Norsemen FC vs HSBC
Saturday 26th February
Edmonton Sports Ground
2.30
Norsemen hit bankers for six
Dear Diary,
Woke up today at a stupid time and was unable to go back to sleep. Very annoying. Decided to watch a film about a boy in a mental illness hospital ward. The film has probably been placed under the comedy umbrella; however it wasn’t very funny, despite having the beardy bloke from the Hangover in it. It filled the time before breakfast. Thomas arrived home from Louise’s and we had a nice chat. Myself, Thomas and his Dad then walked to get a lovely breakfast. Thomas’ Dad chose the controversial breakfast of kippers. I’m not going to lie, they smelt really fishy. Not surprising as they are fish I guess.
Went home and packed our bags and then set off for Edmonton. Thomas and myself invented a little game a year back called “Hat watch”. Now this game is probably my favourite game bar none. I am going to lay down the particulars of the game in case anybody feels like they want to play it.
Goal
To spot as many men wearing large hats in one pass of a designated area.
Rules
The route is the A10 and starts at the traffic lights of Manor Road and ends at the traffic lights of St Ann’s Road. Any spotting’s outside of this area is rewarded with extra points as the men are deemed to be out of “Jurisdiction”. The gentleman must be wearing a large hat and must be of adult status.
Ok so the points are allocated as such:
A man spotted on foot - 1 point
A man spotted on a bike - 2 points
A man spotted in a car - 2 points
A man spotted on public transport - 10 points
A man spotted outside Jurisdiction - Double points
Any false calls - Deduct 1 point
The points tally is loosely kept by the passenger (Me) and then once the end traffic lights have been crossed the victor is declared. Thomas seems to favour the darker conditions. My eyes are too small to identify the personnel on the dimly lit streets. I don’t favour any conditions but I win from time to time. This game isn’t all too dissimilar to playing the different colour car counting game whilst on a long trip.
Back to Saturday 26th February and we are approaching the Manor Road traffic lights. The weather is grey, rainy and cold. We thought this would be an issue for “Hat watch” as they wouldn’t want to get their hats wet. Rightly so too as they look like they cost a fair bit. Problem solved with the addition of a custom made anorak to allow them to wear their hats. Probably one of the most underrated inventions of the 21st century. Thomas was victorious this time with a score of 8 to my 5.
Ok so eventually we get to Edmonton and we park up. Arrive a little bit later than everyone else and as a result everyone is already in the changing room. Cass is wearing Ski gear which he now wears to ride his moped. It is an interesting outfit to say the least. What is nice is that his ski jacket is the same colour as his bike. It is a pleasant compliment. Brings out the bikes wheels..... I dish out some high fives. I purposely ignore Arda’s hand. He is still in my bad books for cheating at training on Tuesday. I have already decided to forgive him, however he won’t be off the hook until later in the day. He tried to laugh it off but you could see in his eyes that he was hurting. We get changed and the Chef puts on some of his music. It is a bit ropey but it is good background noise.
Once everyone has changed into their uniforms, we jog out to warm up. A slight problem this week, the 1st team pitch is extremely moist. So much so that there are puddles covering most of it. A decision is made by the gaffer to play on the far Grocers pitch. Fingers crossed we don’t get rain this week so we can start using the nice pitch again. The Grocers pitch is still moist, don’t get me wrong, but it is a lot drier than the main pitch. The centre of the pitch in particular is bad, but the most talented Norsemen play’s centre midfield so it doesn’t affect his game much. If anything it merely brings him back down to mortal status.....
We warmed up in what seemed to be a pond. Thought it would be a good idea to lay down and do some stretches. It wasn’t.
Macca turned up to watch this week in his wellington boots. His wife probably made him wear them.
The team was as follows:
GK Michael
LB Muzza
RB Ossie
CB Tajae
CD Reed
LM Hempsey
RM Ballers
CM Tadd
CM TT
CF Leroy
CF Jarrett
Subs:
Arda
Bradley
Weaver
Thomas
Again a very strong starting 10. Ballers has paid his annual subs just like everyone else so I guess he deserves to play. Bit annoying that Thomas keeps selecting him to be honest but then such is life.
It is 2.30 and time to kick off. HSBC have the better of the opening encounters with a couple of long range efforts. However Norsemen quickly raise their game and take control. The game being played on a small pitch meant that the defensive lines were able to be played high. This forced Norsemen to try and play the ball over the top for Leroy and Jarrett to run on to. After 10 minutes Muzza took a throw in on the left hand side of the pitch to TT, who delightfully chested it back to Muzza’s feet. Muzza hoofed it up field for Leroy to chase. Leroy used his pace to get away from his marker and with the penalty box in sight Leroy was scythed down by the last HSBC defender. The ref had no choice but to send the HSBC player off and award Norsemen with a free kick on the edge of the box. Hempsey passed up the chance of taking the free kick to Jarrett. Jarrett took a lazy run up to the ball and hit a firm shot at the keeper. The keeper made the save, but fumbled it. Leroy was on the scene to convert the loose ball and make it 8 goals in 4 games. I believe at this point HSBC changed to the 4-4-1 formation.
5 minutes later and Norsemen had made it 2-0. Some nice interchange play in the middle released Leroy who rounded the keeper and tapped it in. This may not have been how the goal went in but that is how I remember it in my head. Either way it was Norsemen 2-0 HSBC.
Norsemen took their foot of the pedal at this point, even though it was barely on it. I would say that we went from 1st gear, into neutral. The game became sloppy and Norsemen almost gave up, thinking that the game was already won as we had a 2 goal lead over 10 men. Up steps Gav Reed and Ballers. Gav Reed collected the ball in defence and played a one-two with Os. He then thought let’s try this again. Unfortunately he tried it with Ballers. Ballers obviously couldn’t return the ball to Gav’s feet. The ball fell to the HSBC number 7 who slotted the ball through for their lone striker. For once Tajae was on the wrong side of the defender (this is the first time I have seen him make such an error). The HSBC attacker out muscled Tajae (to be fair to Tajae the lad was a unit) and hit a hopeful effort from outside the box. Michael misjudged the bobble in front of him and the ball somehow ended up in the back of the Norsemen goal. Norsemen 2 -1 HSBC.
The game died out even more before half time. All in all not a spectators game. The gaffer was not happy and made the squad run back to the changing room at half time. This was annoying as we couldn’t have been any further away from the changing rooms. I can’t remember what was said but we did get a telling off. There was finger pointing and swearing. My mum reads this from time to time so I can’t put the rude words in.
We then begin the epic trek back to the Grocers pitch for the second half. HSBC look baffled to why we have taken so long.
The second half begins and Norsemen start with a bit more urgency. I would say we started in 3rd gear. Within 5 minutes Norsemen had grab the game by the coin purse and started to dominate possession and attack. Despite the pitch being bad in the middle, the ball was played around nicely and we started to carve out chances. *
About 10 minutes into the second half Leroy made it 4-1. Again not sure what happened exactly but I will just say that Leroy was played through and he managed to slot it past the keeper.
2 minutes later and a nice Ossie ball over the top was met by the run of Leroy. Leroy held the ball up in the box and waited for Jarrett to make his way into the middle of the area. The ball was played to Jarrett who thought about hitting it first time but didn’t. Jarrett then proceeded to just stand in the box with the ball and take his sweet time. It look almost as if he didn’t like scoring. Eventually he decided to smack it into the net. His hardest chance of the game and he scored it. Well done Paul.
Another 5 minutes later and the game was won. A nice ball from TT found Hempseys feet. Hempsey in turn played it up to Leroy’s feet. Leroy turned and beet his man. He then passed it to the HSBC keeper, who to be fair had a good game. The ball somehow managed to slip through the keepers arms. When I say pass I actually do mean a pass. It was a weak excuse for a shot. Norsemen 6-1 HSBC. That is 11 in 4 for little Leroy now. Well done him. Leroy was then replaced by Arda.
The foot was then well and truly taken off the gas and the game became messy and ugly. HSBC had a nice attack up the left wing. The HSBC mugged off TT and Hempsey and made his way to the touch line. He then had a shoot/cross which Muzza decided to catch. Ref had no option but to give HSBC a penalty. Muzza moaned about it not being a penalty but it blatantly was. Having said that the ref didn’t give Norsemen 2 stone cold penalty calls. I think the ref felt like he had to make up for the early sending off of the HSBC player though. The penalty was despatched very well by the chap who mugged off TT and Hempsey. Norsemen 6-2 HSBC.
TT made way for Thomas. Norsemen had a couple of chances in the last 10 minutes but by this time everyone had given up. The ref blew his whistle and Norsemen had earned another 3 points.
*Ballers tackled a goal in and put his goal tally back to 0 for the year.
We all had a shower. I somehow managed to become the boot cleaning b1tch. I must have cleaned 6 pairs. This meant no time to show off the new willy dance. Tadd had a 40 minute shower with his flannel.
We all got drunk in the bar and watched a very mediocre England vs France rugby match. Travelled back to Shoreditch with Thomas’ dad. Stopped off at my lady friend’s house for a trip to the little boy’s room. She looked very surprised by the flying visit. Met Jarrett and Stu in the pub and had a jolly good time talking about the 3D wallpaper. It looked like corrugated Iron, but it wasn’t. It was a little bit like a Paul Daniels trick.
Thomas and Lou then met us for some more drinks. Lou left to go and hang out with a Ladies football team in Soho and we made our way to Brick Lane for some food.
As soon as we hit the Lane we were offered numerous offers. After some time to consider the offers we noticed Tom and Jarrett had already been dragged into a restaurant so we thought we should follow them. The deal they were offered was one free beer. This free beer happened to be a thimble of beer. Oh well you win some, you lose some. Food was average. The turning point came when we realised we couldn’t pay by card. Conveniently the restaurant had an ATM in it. Why would it not! This ATM was placed nicely next to our table. Some klutz only went and left some money in it. I think the saying goes “money goes to money”.
Thomas used his animal instinct of spotting money and spotted the crisp £10 note. We took it, I am not afraid to admit it. Like the other saying goes “Finders, keepers, losers, weepers”. Finished the meal and went home to bed.
Night world.
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