Old Salesians FC vs Norsemen FC
Saturday 17th September
Ewell
15:00
Norsemen profit from late summer sales
Dear Diary,
Another Saturday and another game of footy. Pretty much the same routine as last week. Thomas and Lou were away, so I had the run of the flat. Watched the rugby in my pants. Had a continental breakfast of Pain au choloat with jam, muffins and a cup of tea. Bloody lovely it was.
So….. managed to plan ahead today and have an early shower and packed my bag. NRC sorted his train times out this week so that we would arrive at the ground only an hour before the game. This meant I could take my time in getting to Liverpool St to meet Gavin. Gavin wasn’t wearing his white carnation as promised, so I struggled to locate him on the tube. Luckily the tube was empty so I managed to spot him. We had a brief chat about our mid week activities and then invented a very good game. For some reason two people had carelessly left Argos supplements on the tube seats. Why would people give up such good toilet literature?
Anyway, Gavin and myself took an Argos magazine each and looked for the worst thing under £10. Now considering how rubbish Argos is, they didn’t have many products under £10. This meant a lot of frantic page flicking in order to find the £10 products first. Luckily for me, Gavin has fat fingers and spent a lot of the time turning two pages at once. The winning choice was a copy of Stacey Solomons autobiography at £9.99. To me that book is over priced by £9.98. Good luck with shifting those Mr Argos.
Sadly the game had to end when we got to Waterloo. We had 15 minutes to spare before the train left so we went to buy some food from M&S. Gavin gave me a speech about how bad pasta is for you and I should just be eating plain bread and other boring foods. I ignored him and bought some pasta. He bought some apple bread and a yoghurt. What a g@y......... We get on the train and then meet the others minus Weeroy, Thomas, Phil and Mark on the train. Mark was running late and Phil stayed behind to wait for him and Weeroy and Thomas had their respective whips.
Bit of banter flying about on the train. Most of it aimed at the gaffer and Ossie. Ossie got ribbed about his first game for Norsemen and the horrible error he made for the oppo to score. The gaffer was ribbed about a few things. James asked for a bit of Gavin’s apple loaf and Gavin made a cheap comment about the gaffer’s timber issues. James reacted negatively to Gavin’s mean words and decided against having a bit of bread.
We eventually get to Ewell and disembark the train. Hempsey makes sure everyone beeps out with their oyster. Even when off duty he is still a bloody jobs worth….. We then follow the leader (Hempsey I think) to the Salesians ground. We arrive to glorious sunshine and a very nice pitch. The only problem with Salesians ground are the lack of hot water and the tree over the pitch in the far corner. Those points aside, Salesians is a very nice club.
So we go in to change. A member of Salesians walks into the changing room and informs us the boiler has broken so we will have to have cold showers. Cocky Joe then pipes up and says “do we get a complimentary jug then?” The man doesn't even humor Joseph. Instead he tells Joe to “watch his cheek”. Joe was quiet after that. I think that is what is known as a 'mugging off'.
Luckily I am really childish and easily excited, so I get changed first and run outside to kick the ball at the goal on my own. Because if this I am not involved in the conversation of “should we take our bags outside?” The verdict was to take them out; after all it was a nice day. Nobody bothered to take my bag out. Cheers guys. I will come back to this later.
So we line up as follows:
GK Anthony (New recruit)
LB Muzza
RB Ossie
CB Ballers
CB Tajae
LM Hempsey
RM Morais
CM TT
CM Tadd
CF Reg
CF Weeroy
SUBS
Thomas
Mark
Morris
At 3.00pm we kick off. Again Norsemen start slow. I'm not sure if we started slow, or if Salesians just started very quickly. The first 10 minutes were dominated by Salesians possession. They move the ball around with a lot of confidence and purpose just like Nottsborough did the week before. Salesians have a strong team all over the park, unlike teams in the lower divisions that would have a weakness somewhere in the team. The main difference in the leagues, apart from the quality of players is the movement off of the ball. The ball hardly stops and this gives you no time to stop and catch your breath. I'm not sure if Salesians aren't fully match fit yet, but after about 20 minutes of attacking the Norsemen goal, with only one real chance being created, they took their foot of the gas. This allowed Norsemen to get some possession under their belt and show what they can do with the ball. Two or three times Weeroy was released on goal, only to shoot at the keeper. I think the game vs Cockfosters on the Thursday hadn’t been kind to Leroy. For once his shooting looked tired. A fresh Leroy would have bagged a brace in the 1st half. As usual though Reg and Leroy put in good shifts upfront, defending from the top. This work rate is part of the successful season Norsemen enjoyed last year. About 25 minutes into the half the heavens properly opened and to say we got drenched was an understatement. I had to change my shorts after half an hour as somebody had pinched the drawstring and they kept falling down from being so wet. Mark kindly gave up his shorts for me. What a lovely bloke!
Back to the bag situation. Because nobody bothered to bring my bag out, my bag was nice and dry in the changing room and everyone else’s bag's got drenched. Serves them right for being selfish! We go back in at half time and everyone moans about their wet stuff. I just sit there looking smug and listen to what James has to say. We are playing well and had the better chances in the first half, so just more of the same is what James asked for.
We trot back out as the conditions in the changing room became a little too close for comfort after Joseph dropped what can only be described as a couple of Hiroshima’s…….
No changes made at half time so we get into our little positions and await the ref’s whistle. Two quick points I missed from the first half, Tadd for the first time didn’t win one header (this really got to him as he isn’t use to it) and we had linesmen this week.
The game re-starts and Salesians start positively. TT’s raking ball out to Gav Morais was blocked from kick off and Norsemen were put instantly under pressure. If the ball hadn’t been intercepted then I am near on 99% sure Gavin would have scored.
Norsemen started the 2nd half with an air of belief that they could get something from the game and on the 60 minute mark their constant hard work paid dividends. From a Muzza corner, Tadd won his first header of the afternoon and managed to pick out Gavin on the 6 yard box. Gavin swiveled like a ballerina and lashed the ball home. Yesssssssssss. We go nuts and take the lead. Old Salesians 0 – 1 Norsemen.
After the goal went in Norsemen grew in confidence and started to string some nice play together. Tadd, TT and Hempsey combined down the left hand side, only to see TT’s wild shot skew horribly wide. Shortly after this Norsemen increased their lead. Some good pressure on the right side of the pitch saw the ball fall to Leroy’s feet. Leroy spotted the run of a Norsemen shirt and slotted the ball through. Who was it you ask? Only super bloody Tajae. The Salesians defence cried for off-side, however we all know to play to the whistle. Tajae was 1 on 1 with the keeper, somewhere he doesn’t normally find himself. Did he slot it past the keeper? No. Did he round the keeper and slot the ball into the empty net then? No. Did Tajae give the keeper the eyes and then chip the keeper? Yes, that is what Tajae did. I think he may have miss hit it, however Tajae gives me his word he meant to do that. Tajae then ran over to the corner flag and held out his arms, ready to be lifted in glory. I seemed to be the only player to bother with the celebration. Still we had fun over by the corner flag. Old Salesians 0 – 2 Norsemen.
Salesians started to rally after the 2nd goal was scored and started to get back on top of the game. However Norsemen’s fighting mentality well and truly kicked in at this point and we offered Salesians no room to breathe. Many a ball was put into the Norsemen box in the last 15 minutes, however due to a combination of them being rushed and Norsemen’s defending, nothing came of the possession. At the final whistle Norsemen were to be fair the deserved winners of the game. Again I think Salesians were shocked at Norsemen’s work ethic, just as Nottsborough were the week before. Norsemen won the lower division the year before with the same mentality. We have plenty of ball players, but our team spirit and abundance of energy seems to be something that Dan Ashley’s “super 6” don’t like.
We leave the pitch buzzing again. This is of course until it dawns on us that we now have to have cold showers. Reg doesn’t mind so much as he went to a private school. He was use to the cold showers. Some of the more precious players decided against the cold water and would wait until they got home to get clean. We tried to come up with a song for our new Weeroy however nothing rhymes with Tajae. Tajae tried to sing one himself but couldn’t think of an actual song either. His attempt at singing his own name was a good effort, but all in vein. We go and get our meal of two sausages, chips, beans and a bread roll and then sit down to have a chat in the club house. Hempsey said he had just called Cashley and that Cashley sounded very surprised about our result. I think most clubs have us down as just being here to make up the numbers this year!
We then all head back to the train station to head back into London for a couple of cheeky ones. Muzza and Tadd run off to the off licence to get some travel beers, only to return empty handed. They said there was no off licence; however to pikey kids at the station mug them both off by laughing and telling them it was 50 meters further from where they had run. Well done Tadd and Muzza. We all get on the train beer less. We lose Ballers, Tadd and Anthony at Vauxhall. The rest of head to the glamour of the Waterloo Weatherspoons where we bump into EBOG’s. Tadd makes small talk with a couple of them whilst we sit down and get drunk.
Now I don’t normally like to point the finger, but for this I think I am going to have to. Whilst sitting down and enjoying a pint of beer, my nose was violated more than once by a very high pitched and stinging smell of egg. Somebody had some serious issues last Saturday. Despite my displeasure, my spirits remained high due to the table next to ours being populated by a family which included grandparents. The look on the grandmother’s face when she caught a whiff of the rotten egg was priceless. Now the finger pointing has to come in when Phil, Muzza, Joe and James headed off early. The egg smell suddenly disappeared. I hope one of them felt utterly ashamed of themselves. Reg then made a sharp exit. Tadd, Hempsey and myself we were enjoying Waterloo so much that we decided to visit another drinking establishment in the station.
Unfortunately in this new place, which I have no idea what it was called, there was one lonely Welsh guy. He was f@cked. He didn’t even know what he had done that day. That didn’t stop Tadd from inviting him over to have a drink with us. Two pints down and we were looking for excuses to get away from him. The guy took a shinning to Tadd and even offered to buy him drinks. Tadd wanted to accept but decided against it and left with Hempsey and myself. Outside the pub a fight had just been broken up by about 30 police. The fight was between a large quantity of homeless bums. It was a bit like fight club. I said my goodbyes to the last 2 standing Norsemen and then made my way over to Soho to meet Cashley. My Saturday nights have a recurring theme recently. Annoying Welsh men and a Judas ex keeper. Me and Cashley get horribly drunk and then head to Karaoke and sing Remix to Ignition. Walk home at 3.30 down the middle of the road as no other soul was about.
Night world.
No comments:
Post a Comment