Goldnobs 0 Knobs 2

Our last match before Christmas saw us travelling to Bramfield to play our old adversaries Goldings.

It was cold and the ground was icy and so Goldings decided to surprise us by recreating a historical “Christmas Truce” football match.  For those of you unfamiliar with this, it is when hostilities ceased along the Western front during Christmas 1914 and both sides met in the middle of their trenches for a game of football.  The Goldings version was similar except in our match we played in the trenches and there was still some hostility.

Despite playing on the same pitch a couple of times before it still amazes us how anyone can play on their pitch.  It is small, rutted and sloped.  Add to that the ice and mud patches and it was going to be an interesting game.  With 2 wonky rusting goals put up by a man in fluorescent yellow trousers it became the ultimate Sunday league pitch.

The small changing room is consistent with the pitch.  The ceiling is held up by bits of wood and you have to get changed in shifts.  During our shift there were 2 things of note – 1. Our returning co-manager Dave revealed his Cyber Monday bargain yellow boots.  2. Dave also revealed that Jono is in fact Canadian which is why we cannot understand him.  Presumably he is French Canadian?

After Goldings’ turn in the changing room we finally kicked off.  From the off we dominated possession and camped in their (very small) half.  It was hard to play our preferred passing game in the trenches but we kept plugging away and trying to play.  Goldings occasional hoofed the ball into our half for their one man to chase but created little of note.  It wasn’t long before we took a deserved lead.  Jono received the ball on the right and surged into the box only to be upended by an ill-timed lunge from their defender.  It was so obvious that not even a single player on their team appealed.  Jono may have volunteered to take the spot kit but Bully doesn’t speak French so he placed the ball on the spot a scored the penalty with ease.

The 2nd half saw more of the same with us dominating possession but not troubling the keeper as often as we should have. Despite the conditions, it was all too easy really.  They rarely looked like troubling us.  We did get a second mid-way through the 2nd half.  A similar run from Jono as with the first goal saw him get taken out again but this time the ball broke towards goal and Greg helped it over the line from 3 inches out before the defender could clear the lines.  The Linesman who clearly had an itchy armpit all morning put his flag up for offside, then a penalty then he didn’t know what he was flagging for.  The ref who was great all game ignored him (again) and rightly gave the goal.
Dave brought himself on for the last 15 minutes or so to give his boots a try, his first outfield playing appearance for a couple of years.  He looked fit but has forgotten how to jump.

The game petered out with a 2-0 away win for us and then the non-strikers in the team made an orderly queue to wait in line for the use of 1 of the 2 showers.

Most of us went to the post match pub to take part in a game of “who can pick out the 1 cooked jacket potato”.  Good times.

Knobs 0 Old Owens 1

Apologies that it has taken a while for the match report to be produced.  It has been too painful trying to recall the events of Sunday.

They say sport is a cruel mistress.  I’m not sure who “they” are but “they” are right.  Sunday was like having Kathy Bates in the film Misery as your mistress.

Anyway, more of that later.  The mood was cheery in the changing room..  Jonno was trying out his best South African accent on us in the changing rooms, we think.  There was lots of jealousy that Darren was leaving early to watch the Lion King matinee in the west end and Tony C actually paused for breath between sentences for the first time this season.  Amongst all this our new signing Banksy sat looking bemused.

Greg turned up late and claimed the prize of sweeping the changing rooms along with his brother who was the 2nd to last to arrive. It’s great that we could bring the family together for some quality time.

We knew this would be a tough match.  Owens has always given us a good game but we have tended to rise to the occasion.  This match was no different.  In the first half, Owens had more of the ball than us but we were organised and active.  They were struggling to get in behind us and when we had the ball we made some fast counter attacks and looked dangerous.  Tony C did not have any tough saves to make.

Half time came and Jonno departed.  We do not know where he was going as he said something in a Jamaican accent, we think. 

Banksy replaced Jonno for his debut (39th different player used this season!).  Greg took a breather to plan his end of game sweeping session and on came non-goal machine Brendan (Wren).  The 2nd half picked up where the first half left off.  In fact we had the best chance of the game as goal machine Brendan (Walkden) got played in for a 1 on 1 with their very big keeper.  Alas, the keeper won this duel and the game remained scoreless.

With 20 minutes to go Darren subbed himself off for Greg and took a nice warm shower to ponder a drive to the west end and the cruel fate of Mufasa.

With Darren returning to the side-line with 5 minutes to go he was pleased to find we were still battling away at 0-0 and Owens were still desperately shooting from long range.  The goal machine’s take on this missing 15 minutes was “We defended really well but couldn't keep the ball.”  Succinct.
With time running out came the moment that ruined our weekend.  A ball was over-hit towards the right corner of our goal line.  The right winger of Owens almost kept the ball in as he wrapped his foot around the ball and cut it back to their big defender waiting on the edge of the box.  The defender smashed the ball in to our goal, top corner.  Lovely powerful strike but in vain as the ball was out before it was crossed.  Or so we thought….

We all looked at “our” linesman waiting for the inevitable flag to point for a goal kick.  Alas, the one person who didn’t think the ball was out was Dave K.  The air turned blue as the back 4, the goalie and side-line supporters all gave their best John McEnroe impression “The ball was out”.  Dave didn’t care and that was that. 1-0. All that hard work for nothing.  Dave K was Kathy Bates.  If he wasn’t built like a brick poo house he may have got more abuse but self-preservation kicked in.

Hakuna Matata

Whitewebbs 3 Knobs 4

We nearly snatched defeat from victory but alas it wasn’t to be.  We thought it might feel better after the game having actually won and so we did.

We had a new keeper this week, Jake who was solid for most of the game and was one of our most threatening passers on the pitch.  In fact our first goal came from one of his massive punts which sailed over the head of their defence and Paul tucked it away after rounding the keeper.  Our second came from Richard who accepted a ball from Bully and with his first two touches, controlled it and smashed it in to the back of the net.  Their goal before half time came from an obvious handball from their most dangerous player who passed it to their centre forward, who turned Tony and put it into the net.  It was a good reminder that you should always play to the whistle.

In the second half, we got another two goals and the game looked to have been settled.  Richard got his second goal after rounding the keeper and our beloved chairman got what ultimately turned out to be the winning goal with a fantastic effort. There were man hugs all round. What a man he is!

Anyway, they came back into it with a strange goal…their player looked offside and then when he crossed it, our new keeper palmed it into his own net.  The third was just a defensive disaster and doesn’t need much description other than the fact their player found themselves in the middle of the six yard area with an open goal. It looked like they would score another but luckily we held on, thanks in part to the ref who couldn’t spot a pull back from Tony that stopped one of their players a clear shot on goal.  It was an obvious penalty but then he didn’t spot the handball in the first half, so it was even stevens.  At one point one of their players shouted ‘This is the worst team we’re going to be playing all season’.  What an accolade to win so early on in the season.  Well done chaps!

Starting line-up: Jake, Gerry, James, Tony, Chairman Al, Gavin, Bully, Darren A, Brendan the goal machine, Dave M, Paul.  Subs: Des and Richard