red 6 – 2 Yellow

Match cancelled. Not enough players.

Red: Ricard, James, Matt, Damon, JP
Yellow: Jeremy, Ned, Jim, Tufan, Joseph

Order of goals:
YRRYY
Half time.
YYRRRR

Quite the second half comeback and JP rightly trumpeting his four goal haul.

Final Score: Red 6 – 5 Yellow

Red: John, JP, Wilkie, Dan, Richard, Jim, Adam

Yellow: Matt, Tufan, James, Jeremy, Joseph, Damon, Jack

A great turnout of an end-of-the-year 7-a-side that proved to be very evenly picked. A pre-marked out pitch which didn’t need changing. And what a game! If you weren’t there, you’ll never know.

It took 24 minutes for the first goal with James cutting in from the right and firing in on his left foot from the edge of the box 1-0 at half time, a very respectable scoreline. Red started the second half with a goal shortly after the break with JP deflecting in off the far post from Adam’s cross. Tufan latched onto a route one clearance from Jeremy and stroked home. JP replied with some nifty footwork, turned and fired in. Tufan got another after after Red never fully cleared a corner. And that was that. Only one innocuous foul, fast, a bit sticky, the sun didn’t have the impact we were concerned about and a pint or two afterwards. Nice one. A really nice one.

Final score: Yellow 3 – 2 Red

Red: Daniel, Jeremy, Gerald, John
Yellow: James, Tufan, Adam

On an actual equinox! Upon which team would the sun shine longest? Upon which team would darkness fall first?

4 v 3. One pass rule instigated for both teams. Then disputed within five minutes. Decided only applicable for the team of four, otherwise there’s no advantage for the smaller team.

The rule:

Once the opposing team has intercepted, deflected or touched the ball in any way, your team on regaining possession, then have to make at least one pass to a teammate before you can score.

On shooting:

If the goalkeeper parries the ball but it still goes in, the goal will stand.

If the goalkeeper saves the shot and anyone from the attacking team immediately regains possession from the rebound without it reaching a defender, they can shoot again.

Got it? Good.

What do we conclude from this perpetually confusion rule? We need more numbers! I’m not coming all the way from Hampshire again for such a paltry turnout.

Anyway, 7-5 to the smaller team at half time.

Adam was knackered from playing the day before and swapped with Daniel. The four turned around the deficeit to get up to 8 – 7. The yellow threesome upped their game to turnaround the score in their favour to 10-8. But with 10 minutes still to play everyone tired, Yellow more than red, and the foursome came out victors.

Final score: Red 15 – 12 Yellow

Red: Gerald, Damon, Dan, Richard, Tufan

Yellow: Adam, Jim, John, JP, Jeremy

5-a-side.

My match report notes consist of the half time score (4-2 to Yellow) and figuring out the personal goal differences as Damon and Gerald both had to leave at half time (injury and better things to do) and Jeremy swapped sides to even up the game. This quotient business is complicated stuff but needs to be done right! And that was it.

Final score: Yellow 9 – 6 Red

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