Horse Of The Year Show and A Tiny Wee Polish Sausage.

Real Ale Madrid 2                         Red & White 2

Scorers. Trevor 1, Mario 1.

The weather promised to be hot and muggy Sunday. And if you can think of a worse opening line to a report, please submit on a postcard to: The Worst Opening Line of A Match Report Contest, care of Louis Dimopoulos, Miles from Nowhere, Aurora. I was expecting a fair turnout for this one as I had optimistically scratched 18 names on the game sheet. Of course I had to make some names up, like Genghis Kahn and Pele, but I was expecting a near full squad. As usual there were some no shows. Greg was at a wedding the night before and woke up next to the bridesmaids mother and father. All were completely naked, so he was too traumatized to play. Aubery was entertaining guests from England and trying the teach them English. Chris I assume was at home getting nagged about the awful state of Soccer City pitch 1. Simon was awol without permission, though I did receive a garbled morse code message from him somewhere of the coast of Hamilton. Something about concrete boots and was she worth the effort. Also missing was Louis who was moving this weekend. Moving what I have no idea, but it must have been heavy because apparently Dave was helping him with the cushions and throw pillows. Mike had the kids so he was way too knackered to play. Warren was off playing golf I think or somewhere deep in the woods of Pennsylvania with Darren doing god knows what to a toilet snake. On the plus side, rare appearances from Mario, Ian and Jack gave the team speed, guile and shooting ability. Of course, none of those three have those abilities, but it encouraged others to step up their game.

So a rather strong team lineup all things considered. Except of course for Pat who has a blind spot when it comes to locating this pitch. Yours truly had to play the first half in goal.

Now onto the game (about bloody time). We started in a very confident mood. Lots of short passes and a bit of movement off the ball was a surprise. Unfortunately the pitch was in no mood to let teams play football. It seems the sprinklers had been left on for at least 48 hours and parts of the field were nothing but ankle deep mud. The north end goal mouth resembled Simon's swimming pool while he was in England a few weeks ago, with more algae scum than the dim sum soup at a poorly run Chinese restaurant. First chance fell to Real Ale as from my vantage point 100 yards away it seemed that Trevor beat the centre back and as the ball was rolling towards the goalie, both Trevor and the Red & White keeper jumped out of each others way. The ball went past the keeper and Trevor had an open net. 1-0. Minutes later some nice passing set up Mario and his shot from a tight angle seemed to fool their keeper and it went right under him. 2-0. A score not seen on our side of the ledger for many a month. Could we hang on? Sadly no. A cross from the right had me fooled as it seemed to be heading out for a goal kick but swerved back in. I tried to push it over the bar, but only managed to push it on to the bar and into the goal mouth. We tried to clear, but they got the ball on the edge of the box. One shot into the top corner later and 2-1. This was 2 minutes before half time and a cruel blow.

With that Pat went in goal and I resumed my usual spot panting and sweating in midfield. Second half and the fun began. It is unseemly to see 50 year old Polish chaps diving for penalties, but that is what started to happen. One chap was booked for a blatant Portuguese double twist with a leg drag. Ahmed took the ball off one bloke and he hit the deck crying. Ahmed with a memorable line, "F**K off you old drunk". At this point they were getting a wee bit upset with the ref, who in my opinion handled the game very well indeed, though he did call it 10 minutes early I thought. With about 20 min to play we had a free kick in front of their bench. They started in on the ref. One chap got so irate that he began to strip off all his clothes. Thank whatever gods there are that he stopped at the Homer Simpson Y-fronts. However, while gyrating his hips he offered his goods to the ref with some choice words as to what the ref could do with his bits and pieces. Luckily the ref held his nerve and red carded this impish scamp. I trust when he sobers up he will not remember his display. I shudder at the memory of those stained underwear and that very tiny Polish sausage. After that, Red and White scored the tying goal on a well taken free kick. Pat taking a bath in the mould strewn goal mouth. I suggest a week of nuclear strength showers Pat, you never know what was growing in that festering pond.

So 2-2. We should have won this. Jack had a breakaway that could have made it 3-1 but narrowly missed. We caught them on the break several times, but could not capitalize.

The changed lineup at the back was a success. With Anthony and Ray providing a great central pairing. Biff had the tackle of the season in the first half to stop a breakaway on the edge of the box and the speed of Mario and Ahmed caused them some difficulty. So your player of the game today is the Biffer. A great effort rounded off by that superb tackle.

We are off for the long weekend, back at it at home on the 13th against the Ching Coaches.

cheers

PS for those playing tonight....lots of water today lads...it is going to be a hot one.