Norsemen FC vs Old Finchleans

Edmonton Sports Ground

12th April 2011

6.00pm (ish)

Peter Piper Picked A Peck of Pickled Pepper Where's The Peck of Pickled Pepper Peter Piper Picked

Dear Diary,

So a bit of new territory here for the season. A midweek evening game. Norsemen needed to take just 1 point from this game to be crowned champions of the SAL division 2.

I am a bit thrown as to where to start today’s episode. Normally I would bore you with the antics before the game, but to be honest with you there were no antics today, just a boring day at work.

Arranged to meet Ballers and Jarrett at Liverpool Street. We met up and exchanged handshakes and then set upon our way to Edmonton. Ballers starts telling Jarrett and myself that he has played football every year of his life since the age of 5 or something, without a gap. Me and Jarrett look extremely surprised by this comment. Surely 25+ years of playing football would have provided Ballers with some footballing talent...... Jarrett just smiles at Ballers and then looks out of the window. As we pass White Hart Lane, Ballers shakes his fist in a rude manner and Jarrett looks at the ground and declares his love for Spurs. This rivalry of football clubs could cause a problem at their joint marriage.

Get off the train and everyone’s favourite muscley Norsemen gets off the carriage next to us. Gav talks about playing football in Norwich at a good standard. Jarrett and Ballers quickly get bored of this and walk off ahead. I am polite and carry on listening to Gavin. We get to the ground and everyone is waiting pitch side in their work clothes. There is a buzz going around the place. For some reason the 1’s and 3’s don’t mingle, and instead decide to just stand there looking at each other. Me and Ballers play kick the ball into the goal and the others stand around and chat, whilst waiting for the gaffer to turn up with the kit. Thomas got held up in traffic so arrives last.

We get changed and listen to some of the Chef’s music. Go out and do a light jog and then Phillip let’s us play the 3 touch game. Bibs probably come out on top of this session. As we turn around to start the match we realise Finchleans only have 9 personnel on the pitch. They try and stall for the start of the game, but Thomas gets the ref to start. We swap ends and start to play the game with the following formation:

GK Jacko

LB Muzza

RB Ballers

CB Macca

CB Tajae

LM Hempsey

CM TT

CM Tadd

RM Thomas

CF Weeroy (this is a new name I have given to Leroy)

CF Jarrett

SUBS

Ossie

Morais

Reggie

Leighton

A strong line up again for the 1’s. This has been key to our success this year. Apart from the loss away to Esthameians, where we struggled to get a team out, we have been consistent with getting the core of the team out this year. Our hat goes off to Thomas for sorting this out every week.

So we kick off with 11 against 9. From kick off it was apparent that we decided that this was going to be easy and as a result we treated the first half as a training exercise.

Within 5 minutes Norsemen took the lead. Jarrett received a poor goal kick from the keeper and nodded the ball through to Weeroy. Weeroy took a touch to go round the keeper and then slotted the ball into the net. I am told this puts Weeroy one goal ahead of Danny in the Norsemen goal rankings, but who is counting.......

Norsemen 1 – 0 Old Finchleans.

After the goal was scored Finchleans managed to get their numbers on the field up to 11. This didn’t really affect Norsemen’s style of play. We dominated possession, however at a very slow pace and because of this we started to make errors. Then because of that we started to get on each others backs. This as we all know is counter productive.

About 30 minutes into the game and Finchleans have their first meaningful attack of the game down the right. A good bit of interplay provides their right winger with space on the edge of the area. The winger neatly dispatched the ball over Jackos hand and into the corner of the net. Fair play to Finchleans as it was a good goal. Norsemen 1 – 1 Old Finchleans.

A very short time after this we saw some glimpses of Jarrett’s early season form. I will paint a picture of the scenario for you. Weeroy through on goal and should have scored. He didn’t. Weeroy had quite a big crowd following him today so was understandably nervous. Jarrett didn’t. Weeroy had a shot at goal that was saved by the keeper. The ball bounced back to Weeroy who should have passed to Jarrett first time, but didn’t. Eventually when Weeroy knew he had no chance of scoring he laid it back to Jarrett. Jarrett had the whole goal to aim at. Jarrett lashed at the ball and hit the post with an open goal. He looked cross. The game stayed level.

We had numerous other chances to score in the first half, if it wasn’t for the impressive Finchleans centre back and keeper, then we would have scored more. Muzza missed a couple of sitters in both halves from set pieces.  Both Muzza and Tajae are the only two outfield players not to score this season, so both were trying their hardest to score. Muzza goes up for most set pieces so he has an easier job than Tajae. If Tajae wants to score, then he literally has to take on the entire opposition. He has almost succeeded doing this a couple of times this season.

So we get to half time and are drawing 1-1. The gaffer calls us into the changing room and sits us down. First thing he says is naughty so I wont repeat it. Then he tells us to take a long hard look at ourselves. He lines us up in front of a mirror and then one by one we tell him what we can see when we stand in front of mirror. Not sure what this exercise was supposed to achieve but it moved NRC to tears…….

We go out for the second half, knowing if we played our game to our strengths and used the space out wide, then we had a very good chance of winning the game. Tadd had decided at half time that he wasn’t satisfied just playing centre midfield, so he took upon a personal mission to try and play everyone’s position for them.

We started the 2^nd half, as we had finished the 1^st half and took the game to Old Finchleans. We went close on a number of occasions, however as the half went on we started to look desperate and tried to force the goal. Because we tried to throw the kitchen sink, bath, patio, pond, loft conversion, walk in wardrobe and sex dungeon at Finchleans, we were left exposed at the back a couple of times. Fincleans come close once, but that was the only pressure they offered in the half.

Leroy had a shot saved well by the keeper. As I mentioned earlier, Muzza missed a sitter and Tadd fluffed a volley from inside the box. With 3 or 4 minutes to go, knowing we only needed a draw to clinch the title, Morais and Muzza tried to keep the ball in the corner. Professional players make this look easy. Gavin and Nicholas made it look difficult….. Half the team wanted the ball played into the box so that we could try and score, but Gav and Muzza were having none of it. Eventually the ref had enough and blew his whistle. Norsemen FC are crowned CHAMPIONS of the SAL 2^nd division. Yey.

The atmosphere after the game was strange as it didn’t feel like we had won the league with the performance we had given. However we had and when we got back to the changing room after giving the old boys high fives, there was a couple of bottle of the finest Bulgarian champagne waiting for us.

We pull off some fine willy dance moves in the shower whilst the gaffer and Ballers spray everyone with Champers. Muzza drags a fully clothed Chef into the showers and we all jump him. I slip and nearly kill myself, but apart from that we have a smashing time and drench the Chef. From the corner of my eye I see Hempsey and Gav sitting on their little benches whilst shaking their heads. They are older members of the team so maybe they don’t get it.

Tadd enters the changing room after 20 minutes. Apparently he did a couple laps of the pitch whilst thanking the fans. We don’t have any fans so I have no idea who he was thanking.

Go into the clubhouse and Nigel offers us some more champagne. This champagne was aptly named Leroy. We all stand around the oppo and watch them eat what looked like one of the most disappointing meals I have seen this side of 2000. Not sure of any worse the other side of 2000 but I just want to cover my back!

All in all a lovely feeling to have won the league, it just hasn’t kicked in properly yet. Role on Saturday and Old Parcs. Before that though we will all look forward to the Gaffers speech at the club dinner on Friday.

Champions