There was a steely determination in the eyes of those intrepid Reckers boarding the train at 11am on Friday morning. This time we were going to win. None of that out on the piss to all hours, oh no. A few quiet beers during the evening, an early night, light massage in the morning with our muesli and orange juice before leaving it all out on the pitch.
Seventeen hours later the final remnants staggered out of the last night-club to wend their weary way back to fall unconscious in their beds. Whoops, we did it again.
We at least managed to get to Paddington before the first can was cracked open, se we are definitely getting better. On arrival at St Pancras Truckle helped a frail old lady off the train and somehow made it look remarkably like she was helping him off. A pointer to his future performance.
We started about 4 pm in a nice local pub and ended it 12 hours later in a gender fluid Indie nightclub, or that might have been the name of a cocktail, things got a bit bleary.
Suffice to say that a few of us were quite hungover when we took to the field. Talking of which, I am sure most of us have fantasized about having a football pitch in our back garden, but unless you are Lord of the Manor Mr Scott it is not going to happen. Unless of course you decide that, to hell with the fact you live in small terrace, you ARE going to fit a pitch into the back yard, dammit. This was the approach the school had taken to the patch of land outside the classroom. It was narrower than the mind of a Thanet MEP. It was also flanked on one side by a brick wall and by an impenetrable bramble patch over the fence on the other.
The lack of space would not have been a problem had we not been up against a younger fitter, more physical side who gave us not a moment on the ball. We got off to our standard tour start and should have been 3 down in the first 10 mins, they hit the post twice and missed a sitter. We had a chance after about 5 mins, Chris R cutting out a pass from the back and teeing up Truckle who hit his shot a bit too close to the goalie. A few minutes later Chris R was at it again, nicking the ball off their right back, outpacing him (obvs) and shooting between the keepers legs.
About this time, Matt, who had been enthusiastically testing his gender fluidity with the best of them the previous evening broke down in tears, asked for his mum and begged to be subbed off so he could sit under a tartan blanky. To be fair, you have to salute his fortitude in getting out of bed, let alone wandering onto a football pitch. #tourledge
We then settled into the pattern of scuffling about in the middle of the field and belting the ball over the fence for a bit. As an interesting experiment in cross-sports dynamics both teams fielded a rugby player in mid-field to see what would happen. Predictably enough Rob H and Tom B spent a lot of time kicking each other. Aaron Colin and Ian did well to break up their play but there was bugger all room to do much with the ball. They scored a flukey deflected goal on 42 mins, and then on the stroke of half time went ahead. A bouncing ball in our box that Big Jim ‘dealt with’ by slicing in slow motion over Mike T’s head.
After half-time we got a bit better. We started to find Luke who was in acres (make that a few cms) of space on the left and deservedly pulled level on 59 minutes with a thunderbastard of a volley from Rob H. 10 minutes later and we were ahead, a lovely move culminating in Luke slotting home.
Our defence of Jason, Dan Ray, Jim and Seery looked solid and were unlucky to concede again on 69 mins, the ball creeping into the corner from an angry porn climax, or cross cum shot if you will.
Back we came and looked to have won it with 8 minutes to go when Chris R skinned the full back and put in a dangerous cross that their defender deflected into the net. From here all we had to do was keep booting it over the fence until we ran out of balls but not everyone got the memo. A poor pass out of defence gave it to one of their better players who calmly twatted it into the top corner. We pushed forward to get the winner and got done twice with mix-ups in our box, their final goal being scored by Tom B, who took a temporary break from heading it into the brambles to nod it into our net. We did score the final goal when Dave reprised Rob H’s belter to get us to 6.5. If we consider the famous old Reckers motto (which I may have just made up) of 'Once a Recker, always a Recker', then we claim Tom's goal and run out 6:4 winners. Hurrah.
Comentários