Match reports

My first edit:

Missed you.
And we all missed Dan.
You were missed Dan!

But then I thought that was a bit self-indulgent.

The following sentence also caught my attention. It comes from someone who came “Highly Commended” in the Bridport Prize 2011 writing competition, flash fiction category. I still don’t know what it means so please insert it where you think is most appropriate….

Reds decided not to formulate a plan for if their 2-0 lead at half time turned into us trailing 5-2 (it’s happened before) and it 2-2 in the second half that seemed like a mistake but in the end we got away with it

So here is the best of the rest in an attempted summary: I hope you can find your input.

SMOOTHIES (8) Jack, James, Joe (Jack’s cousin/nephew), John, JP, Paul, Matt, Richard P

BEARDIES (9) Damon, Gerald, Jeremy, Jim, Keith, Kev, Oz, Rich N, Tufan

A lovely day turned into a howling and very wet northerly as the football gods wreaked their vengeance on what they were witnessing. Who cares about the score? Really?  It’s about seeing old friends, sharing old stories, settling old scores.  And winning.

Paul’s defending was a masterclass in well-timed tackles and interceptions. James (up front was foaming with confidence) and JP for Red were an excellent pairing. Yellow resorted to an aerial bombardment, which failed. Jeremy was guilty of a reckless sliding tackle on one of the red team. A string of Yellow shots kept missing by a whisker, and while their midfield bristled with energy, they couldn’t make a way through the serried ranks of gleaming chins. Yellows concluded at half-time that, in order to accommodate their Skanked Shot habit they needed to shoot for goal from the half-way-line so that the “shots” had time to fall from their sky-bound trajectory and toward the actual net. Both teams pushed forward in last ten minutes but with razor-sharp finishing and trim, nay tonsured passing football it was Reds who, with a man down, won handsomely in the end! Which Yellows didn’t, except in the Beard Department which was really all they cared about. Although Jeremy did score a couple of humzinggers and Gerald did a couple of brilliant chips to the back post.

On the goals:

15 min: JAMES (backheel ball from JP, slotted into corner)

25 min: JAMES (another JP quick pass through centre, through/under keeper’s legs, bit lucky)

Half time: Smoothies 2-0 Beardies

55 min: JEREMY (dogged and pinball like determination to get through defence, ended up a lucky bobble onto his knee that bounced into the goal.

60 min: JEREMY (more controlled move, smoothie defence not clearing properly, shot across keep from an angle, good shot)

70 min: JP (from corner I think, ball comes back out, smart snap shot into top corner, nice to see JP trademark not expired)

80 min: JOHN (nice move actually, James collect in midfield drifts to left, pass to Joe in centre, quick pass forward to JP, quick pass forward and across keeper to John, simple open goal. Smoothies ecstatic!)

On the pitch:
Pitch could have been better depilated – lots of bobbles and pitch grass very very long, far too long for dragbacks (though J-P carried on regardless). Southwark, mow the bloody grass!! Can’t believe our £1000/year fees aren’t leading to a better surface…!

On Jack:
Jack’s nephew ended up with cramp; the youth of today. Goal of the decade from jack, well almost. Jack’s nutmeg, the best a man can get.

A marvellous game. Good game, good game. For the second time in four games the beards failed to overcome the non-beards, even though the beards had one extra player. I am hoping Santa brings me a Gillette gift pack this Xmas!

Did we really play 90 minutes?!

Final score: Smoothies 4 – 2 Beardies Yellow

or was it 5-3?
ending 4-2 (or 5-2?)
had we been playing rugby Yellow would have won by 23 points.

Yellow: John, Jack, Matt, Oz, Gerald, Tufan
Red: James, Jeremy, Jim, Kevin, Daniel, Richard N

It’s two months since the game. I noted the teams and the controversial end but nowt else. All you need to know is that ultimately John cheated. He declared “I think that’s a goal kick” after deflecting a clearance over the byline. But then took a corner from which his team scored, two seconds before the final whistle. But as we’re far more progressive than FIFA, I’ve retrospectively scratched off that final goal which nullifies the exuberant and unmagnanimous celebrations that the opposing team were forced to unjustifiably endure, you really shouldn’t be that happy for a draw anyway. Oh, and Jack scored from the halfway line out on the right wing but only because goalkeeping Jim wasn’t paying attention.

Final score: Red 6 – 5 Yellow

Report by Gerald

Summer Solstice game

Reds: Kevin, Jeremy, Gerald, Oz, Jim
Yellows: JP, Tufan, Colin, Julius

They travelled from the Old Country, where Hirsute Ancestors and Standing Stones rise like ghosts from the rolling mists of the plains. They travelled in ones, and twos and threes, some with their face scrapped clean by the sharp morning stones, others with beards as thick and rough as the moors themselves. They came to the place where the Uprights rose, and the people gathered to chase and worship the Blatter FootOrb.

Other tribes gathered too: the Grey One (he of the Hairdresser Tribe) walked across and spoke to Oz, and the Grey One said “Do you want to play against us” and Oz replied with wisdom “not today thanks, we’re just playing five-a-side over here” and the Grey One stared blankly, fixing us with the possessed look of a druid hunting for a sacrificial youth and said, low and hushed: “You want to think about what you’ve just said…” He looked around at us and jabbed a finger: “Tonight – all of you, just you think about it” and walked away. He was not happy, that Grey One – not happy at all. Had we offended the Solstice God of the Hairdresser? Was Kevin’s beard too long? Were there now 13 Hairdressers to play the unlucky 6 vs 7? Did he think he was in a crappy British Gangsta Film? It will be left to El Capitano to determine the long-term effect of this rift between the two tribes – and may Frankie go to Hollywood.

SeppBall began, as it always began, with the pacing of the pitch and the piecing of the goals. The pitch was, in the great PCFC tradition, carefully paced out from the goals to ensure that it was wider than it was long, like switching from ‘portrait’ to ‘landscape’ in MS Word. The pieces were missing, and Jeremy raided another bag in the Shed to find the extra part (returning it after the match lest the Gods of South Caribb be angry).

Reds’ early lead (a beautiful homage to Wenger and Henri) disappeared as Yellows took advantage of the leaden feet of their opposition. Yellows were fast – with Tufan and Colin weaving and spinning and appearing as if teleported to score. Questions have to be asked, though, about the injections they’d received in their buttocks prior to the match from Mo Farah. Yellows came back from 1-2 to lead by 5-2, with reds catching a late one by the end of the half. 5-3 to Yellows, and Reds looked down and out, but did they have the Goddess Momentum on their side? At half-time it was noted that 50% of the goals were of the type known as ‘Own’, something to be celebrated like altruism.

Oz’s shots in the first half had come thick and fast, both left and right – literally both to the left and right of goal, but none in the “netty bit” – and his shooting leg had just been calibrated when sadly his old groin injury returned and he spent the second half in goal, letting nothing in. Jeremy and Jim discovered some of their old magic, and JP had swapped step-overs for flicks and passes. Gerald was distracted both by the Military Fitness Tribe, worshipping Sweaty Betty and looking more like an Isis Training Video every week [too soon? – ed.] and the Touch Rugby Tribe, who played a game not recognised as a game anywhere outside of the Antipodes. With every patch of green covered, it looked as if Peckham Rye was turning into Ble*din Clapham Common – to prevent this from happening we promised not to play for another three months.

Julius in Yellow played with silky European cool, and Kevin in Red with British passion – like Wellington at Waterloo, or John Wayne in The Longest Day [he wasn’t’ British – ed.] – and in the second half, the constant, and sometimes inappropriate, probing and prodding of Yellows yielded to wave upon wave of counter attacks by Reds, turning a 3-5 deficit into a 7-5 margin, then 7-6 as Yellows looked like they may get the draw they deserved. But, as Any Fule Kno, a simple glance at the Team Sheet above shows that Yellows were sorely lacking in “natural defenders” and I wouldn’t use the term “glory boys” about Yellows but, hey, history is written by the victors and my team won, so fair dinkum. This lack of, what’s technically known as ‘being a*sed to track back’, did for Yellows in the end – that and the draining heat :- three Red goals in the final five minutes gave them victory. The final scoreline didn’t reflect the narrow margins between the teams (both being at the lower end of the Footballing Skills Spectrum) and, as JP pointed out, Reds did have 20% more players.

The Solstice Gods thus appeased on the bloody alter of FIFABall, everyone went home to enjoy the rest of Fathers Day, guilt-free.

Final score: Reds 10 – 7 Yellows

Spring Equinox game

Beardy Weirdys: Tufan, Gerald, Kevin, Daniel, Jeremy, Richard
Hairless Harrys: Jim, Oz, James, Matt, John, Julius

Beards vs non beards. We started 6 vs 5 but after two minutes Matt arrived so we stopped, made the pitch bigger and started again, timers increased to 42 minutes to fit the maths. When you’re worried about life it’s always comforting to turn up for a game with us because nothing has changed so all must be right with the world.

Richard and Oz head butted each other, bobbles everywhere, John got a corking goal, Jim’s shot missed by so much that Gerald asked if his hip was alright, Kevin showboated, Tufan is taking classes at the Jonny Wilkinson school of shooting, Julius still needs to be marked a lot, Jeremy hasn’t lost his voice, Daniel still plays every week but isn’t any better than those that don’t, and Richard’s son Stanley was disappointed by the spectacle. There will a team photo.

Quote of the day: “That was great. Shall we do this every week?”

Final score: Red 3 – 7 Yellow

Red: Colin, Paul, Steve & 4 others
Yellow: Gareth & 6 others

Gerald’s input from the nearby “next generation” game: Paul and Colin can do a more complete report but from our pitch it looks as though Reds fought well and lost.

Colin’s input: the final score (see below).

Final score: Red 5 – 10 Yellow

Red: Stuart, Jack, Alan, Daniel, Phil, Nilo, Prit
Yellow: Kevin, Steve, Daniel, Rob, Pete, Chris, Lee (last 10 minutes)

Yellow with the man down until the last ten minutes when Lee made a cameo. Steve got a header! He barely had to jump at the far post after the most accurate of crosses to nod back across the goal and in. He doesn’t think he’s ever scored a header before. But the extra man made all the difference.

Final score: Red 8 – 3 Yellow

Us: Gerald, Julius, Paul, Daniel, Chris, Steve, Keith, Keith’s friend Ed, Kevin (theirs)
Them: Pete, Stuart, Alan, Prit, Scott, Phil, Sundy, Brian, Femi, Fabio

A large turnout for the second week in a row. Julius returned from injury for his first game this year, Keith brought Ed and Yellow loaned us Kevin but we were still a man down from the off. A tetchy first 20 minutes with a few hard tackles here and there. Yellow had the upper hand for the first 10 minutes but it settled after that and included a great move in the idle of the park, Julius receiving the ball, dribbling forward and scooping the ball over Pete (who’d been a solid sweeper until then) and Chris taking on the ball and shooting wide. There were chances at either end but nothing clear cut. Until a long ball from the back. It dropped down just over Pete’s head and Daniel, whose sprint down the right wing had inspired the hoof upfield, deftly brought down the ball and dinked it just under the keeper with one touch to leave him to tap into the empty net. Except the keeper’s arm deliberately came up and to hit him in the chest and sent him into a 360° spin. He managed to stay on his feet, such is his good nature, and fired a frustrated snap shot wide. The clearest penalty you will ever see but Yellow refused to conceded it even though the keeper was nowhere near the ball. No apology either, poor show.
The second half was equally end to end stuff, with Red possibly taking the upper hand with dribbling and passing but as with yellow, the moves broke down……

And that’s where I finished writing. Who knows what happened? Rhetorical.

Red: Keith, Steve, Larry, Jack, Sundy, Daniel, Fabio
Yellow: Daniel, Phil, Stewart, Gareth, Nilo, Brian, Damon

Yellow: Kevin, Colin, Daniel, Femi, Sundy
Red: Larry, Lee, Damon, Francisco, Alan

And as we kicked off a whippet decided to run off with one of the pitch markers of the adjacent aussie rules ladies game. The owner strolled long, shouting and demanding that the dog come back but it just ran away. After about 30 yards it stopped, looked back affectionately, wagging it’s tail, dropped the cone, cocked it’s leg and pissed on it. The owner eventually caught up and returned the marker to it’s original position. Just as the dog ran off with another one.
John then rocked up 20 minutes into the game but with even sides he felt guitly about unsettling the match and forlornly trudged home.
For about three quarters of the game another team tried to assemble their own Samba goals, the completion of the second one received a well-earned sarcastic and patronising round of applause from us.
Finally, in the 78th minute, someone other than Femi and Sundy scored for Yellow, Colin finally connecting well with a lay off. Sundy had crossed and laid-off a-plenty for Daniel who managed to either shoot narrowly wide or at the keeper on several occasions but he hasn’t scored since mid-March and it showed. But Red had their own problems in front of goal with Larry and Damon both comically missing a gilt-edged chances but they’d both made a spectacular save each, Larry punching away Daniel’s off-the-thigh shot from another zipping Sundy cross shot at close range and Damon tipping a shot over the bar. It was closer than the scoreline suggests but Sundy was the difference.

Final score: Yellow 10 – 7 Red