ANOTHER SEASON.....ANOTHER LOSING START.
Even up a man for majority of game, blunders cost Madrid in the end.

Acroturn        4               Real Ale        3
                                        Barry
                                        Trevor
                                        Simon ( goal of the year nominee)
Jack is back.
But that dont mean jack.
Real ale Madrid kicked off its 2005 outdoor session last night with a dismal performance as they fell to the hands of Acroturn by a 4-3 score.

This team does have many changes from last years squad, and the loss of Jeff will certianly be felt as his speed and brunt aggresiveness will surely be missed. Also gone include speedster Alberto, middleman Phil Braga, fatboy Mario,and various others who due to prior engagements were AWOL last night.

So Madrid reaches into its bag of tricks and pulls out some of the oldest footballers soccer city has to offer to fill these spaces, as follows:

Jack- fresh off recovering from a knee injury
Richard -picked up from Europa
Sean Reid - demoted from over 30's
Darren - filling in goal as Karsten aspires to run around on the field.

Not really the fairest of trade offs for what we lost, but due to a very tight budget that has been felt lately around the club and a sharp decline in our stock, tis the best we could do.

So we take the field against Acroturn, and they are pretty much all over us. We cant get the ball past the midfield and the play in the back is subpar.  So sub par, that on a clearing attempt by Ritchie in which he waits for 4 players to surround him before kicking the ball it hits one of them and they are off to the races.

Goal.
Down 1-0 and the game continues. But a little break for Madrid......the keeper for Acroturn seems like he's got alot on his mind and decides to vent whatever sexual frustrations to ref......

yellow card.......he cant believe the ref doesnt care, and goes off some more....another yellow.
Thats 2 yellows , which equals a red and its sayonara keeper and madrid has a free kick 2 feet away from the net.  
So Grimes is gonna lay off the ball for Jack to blast in.....which is what i assume.
Grimes lays it off, Jack takes the ball..........and proceeds to pull some kind of move that Ronaldinho might pull but instead trips over his feet and loses the ball.

What the f@ck!?!?!?!?!

Acroturn pots another off of another stupid play in the back and another giveaway that leads to Roy tackling a player to save a goal.  But the freekick is placed so well that it is now 2-0.

Anyways....madrid regains its composure eventually and scores a goal off of a wonderful tip from Baz to take us into the half down 2-1.

Second half.....
Madrid comes out blazing and a wonderful cross in is pumped into the back of the net by the german tank Trevor and its tied at 2. But Madrid continues its lacklustre performance as Grimes offers up a little too much space to an attacker and he roofs one into the back of the net. Madrid replies when off of a  long throw in by greek in the back, it  meets Baz's head and finds the foot of Simon streaking down the side. and with a very very nice touch he calmly chips the keeper and ties it up at 3.

(editors note - simons goal is probably the best goal i've seen in the past 3 seasons scored on this club.)
But the stupidity continues again as it seemed Acroturn was up an extra five men as opposed to being down one. They were all over us.  And much to Ritchie's dismay, he gets stuck with the jolly green giant who proceeded to step over him and then drill one into the back of the net. Acroturn again now leads by a goal.

Madrid presses like crazy for the last ten minutes.....Manager paul decides to unleash the speed demon the greek international, but his decision and the greeks speed would prove costly. Dying minutes and a mad scramble sees the ball land on Marks foot. He hammers the shot toward the corner of the net, and like Polkaroo, the greek appears out of nowhere and hammers the ball into the back off the net to tie the game.

GOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!
ummmm.....no.
The greek is deemed to be offside as the speed was a little too much for the ref to believe he had made a run. The ball was heading in anyway, and had the greek not touched it, it would have counted.

Cue the final whistle and a Madrid defeat, the first of hopefully not many this year. This squad looks like it might have to fight for a playoff spot let alone finish near the top of the table.

Its going to be a cruel summer.