Buntingford Town Vets 0 Knobs 0

On a freezing cold morning we travelled to far away Buntingford Town for a friendly. I thought we had 13 in the squad but Ian arrived to make it 14 and he joined me and new boy Sean on the sidelines. We started with Dave in goal, a back four of Chairman Al, Dirty Roy, Mr Motivator and another new boy Good Tony. In midfield there were Gerry, Chris, Darren and Richard with Bully playing behind lone striker Joel.

The game kicked off and I couldn’t help but notice how big a team Buntingford were and the ones who lacked height made up for it in other ways, a bit like Mr Motivator! I was freezing on the sideline, Sean was running the line to keep warm and Ian arrived and went straight on to replace Dirty Roy who had tweaked his hamstring. From what I could make out through the icicles hanging from the block of ice on my head was that the pitch was crap, very bobbly and the little bits of good football seen came from the knobs. We had some good chances, Chris and Joel hit the bar and their keeper made a fine stop from Chris, clawing the ball out just before it crossed the line. Sean came on for his debut, Richard came back on for Joel who got injured after a heavy challenge and that was it for the first half.

I didn’t fancy coming on for the second half as I had turned into a block of ice but thought it may give me a chance to thaw out and it would have been a fate worse than death to watch another half from the sideline! I was placed into a sack trolley and moved into the right back position facing the opposition where I stayed for the whole of the second half. I could just about make out Mr Motivator’s words of encouragement about having a stinker, having a shocker and never seen anything like it. The ball bounced off me a few times and the game ended 0-0. From my position facing forward I could see that we played a couple of good attacking moves and had a couple of chances but the opposition were organised and hard working. I was later informed that Dave setup a good chance for their chap James and Mr Motivator couldn’t fool the ever alert Dave with a neat dummy inside the six yard box. The sack trolley was back on and I was placed under a hot shower.

It was a good team performance and everyone worked hard. Good Tony and Sean acquitted themselves very well and Gerry was excellent at right midfield.

Into the clubhouse for a couple of jars, a telling off for trying to get subs out of debut boys Sean and Good Tony and then watching everyone tuck into chilli con carne. And all of this on my birthday you unfeeling thoughtless wankers!!