Sunday 13th January 2008: Green Park Rangers Away

The first post of this monumental occassion here we go. Sit back and put your feet up. They dont write prose like this anymore...

So it's the second week in January2008, we've more or less got a full team plus three subs. Gorgeous Georges, an original, even showed his face on a trip across from the West Country. It's Battersea - this means we have 1 hr 30 minute pitch bookings and if I tell everyone the right time, we'll start late and not get a full game in. So I told you suckers an hour before to make sure we were there and mentally prepared. Apologies to those who were on time!

After an unusually rousing team talk from yours truly, we opted for a 4-3-3 formation, welcoming Gorgeous back for the first time in 3 years into his right back position and new boy Jessy, a mate of Gibbsy's, into midfield. Husdon, V and Paul up front, a midfield of Dan, Jeff and Jessy plus a back four of Colin, Gorgeous, Dai and Gibbsy. With a Smith in goal. We were properly set up.

Things didnt start well - a frantic start led to us conceding reasonably early on. It swirled around high (and I thought handsome) in the air and straight into the top corner. It was another case of happening to be standing on chewing gum in goal again. 0-1. 0-2 followed shortly. A dubious free kick from an increasingly dubious ref led to a good header in the box and me wrong footed again. Neg.

But we werent fazed, we stuck to our plan of leaving ourselves short at the back and bombing forward willy nilly. And fair play we had some chances and played, at times, some decent stuff. Gorgeous, matured with age, carrying the ball nearly comfortably down the wing. The midfield interchanging wit Jessy pulling the strings and eventually we found a way back. A few blocked shots, I think on the edge of the area, and then a crisp finish from V to put us back in it.

Now for their third - I'm not sure if I've already described it or not, I'm mixed up between the 2nd and 3rd goal - oh the beauty of the blog - someone can jump in on their lunch break and perhaps give an accurate account. Anyway 1-3 and we're back to basics. At this point I think Dan scores with a decent finish and it's 3-2 and we ended the half the strongest with V chipping the keeper and narrowly putting the ball over which was really unfortunate as it was a great effort. We finished the half stronger mentally but as The Body had come on just before half-time we werent actually stronger. Hudson, who had typically been the natural aggressor and harasser for most of the first half, did his toe in a freak accident but he won a corner and we may have scored from it or have I got that wrong too? An ambulence was called. Half-time.

With The Body on up front for Hudson we were going to feed off him (there's a gag there but I've ripped him enough, I want to rile him enough to put his own post on!) and pull ourselves back into the game. We were playing some great stuff, passing it to each other on the deck and everything and they were losing their way. Until Dai pulled off an excellent tackle clearly taking the ball and the ref blew his whistle for a penalty. The opposition didnt think it was either. Up stepped their striker, gave me the eyes (I gave them back, as I had my own, and didnt want another set) and put the ball to my right. It was a sh*t penalty and I made, in fact I made it so easy I lost concentration (and found myself in an Alan Partridge dream sequence), next thing I know it's in the onion bag and we're 4-2 down and Henry's in the hockey goal, behind our goal, crying.

Now it's not the easiest thing in the world, trying to play in goal when 1, you are not a goal keeper and 2, you've not spent a great deal of time pondering what sort of questions you can ask a little bloke who says 'yes' rather infrequently. So I tried what I thought would be a fairly standard one - 'can you see daddy playing football?' Still crying but I've made a save and kicked the ball up field. I think we may have scored at some point 3-2 (Jeff put his baby pictures down and finished very well, scoring the sort of goal that never really seems to come off for us) but the floodbanks had opened behind the goal. And asking Henry 'So then, what did you do for Christmas?' didnt really help matters. He's looking at me like 'I'm 18 months old and I say 'yes' infrequently, what do you want from me??!! Jeez Bern, throw me a bone.' Luckily I brought it round with 'did you get a lot of Christmas presents?' He said 'yes', brightened up, probably falling into some magical dream, waking up to a fat Santa, who looks strangely familiar, laying out a load of teddies. It probably didnt happen like that but I like to think it did.

So we're 3-4 down, if you are still following this, and it stays like this for some time. We're knocking on the door and causing them problems, with some great stuff in the middle of the park. The sum of the parts and all that. Unfortunately, a spare part, The Body, had a great chance which look like he fluffed but he cant of because it went for a corner. We went close a few times. Dai's landed on his hand and is pulling rather amusing gibs just outside the area so eventually I end his pain and brought on Hectar at centre back, and took Colin, who put in another quietly consistent performance at left back, off for Iain to push four in midfield. This stretched us at the back, with Gibbsy doing running for about three players at times, but we werent going to Dai wondering in this game. By heck us like!

Next up - we give away a stonewall penalty, we all knew it apart from the ref. He wasnt looking but gave it anyway. So round 2 of eye swapping ensues with me and Kev the striker. Tries to give me them again and this time hits the bar. Scramble. They reacted first and scored from the re-bound. Again I thought I could have done better. 3-5 and we know it's over. So, stretched again we let another one in and finish, rather unfairly, 3-6 to them. But a really good, clean game (probably because Hudson went off before half time) and Paul really only had the wind to criticise by the end (as one of their players pointed out 'we dont control the wind', which was frankly fair enough I thought).

So after all that, what did we learn? We can play football, we can score, and at times play as a team. We left with our head's held high - a passionate performance of which we should all be proud.

MOM - well there were so many - I think a shared ownership between Dan and Gibbsy this week. And a mention to Gorgeous for his first 11 a side game in 3 years, great finish by V who was unlucky to get a second (although he couldnt hit a barn door in the second half) and Jessy, very nifty feet with composure. If only we had 11 Jessys I thought after the game. Then I looked at the team sheet and realised we did! Boom Boom!

Catch y'all next time folks!