Match Reports
07/03/09
Mid Sussex 2s 0-9 Men's 4th XI
Andy C - I know you’re a busy man, what with the monkey’s to look after and the odd glass of Pimms so this is a shortened version:
You played, your wore your head band, you scored two, you had a strop and threw your stick on the floor (apart from the red face and Thompo’s stick it could have been any Brighton game for the last ten years).
For the rest of us stuck in dreary Britain with more time on our hands during our lunch breaks/while the missus does the dishes etc the unabridged version follows:
Legendary moments call from some legendary players. And for this reason and this reason alone I called up some illustrious ex-4s players to give us the necessary mettle to make sure of this result, which would both seal the league title and hopefully take us past the mythical three figures in the goals scored column.
Please be assured that the reason for the plumbing of the lower reaches of the phone book was not because of some atrocious player availability and even some people deciding to watch Watford play…. unbelievable!?
The legends on show (apart from the current team including regular “living” legend Ready) we have Dave Taylor. A man with an assured touch and positional awareness, lucky as his legs went after about 10 minutes. Andy C back briefly back from hiatus in Gibraltar (via Barbados) arrived without a weapon but some proved he too had lost none of the experience and also the fiery temper. Legend Thompo was also on hand to lend his support in the back line and make me laugh.
At the warm up it soon transpired that nearly every player had an injury or ailment of some kind and those that didn’t were fairly sure that they would at any moment. Happily though with legends comes a better quality of banter which rose its head from the depths we had recently plunged. That was until The Dobinator wondered if anyone wanted to see his pants, we didn’t, but that didn’t stop him. The bizarre collection of Escher-esque right angles had us all seeing double for minutes afterwards. Please never again in the face of human existence should we be forced to see such a sight.
With a bare 11 we took the field with some trepidation, some of these legs were older than Wrighty and Davros combined, surely they couldn’t last the 70 minutes without incident. As it was it was the midfield powerhouse The Dobinator (24) who cracked when an injury he had picked up earlier in the week reared its ugly head and he was forced into a hobble for the majority of the match (amazing how the pain eased when he was in their D though, one of life’s unanswerable mysteries that one).
We also lost Dan S for ten or so minutes when he took a nasty blow to the hand leaving us with ten men. It was during this period that Mid Sussex’s early promise dissipated and with Andy C terrier like up front the opening chances soon fell to the right players and Davros and Dobson were able to score and put us on to 99 goals. The question of who would get the 100th was on everyone’s lips. Would Thompo ghost in at the back post and slot it home, would Dave give the match a dream sheen by roofing it from the top of the D or Andy C cap a solo run from the half way line by rounding the keeper… no we hadn’t factored in the goal machine Davros from putting the finishing touches to another excellent move by placing the ball over the line. A future Legend’s place is assured! Nice one Dav, oh and jug!
Amazingly Mid Sussex did find a chink of light and enjoyed a short period of possession and could have scored but for a couple of saves from me…. (see I’m not as bad as Dobson, I do not deserve MOM but a sentence will suffice).
Half time came but not before Davros had finally caught a beautiful reverse stick shot, probably the best he’s ever hit, sadly it went straight into the chest of a defender. Dave T also popped up with a cracking effort and we were 4-0 up at half time.
With the game as good as won and the league almost sealed maintaining the pressure was all important and maintain it we did, in no small part to the desire and verve of the legends but also thanks to JC getting his wobble on and Bananaman having a storming game in the drifting “Grimes Role” mopping up for the midfield and doing more than his fair share of running, an absolute sterling display.
Dan was embarrassingly tackled by “Tiny Tom-Tim” the famous “Foetus Winger”, he soon got his own back by barging him off the ball! Play nicely Dan!
The goals flowed and Davros finished with 4 (and some of those were not on the reverse side, mental!) The Dobinator got another and JC went close with a palm stinger I swear their keeper is still feeling now (ask me or Matt Squires for descriptions of the gamut of pain that JC can put you through).
With one legend scoring and the other banished to defence (and letting cross field balls pass unmolested between his legs) it was left to another legend to make his mark and he did so in the manner we all hoped, we just wondered what took him so long…
After falling over a stick our favourite Scotsman looked at the umpire for the clear free-hit (it wasn’t). When the umpire just told him to get up or get off the tantrum came, bubbling under the soil like a geyser of epic proportions the fault lines split and those of us experienced in these things knew it was coming…. The left hand holding the stick raised up to shoulder height and then slammed down releasing the said stick into the pitch… Stanley deason did not let us down and gave enough bounce for the stick to raise perfectly parallel to the ground but spinning round and round like a whirling dervish before slamming back into the ground where the guttural roar of a wronged Scotsman echoed over the downs like an ancient battle cry. Sadly I don’t speak Scots so couldn’t translate but it sounded just like “ahumpireforregawdssake!”.
Perfect.
Oh, he also scored a couple, sterling work all round.
There was still time for an oppo player to have a whine and a moan firstly at our Ready for a firm and fair challenge but also at his own players when at a short corner one his players decided to stand in front of him, this prompted a great posh cry of “Get out of the way”. He was tackled, he then proceeded to shout, at no-one “GET OUT OF THE WAY!”.. HAHA and for the second time in the match I had to wipe tears of laughter from my eyes!
And so the game ended with us 9-0 to the good and the league title was ours. Still with four games to go the mission is now to go the season unbeaten!
The awards in the bar went to form with Davros getting MOM (as captain and writer I get to also give special recognition to Bananaman for a great performance). DOD went to Andy C for his brilliant strop. Happily, as he was returning to Gibraltar, The Dobinator got to look after it.
Thanks also to Wappy for umpiring, we just we didn’t get of the way of his warm up too much. Thanks too to the Mid-Sussex umpire who also umpired well.
Team: Brooksy, Thompo, Ready, Bananaman, Wrighty, Dan S, Dave T, JC, The Dobinator, Davros, Andy C
Goals:
Davros 4
The Dobinator 2
Dave T 1
Andy C 2
(Sorry this is a bit long this week, I was bored on a train.)
DB