05 November 2008: Fowlers (a) in Thames League Big Cup

Profundity from every orafice with Uncle Gibbsy, enjoy:

Remember, remember the 5th of November?, no, no, please, I don’t want to, I want to block it out, I want to bury it deep down and let it shrivel up and die in some inky black, never ventured down cul -de- sac of my brain, a place where no one goes, ever. No, it wasn’t a good night.

It started ominously enough - as we warmed up on the court next to the pitch there were warning shots rocketing across our bows, bright flashing red lights, screams and sirens - how could we have ignored such blatant signs so casually? But we did, and like many things that occurred later in the evening, our inability to exercise our ‘vision’ facility must be something we should take extremely seriously.

So then we’re on the pitch, and we dick around as usual waiting for the get go, and out of the corner of my eye I see them. Smugly organised in their freshly squeezed hi-viz yellow, they’re gently yet sycophantically applauding each player as they name their squad, jolly good show Nigel..clap, clap, clap, hmmm.

Coyley pull us up for our chat and whos playing where and its feeling good, we’ve a strong squad and everyone looks up for it. But then theres the uncharacteristic use of deep metaphors from our warrior Captain Coyle - the ‘mice and men’ team talk. Well now, based on the ‘vision’ theory outlined earlier, flashing red lights etc, more warning signs are now flashing. Heres the gist of it, ‘Of Mice and Men’ was a John Steinbeck novel about two ill fated migrant field workers in California during the Great Depression, George Milton, the smart one, and Lennie Small, an ironically named man of large stature and immense strength but limited mental abilities. They venture out West to stake out some farmland and live out their dream. The dream crashes when Lennie (massive but not very clever) accidentally kills the young and attractive wife of a ranch owner's son, while trying to stroke her hair, much to hard, like he did already with his pet mouse (aha, theres the ‘mice’ ref). So then a lynch mob gathers and George (the clever small one), realizing he is doomed to a life of loneliness and despair like the rest of the migrant workers decides to be a man and spare Lennie a painful death at the hands of the vengeful and violent ranchers, so he shoots Lennie in the back of the head before the mob can find him. So, if you’ve bothered to read to the end of this bit, the moral of the Mice and Men tale is that the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, as did ours, but also if you stroke things to hard they squish up in yer fist, and finally that a bullet in the back of the head would probably have been preferable to 8 nil. So how prophetic was our Cap, scary huh? We should have seen it coming.

I wont go into too much detail about the football because I was, like the rest of us in a Zulu like encounter where we were overrun, out numbered and out stripped, damn those Lemony shirted devils they were everywhere, and although I could see nothing but brave lads being done all around, and there was a total commitment from everybody, nobody went down without putting up a fight, the Dunkirk spirit ruled to the end. I don’t know why it didn’t work, nobody played badly, its a mystery, there were heroics, moments of genius and brute strength from the Alliance, but we were ruthlessly dissected by the opposition. They were tight, strategic and smug about it. They also had a strange shadowy figure on the touchline, perhaps the devil himself, some black magician, plotting our downfall , like Guido Fawkes himself, maybe he was the difference, maybe one of our subs should’ve twatted him early on.

Anyway it’s hard in such painful circumstances to select a man of the match, but my heart goes out to Paul, who despite his early ill fated metaphors, fought on to the end like a true Captain, with his head up, and because I have faith that the next time he leads us into battle with these fucks he will become their nemesis, I will write his ‘yea though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no man’ speech, I will follow him and we will remember the 5th of November, and we will blow them away. Next up for a shout is Eddie who saved us many times from the evil spectre of double figures, excellent work mate.

For what its worth, next time maybe we should play for 0-0, everyone intensively defensive, we wait till they mess up then pick em off, easy.

Gibbsy signing off.