Match reports

Us (8): Jeremy, Oz, Ahmet, Jim N, Daniel, James JP, Matt

Them: 9

So not only did you rally to the cry by turning up to keep this club alive, you challenged The Other Team to a game, the audacity!

A large pitch, firm but with plenty of overnight rain made a zippy surface which gradually cut up during the morning. A resolute defence built on Ahmet and Jeremy with James filling the defensive midfield role just in front proved to be a difficult rearguard to break down. From there the ball was spread wide to the speedy rotating wingers of Matt, Jim N and Daniel or through the middle to the attacking midfield/striker duo of Oz and JP who in turn passed quickly between each other or out to the wingers. Playing together so often has obviously made us familair with each other but also better than we think! Hard work by all with good tackling, interceptions & passes though a little more communcation may help. 

First half while the pitch was acceptable we had lots of one-two’s in the middle and through them with ease. JP with his twinkletoes trickery had shots straight at the keeper a couple of times and James had a pathetic left-foot-shot-and-then-fall-over situation and Jim was the most surprised to end up with the ball after their defensive mix-up and sand wedged it against the bar and upright from about 2 yards away. Award-worthy at this stage of the season! However we kept calm to come back comfortably from 2-1 down to 5-2 up at the break.

Second half much more of a mud bath and we withstood sustained pressure in the first 15 minutes but they did get back to 5-4. I think Jeremy enlightening us to the fact that we were a man down at half-time was an unnerving surprise to most us but we got them on the break and ran out comfortable 8-4 winners (two of their goals came from our defensive mistakes so effectively only two from their on efforts). Oz had a good session in goal punching out a succession of corners and Jeremy chipped a goal immediately after being allowed a rest from defensive duties. In the last 10 minutes there were basically 2 games going on with a no-mans land in the middle – very funny. Goals: JP 4, Matt 2, Jeremy 1, James 1.

Tasty stuff to watch, even better to be involved – I hope this report (joint effort from Oz, James and myself) does us justice!

Red (5): Jeremy, James ‘2’, John G, Richard P, Jim N

Yellow (5): Ed, Oz, Gerald, Richard N, Daniel

5-a-side! This week sponsored by Mud, the stickiest since Tiger Feet got stuck at number 1 for four weeks in 1974. 

Daniel looked at the pitch just as he’d been selected to play out on the left. He’d climbed Dog Kennel Hill, he’d struggled up Herne Hill, heck he’d even been up Snowden, but this slope? He turned back to the car park to fetch his climbing gear.  If you’re interested in football, this wasn’t a classic. The highlight was Oz volleying a high ball into the back of the net from a a third of the way up the pitch – very tasty. Sadly Gerald tumbled over fairly early on while trying to keep the ball in play and damaged his ankle. However he put in a sterling effort during his subsequent spell in goal but is now contemplating life as a stand in for Heather Mills. And just when Daniel’s frost bitten fingers curled over the last high ledge as he eventually got into postition on the wing, the final whistle went. 6 – 2 to Red. Once again, not really a fair reflection after yellow peppered the red goal in the second half but they only count if they go in. Football certainly died today. And romance was killed off too after James ‘2’ made his wife pay his subs! In front of his children! 81 years later to the day – this was the real St Valentine’s Day Massacre. Plant phood anyone?

Points of order:

1. Call me unconventional but can we play on a flat pitch next week.

2. Red bibs. One went missing after this game (so that’s one of you – red team) and another has gone walkabout in the last month. Please have a rummage at home as it’s a bit of waste of funds if we have to replace them (we’re down to only five).

3. James ‘2’  – may I have his e-mail?  (if he wants to receive this pointless waffle each week of course).

Red (4): Jeremy, Richard P, Tim, Daniel
Yellow (4): Oz, Ahmet, Matt, JJ
 
So anyway…it transpires that Oz uses lubrication every week whereas Matt doesn’t bother at all and Richard Piper steals from his childrens’ piggy bank to finance his subs and who knows what else.
Final score Yellow 13-8 Red. Hat-tricks for a few people but the score isn’t a fair reflection of the game but does suggest that yellow took their chances and red didn’t. Someone even said “good goalkeeping” to me, the first time that’s been said since I started five years ago. No one liked the wet patch in the corner either, always best avoided.
 
Please go to “fixtures” and put your name in for this coming weekend, 14.02.10. I thank you.

Red (7): Gerald, Jeremy, Richard N, Stuart, Tim, Jim N, James
Yellow (7): Rob, Oz, Ahmet, Matt, Daniel, John G, JJ
 
7-a-side – The highest attendence for a year!

Another good game. Only a handful of goals from a multitude of chances so some good defending going on. I can’t recall any of them I’m afraid so apologies to those on the scorecheet! Oh hang on, Jim got a soft header and some quick once touch passing on the wing left him to ping another in down the middle, a better quality goal. John G got one the other end with some similar one touch stuff. Few occasions of many passes in a row, good interceptions/bad passing/crowded pitch – you decide. And welcome to Tim. Final score: 3-3

• Names for next Sunday please, January 31st, Peckham Rye, 10.30am
• Punctuality: I shan’t name and shame you but two weeks in a row people have turned up at least 15 minutes late which can muck up the teams. Sort it out – you know who you are! 10.30

Red (7): Matt, Rob, Oz, Ahmet, Jeremy, JJ, Steve
Yellow (6): Richard N, Richard P, JP, Gerald, Daniel, James

A soggy patch on Peckham Rye. In a rare move the teams were picked by two captains but with a late arrival absorbed by red, it was going to be an uphill stuggle for the oppostion. Jeremy got the first goal of the season but yellow got one back quick-sharp and then surprisingly pulled away with three goals including a lovely left foot curler from JP and an indirect free kick being rolled across the goal and Daniel finding the only gap amongst the 7 men filling the goal mouth. Oz replied 5 minutes before the end with a nice turn and a quick shot to beat Daniel at the near post. Yellow 4-2 Red at the break.
Red finally got into gear after the break using JJ and Steve on the wings and dominated midfield although Jeremy’s cynical dive wasn’t warranted with their superior height and numbers. Amid stupidly sloppy conditions for both teams red scored two goals against the hitherto stalwart yellow defense with Rob equalising half way through the second half. Yellow found an extra spurt in the last 10 minutes but got nothing from a handful of scrappy chances. Final score 4 – 4.
Great attendence – a sterling game indeed.

Names for next Sunday please, 10.30am, Peckham Rye.

Report by James

[Library image]

Snow on the pitch, if we had an orange ball we’d have looked all 1970’s.  With the addition of 3 randoms from the earlier game and the lack of bibs we organized ourselves by top-colour….

The Red-ish/light six – JP, James, Rich N, Rich P, Matt + Jo (random)
The Black/blue/dark five – Oz, Ahmet, JJ, Gareth + Danny (randoms)

It became quickly apparent that the blue randoms were very good and the red one not so, which helpfully made for a good balanced game.  Defensive errors and sharp finishing (ok, and maybe some good passing) saw blue leading 5-2 at half time.  Second half was a different story with a self-chastised Red going on a scoring run to get to about 10-7, which became 12-12 with a minute to go (suspicion that blue might have had a goal that counted two, it was as confusing as where the pitch boundaries were).  This allowed James to finish the game by getting hopelessly dispossessed by Danny who slotted home coolly.

13-12 to blue (maybe).  Fun in the snow!

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Report by El Capitano.

Red (4): JP, Stuart, Richard P, Daniel
Yellow (4): Jeremy, Oz, Ed, Steve

Another game that won’t have any highlights on the annual DVD except maybe my comedy headed clearance. A non-classic, scrappy affair but thanks for coming to the last game of 2009.

A settled first half closed at 4-4. Plenty of missed chances at both ends but with the muddiest pitch of the winter cutting up, not very surprising. Yellow had a resolute second half with 5 goals and only letting in one in return.

Final score: Yellow 9-5 Red.

A special mention to Ed who was particularly effective, maybe you should have a daughter every week – Congratulations!

Please may I have names of those coming to annual awards dinner on Friday 15th Janaury so I can book a table for the right number of people. (JP, Oz, you’re already on the list)

“Their” match report:

Peckham Rye FC (Lee, Gareth, Pete, Calum, Joe, Kevin) Vs The Estate Agents

The weather was looking so bad when I set off I nearly didn’t bother. Luckily it had cleared up by the time I’d arrived. Unfortunately everybody else must have been thinking the same thing. With a grand total of three players (thanks Pete and Lee) it didn’t look like we were going to get a game. Just as we were about to give up and leave, Joe turned up with 2 mates (Calum and Kevin), all we need was the Estate agents to turn up and it was game on. And turn up they did. They give us an another player but we were still a man down. I didn’t matter we had the quality to make up for it. We didn’t let them play and pressured them from the front. Joe forced their defense into making a loose pass I picked up the ball and tucked it away to start us off. I then hit a beauty towards the top corner it bounced back off the angle and Pete buried it 2 – 0. The Estate agents hit back with a goal from JP but Calum then skipped past half their team and neatly rolled it in to restore the 2 goal gap. 3 – 1 half time.

Second half was a little tighter they lost the extra men which strangely seemed to make them play better. I broke down the wing hit a cross that was deflected in 4 – 1. They hit straight back with another goal(JP again). Then came the goal of the game Kevin played the ball across the back to Lee, Lee played an nice ball down the line to Pete, Pete looked up and played a pass into me on the edge of the box, I saw Calum breaking through and played a back heal into his path which he finished to aplomb. 5 – 2 Fabio are you watching. Calum then went on another Maradona style run he went right into the heart of their defense and wrapped up his hat-trick in style. The Agents got a late consolation but the job was done.

Final Score – 6 – 4

Man of the Match – Calum for a great all round performance.