Crouch End Vampires vs Norsemen FC
Saturday 19th February
Crouch End
2.30
Norsemen Say Fangs Very Much
Dear Diary,
Another Saturday and another game of football. I wake up for the first time in the new flat. Bit of a strange feeling waking up in an alien environment. Think about doing something but then think to have a wash first. Lucky I did think about it as Thomas walks into the flat as I walk to the bathroom. I pack my bag and then follow Thomas to his car. We climb in and drive to his lady friend’s house in Mile End. Lou has kindly cooked us a slap up full English. She is blimmin brilliant. Thomas has a dance to Bros’ “when will I be famous”. I am going to risk a starting position next week with my next comment. Thomas looked incredibly gay singing and dancing to Bros. There I said it. I can’t take it back now.
Finish our breakfasts and notice we are running late so jump into the sports car and drive to Crouch End. Sat nav was playing up so just had to guess how to get to Crouch End from Mile End. We managed to do this via the North circular. Arrive at Crouch End’s game with the rain pouring down. I had a gut feeling that Macca wouldn’t fancy these conditions to watch his team. Meet everyone in the club house and do the normal high fives, handshakes, hugs etc. Everyone has different requirements for greeting, depending on how camp, masculine, frigid they are. Just one quick observation to be mentioned. James turned up hanging from the night before and looked/smelt like a tramp......
We all walk to the changing room to put our blue uniforms on. We meet one of Norsemen’s favourite children in the changing room. Mr Reggie Ayres. A true blue legend. He gets changed and puts his gay little gloves on....... The question on everyone’s lips is “where is Macca?” Muzza assures us that he will be along later as Macca dropped off the kit to Muzza earlier in the day.
I think their conversation went a little bit like this:
(Macca arrives at Muzza’s house in his camp little car. He gets out the car and then gets the kit out of the boot. He then prances up to Muzza’s door and rings the bell.)
Muzza- “Just a minute”
Macca-“Take your time lad”
(Muzza opens the door)
Macca-“Ey up”
Muzza-“alright mate”
(Muzza gives Macca a kiss on the cheek)
Macca-“Just dropping the kit off to you like and will then come down at 2 to watch like”
(Macca thought to himself that the weather didn’t look kind. He thought to himself it would be a perfect opportunity to stay at home with his wife and play dress up.)
Muzza-“ok mate I will tell everyone to expect to see your pretty little face about 2 then?”
Macca-“Sound”
(Macca made his mind up at this point to stay at home and not watch his “beloved” Norsemen commence battle against Crouch End. Basically he bottled it.)
(Macca kisses Muzza on the cheek and then off he minces to his car)
(Muzza walked back in doors, dropped the kit on the ground and then went to drop the kids off at the pool.)
Whilst changing, Muzza gets a text from Macca:
Sorry mate, not going to make it. Hugs x
Unbelievable!
Once changed, we slowly jog out to have a kick about. There is quite a big problem though. The 1st team pitch is completely water logged. Tadd sees this as a minor obstacle and decides to run on the pitch and chase the ball around on his own. You could put that boy in a yard with a ball on a string and he would keep himself entertained for days.
Bugger. This is not fun at all. Not only have we all traipsed over to Crouch End, but we have also put all our kit on. Now we are being faced with not being able to play. Bit poor really. If there was a pitch inspection in the morning then they would have clearly been able to see the pitch wasn’t playable. We all start moaning and decide to walk over to the back pitches to see what the other pitches are like. We meet Thomas tip toeing back across the pitches as we arrive. He doesn’t have a hopeful look on his face. Maybe he is sad that he had to leave midway through his Bros song. It is probably because none of the pitches are playable though. The Crouch End team are on one of the pitches with brooms and pitch forks, trying in vain to get rid of all the water. In fairness their attempts were appreciated as everyone wanted to play. However I was watching one chap attempting to pitch fork a puddle. To say the effort being put in was minimal would be generous. On the other hand another lad was brooming the puddles like a mad man. For the next 25 minutes we discuss if the game will be on or not. It was a bit like an episode of loose women (minus the vaginas).
The chef starts to warm us up. We start by doing some running and then we attempt to do some ball work. Between the running and the ball work we are given a couple of minutes. We all stand around in a circle and kick the ball about. For some reason we attempt two balls at the same time. Ballers thinks he has the right to muck about and walk into the centre of the circle. It was put to a quick vote and the decision was to punish him. I took the responsibility into my own hands on behalf of my team mates to discipline him. I attempted to fire a warning shot at him to get him to return to his station. Just like a farmer would do if he saw a fox hanging his livestock. Unfortunately due to my limited ability the warning shot hit Ballers straight in the face. I say unfortunately but it was quite funny..... Ballers clutched his face and was trying so hard to hold back the tears. Bless his little cotton socks. I felt bad, so I walked over to him and gave him a little hug and rub f his hair. I did see a tear but I decided to keep that between us. He is a brave little soldier. What he lacks in football ability, he makes up for in bravery. It is an urban Norsemen myth that Ballers was raised by a clan of brave badgers. How true that is I have no idea but I certainly like the idea of it.
We finish warming up and then Thomas gathers us in for the team talk. We lined up as follows:
GK-Michael
LB-Muzza
RB-Ossie
CB-Tajae
CB-Reed
LM-Hempsey
RM-Ballers
CM-TT
CM-Tadd
CF-Leroy
CF-Jarrett
Subs:
Reggie
Arda
Bradley
I think everyone would agree that we started with a very strong starting 10 and Ballers. The ref did a pitch inspection and allowed the game to be played. He did stipulate that the game would be stopped if it started raining. We all did our anti rain-dance and then kicked off the game.
I am not going to beat around the bush; the pitch was in a bad state. Lots of puddles and sticky mud.
The game kicked off around about 2.30. Norsemen had kick off and straight away the ball was played over to Ossie. He thought it would be a good idea to try and recreate our goal from last week. He played a delicious ball over the top for somebody to run on to and lash into the back of the net. Unfortunately that somebody was Ballers. We all know how difficult he finds football. Ballers thought better of scoring and decided to skew the ball off somewhere near the corner flag for a Crouch End goal kick.
Despite the lack of grass on the pitch, Norsemen tried their hardest to get the ball down and play some football. To be fair to Crouch End they did too. This proved little joy in the middle of the pitch, but the wide players had a bit more joy. Crouch End has some handy players and they managed to forge out a couple of half chances early on. Norsemen looked the more dangers of the teams and on the 20 minute mark they made a breakthrough. A free kick from the right was swung in by Ossie, Muzza had a couple of attempts at putting it in the goal. He obviously couldn’t complete the task so Leroy stepped up to the plate and dispatched it with ease.
Crouch End 0-1 Norsemen.
10 minutes later and we had extended our lead to 2-0. A long throw from TT found either the head of Jarrett or Muzza at the near post. The resulting header fell to the feet of little Leroy who again slotted the ball home from close range. Neither goal aesthetically pleasing but they all count....
Crouch End 0-2 Norsemen.
Personally my favourite bit of the half was doing a sliding tackle that lasted for about 10 seconds. The result of the sliding tackle meant I gained roughly 2 stone in weight due to the mud on my Norsemen uniform. Not ideal but fun none the less.
At half time it was evident that a couple of players were not enjoying the conditions. Michael the keeper winged about not liking mud, despite being a keeper! Tajae and Leroy also looking sad at the fact that they had to play in the muddy conditions. Thomas was happy with our performance so he spoke to us nicely and then sent us back out to score some more goals and see out the game.
Crouch End must have had smoke blown up their bottoms by their manager as they started much brighter. Their formation had been changed and they looked a new team. The conditions in the second half had become almost unplayable in parts and our defence found it much harder to judge the flight and role of the ball due to the conditions. 10 minutes into the second half and Crouch End found a life line. A ball was pumped up the pitch and Norsemen midfield and defence wasn’t able to deal with the danger. The ball fell to the Crouch End left winger on the edge of the box. The Crouch End player hit a nice shot. The boggy box didn’t allow Michael to jump for the ball and as a result the ball flew into the roof of the net.
Crouch End 1-2 Norsemen.
Norsemen started to panic at this point and Thomas lost his voice from shouting orders. Despite being a goal to the good we played like we were losing. Norsemen still tried to play football, despite the conditions not allowing them to do so. This mentality was eventually what punished us. Muzza picked up the ball on the halfway line and started to drive with the ball (very slowly mind). He played a ball infield to TT. With the conditions as they were, this turned out to be a bad ball as the ball got stuck in the mud and TT was dispossessed as he overcooked his run in childish anticipation. The ball was played out to the right for the Crouch End winger. TT tried his hardest to recover the ball but it was a wasted effort. The Crouch End winger played a hopeful ball into the box which seemed to ping pong around the defence. The ball was then volleyed in by the Crouch End striker from 6 yards.
Crouch End 2-2 Norsemen.
At this point the game stepped up a notch or two and tempers were being lost all over the pitch. The ball got pumped up the pitch by the Crouch End defence. It became stuck in the mud and was there to be won by both the Crouch End striker and Reedo. Both players threw themselves into the tackle. To be fair I would say this as I am a Norsemen player and was probably the closest person on the pitch to the tackle but I thought it was a fair tackle. On reviewing the Crouch End players leg he didn’t get stamped on by Reed but it was not malicious at all. The Crouch End lad went mental, and probably had the right to as it looked like it did hurt. Gav sh1t himself and backed off quickly. Think he learnt that number from Ballers! Suddenly the whole Crouch End team thought they had to get revenge and tried to elbow Gav. I don’t think Gav enjoyed the last 20 minutes as the Crouch End sideline all said they were going to kill him. The Crouch End striker had to go from his injury. This was probably a blessing in disguise for Norsemen as he had changed the game when upfront and all of the productive play was going through him.
Norsemen teams of yesteryear would have bottled it at this point and would have just pulled down their pants and waited for it. Don’t get me wrong, we were shaky for the next 5 minutes but after that we composed ourselves and went about the task in hand again.
Around the 80 minute mark Jarrett went on a personal mission to win the game for Norsemen. He gathered the ball on the left flank and jinxed his way into the box, twisting and turning. He engineered a path to the touch line and fired a cross across the Crouch End box. The ball landed once again at Leroy’s feet. He thought twice about scoring as he knew he would have to get a jug in for scoring a hat-trick. Luckily Leroy came to his senses and kicked the ball in the net from 2 yards out. Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. Leroy run off and did a little slide. We all did the same and had lots of fun. Crouch End looked absolutely gutted as they had deservedly fought their way back into the game.
Crouch End 2-3 Norsemen.
We managed to see out the remaining 10 minutes for the victory. Lots of sliding tackles took place in these 10 minutes......
The ref blew his whistle and Norsemen had won the game. Gav run over to Thomas and waited for a ring of Norsemen players to surround him before he made his way back to the club house.
Unfortunately none of the subs got on today as it was such a tight match. A lot of respect for those 3 to take the time out of their Saturdays to come and watch us play!
We go back to the changing room and have an extremely hot shower. Then we have a nice plate of rice and bones and Leroy gets his jug in. The little chap has now bagged 7 in his last 3 games. Gav hides himself in the corner and hopes the Crouch End chap doesn’t spot him.
Climb into Thomas’ sports car and drive home. Listen to Bruce Springsteen and Dire Straits on route. Get home and go to meet my lady friend. Have a nice chat and then I head over to meet Gav and Thomas in the pub. Have some heavily overpriced premium foreign larger and play some pool very badly. In this particular pub there are lots of nudey women paintings. Gavin and myself take a slow walk around the room and class the painted ladies on their boobies and faces. A lot of these ladies are from the 1800’s so have the fuller build. One lady has nice perky ones but they point in weird angels. I am going to blame the artist for that as they kind of defied the laws of physics. After that Joe Morris decides to join us for half an hour as he tries to persuade us to go to a party in Shoreditch. None of us are interested so his attempts are in vein. Joe is heavily intoxicated and talks less sense than he normally does. He tries to plead his case to Thomas as to why he believes he should be called up to the first team. He claimed he could play in any position. I give Joe a hug after this outrageous claim and decide enough is enough and it is bed time.
All in all an interesting day and Norsemen sit back at the top of the table. Things are getting tight up there so it is important we keep winning. Not that anyone goes out to draw or lose. Since playing at Norsemen we always bottle it at this point in the season and narrowly avoid getting promoted. This year needs to be different and I believe with the current team we can get up. That’s all I have to say. Saturday 19th February complete.
Night world.
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