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Old Salesians FC vs Norsemen FC

Old Salesians FC vs Norsemen FC

 Saturday 17^th 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 1^st 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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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.

Nottsborough FC vs Norsemen FC

Nottsborough FC vs Norsemen FC
 Saturday 10^th September
 Tolworth
 15:00
 Welcome to the Top Division

Dear Diary,
 So…… here we are again. Another season, but this time we are mixing it with the big boys. The fixture man decided to make it a nice start for Norsemen by making us travel to the dirty south for the first game of the season.

I know what you are thinking. What did I have for breakfast? 4 slices of toast with strawberry jam and a cup of tea. Bit of a weak breakfast today. It would have been better, however I was too consumed by the poor language being displayed by the English rugby players. I say poor, but I actually mean funny. I took a casual look at my phone to find out the time and noticed I had once again left football preparation to the very last minute. I have 20 minutes before I need to meet Gavin and I haven't packed or had a shower yet. Sh1t.

Somehow I manage to shower, pack my bad and get out of the door within 20 minutes. This then brought up another a problem. Because of the rush I hadn't thought about what the weather was like outside. Turns out it was clammy. We all know not to wear the colour grey in these conditions. I think it is one of the first things we learn at school.

1. How to spell your name

2. Not to wear grey when it is warm and clammy outside

3. How to count to 10

I meet Gavin on the front of the tube to Bank. He was wearing a white carnation in his breast pocket as promised. I tried my very best to not have to raise my arms as there are some moist patches. Eventually I gave in and try to cool down by putting my arms up. People move away from me and Gavin pretends to read the horoscopes so that he doesn't have to associate himself with me. We then change tube and get off at Waterloo where we met up with everyone's favourite ginger man called Muzza. I was slightly confused when I exited the tube as there was another gent with ginger hair in front of Muzza. I started to call out Muz, only for the guy to ignore me. I thought to myself “Why is Muzza being such a rude pr1ck today.” My bad as it was a simple case of mistaken identity. Gavin and myself give the real Muzza a quick hug and then we head to platform 5 to get our train.

We chat in peace for 5 minutes, before being joined by the rest of the gents (minus Weeroy) at Vauxhall station. Jacko looks a bit worse for wear so goes and sits up the other end of the train with Taj and Mark. Obviously as it is the first game of the season there is a lot of banter flying about. I am lucky to be sat next to Macca and Ossie. Ossie has just got back from Ibiza. He told me he tapped up a bit of skirt out there, however he didn’t realise how nice she was until he made friends with her on Facebook when he got home. Let’s be honest Ossie, everyone puts their best picture as their Facebook profile picture. I would trust your own eyes over a photoshoped profile picture.

We eventually get to Tolworth and disembark the train. Some rude guy didn't wait for us to get off the train before he climbed on. I turned to Jacko and said “somebody doesn't have any train etiquette”. Jacko turned to me with a blank expression as if I had just made up a word. That is our future........

We get to the ground and at this point banter is at an all time high. Myself, Gavin and Ballers walk towards the front door of the changing rooms and Gavin notices a sign that reads 'no studs allowed in the building'. Gavin, thinking on his feet, says “Here, Ballers you aren't allowed in mate” (whilst pointing at the sign.) Ballers blushes and we all have a chuckle. Banter hey!

So we get into the changing about an hour and a half before the game. Either we are very ken, or NRC got his train times wrong. I will let you make up your own mind on that. My natural instincts would be to blame NRC straight away.

Jacko looks in a bad. He was boasting that he got in at 9 this morning and didn’t know where he was. When asked why he went out, he said he forgot it was the first game of the season. Silly boy.  We try to take our time to get changed, however excitement quickly takes over and we all change as quick as we can so that we can go and kick the ball about. We then get quickly called back in for Phillip to name the team.

GK. Jacko

RB. Ossie

LB. Muzza

CB. Joe Morris

CB. Macca

RM. Gavin

LM. Hempsey

CM. Tadd

CM. TT

CF. Reg

CF. Weeroy

SUBS

Ballers

Taj

Mark

Taj and Jacko then spend the next 10 minutes fighting/flirting, before Gavin decides to sit between them and brake up the fun. We then get plenty of fluids on board for the 20 minute walk to the pitch.

We start warming up and what do you know, it starts to rain. Brilliant. Whilst warming up, I notice out the corner of my eye, a station wagon driving across the fields. It is only the bloody old boys. Nigel, Barry, Forbes, Chunky and Mike risked the wrath of the grounds men and sneaked across the pitches in their car. It is always a treat when the old boys turn up to show their support.

The time turns to 3.00 and it is time to kick off. I won’t beat around the bush, Nottsborough are a very good team and for the first 20 minutes we were chasing their shadows. I’m not sure if it was because we felt intimated by them or if it was for the fact that they are bloody good. The 3^rd man running from midfield was very hard to deal with on a personal note. So here are the main points from the opening 20 minutes:

·         We touched the ball 3 or 4 times

·         Nottsborough had a great shot come back off of the bar

·         Macca chopped their number 9 down outside the box. He didn’t get booked, but the referee did give a penalty

·         Nottsborough opened us up like a cheap can of beans and easily scored a second goal

·         Jacko is an idiot

·         Jacko got sent off because he didn’t like Nottsborough scoring and has no respect for his “team mates”.

·         Joe Morris went in nets

From here the game turned. Tadd slotted in at centre back with Macca, Gav went centre mid, Reg went out wide left and Weeroy was left on his own upfront. For some strange reason Nottsborough took their foot off of the gas, or we upped our game massively. For the remainder of the half neither team had a clear cut opportunity; however Norsemen started to play with a bit more belief and started to play the ball out of defence and regained possession. Reggie was talking a good game and the rest of the midfield 3 were putting in a lot of effort to close down and win the ball back. After the game Reg told me he felt like he was just running shuttle runs up and down the wing.

At half time we went in 2-0 down, but felt good. Phil gave us a rallying talk and managed to make everyone feel good about themselves, despite the circumstances. I went to do a wee half way through the talk so missed most of it. I am just going on people’s faces when I returned to the group. No changes were made at half time so we went back out and lined up in our positions again. This half, Norsemen had the wind behind them and the belief that they may even be able to nick a goal. 

We started the 2^nd half much better than the 1^st half. Norsemen played the ball around nicely at the back and started to play with confidence. We even started to put some attacking moves together. Ten minutes into the 2^nd half, Macca made way for Tajae. 

With our continuing growing of confidence, the game was starting to be played more in the Nottsborough half. The 2^nd half was about 20 minutes old when Norsemen won a throw within the Nottsborough final 3^rd. All week there had been banter on emails suggesting what we would do if we managed to beat Dan Cashley in goal.  Most of them involved pointing and laughing.

Coleman trots over to collect the ball and walks back to get a run up. He stands next to Forbes who tells him to chuck the ball right at Dan Ashley with that beautiful trajectory. Cashley won’t know what to do with it, despite watching it for the previous 5 or 6 years, week in, week out. Low and behold Daniel Gustav Ashley flaps at the ball and pushes it into his own net. He claims to have been pushed, however the nearest player to him was Weeroy. There is no way Weeroy could move such a weight like Daniel……. I turn to look at Forbes and he stands there with a grin on his face. I look a little sheepish as it isn’t really football. But then again their 1^st goal wasn’t a penalty. Game on. Nottsborough 2 – 1 Norsemen.

Reg makes way for Ballers and Hempsey is replaced by Mark. Norsemen have belief now that they can actually get something from this game. We start to play neat football and look to move forward at every opportunity. Nottsborough don’t look overly sure at the back due to Weeroy’s relentless running and they keep looking to knock the ball long. 

With roughly 10 minutes left on the clock the ball is worked down the Nottsborough right. The ball is moved inside to their number 10 who neatly turns Taj and Tadd and manages to get a shot off. The shot squeezes past Joe in goal, only to hit the foot of the post. The ball was then collected by Tadd who gets the ball out to Mark on the left. Mark beat two men and found Weeroy just outside the Nottsborough box. Weeroy beat his man and then had a look up. Weeroy spotted the Nottsborough keeper off his line and neatly curled the ball over the misplaced keeper and into the net. We went f-ing mental. Annoyingly I missed Barry Ayers run onto the pitch celebrating. I was too busy chasing Weeroy to start a bundle. The ref was having absolutely none of it and blew his whistle. We all trotted back sheepishly to the half way line. Nottsborough 2 – 2 Norsemen.

With 5 minutes left on the clock, Nottsborough finally got that kick up the a$$ that they had lacked all half. Norsemen however were determined not to be beaten. In fact if the game had gone on an extra 5 minutes, who knows what would have happened. What actually happened though was the ref blew his whistle and the game finished 2-2. 

To say Norsemen deserved the draw is a fair comment. We showed huge hunger/determination and team spirit. Nottsborough obviously have a lot of class, as they showed in the opening 20 minutes, however I am not sure they have come up against many teams that have wanted to win as much as Norsemen. 

We walk off buzzing with excitement. It literally felt like a cup final win. We shouldn’t feel like we don’t belong in this league as we have only lost 1 competitive league game in over a year. Norsemen have shown they have what it takes to play against the best teams in this league and get a result. 

After the 25 minute walk back to the changing rooms we all do our willy dances and sing Weeroy’s name. Weeroy quickly makes a quick exit as he is embarrassed. We then follow our favorite ex Norsemen to the Goals bar to get our food. Nasty microwave hot dogs. Probably the worst meal (if you can actually call it that) after a game. We get drunk with the old boys, whilst listening to Forbes and Nigel use some course language. We are then moved to the “bar next door” by the bar manager due to a function being held in the main room. The “bar next door” turned out to be the reception area with a few tables in it. We watched some of the football whilst asking the Nottsborough centre back about his date in Wimbledon. In the end the numbers whittle down to Macca, Reg, Muzza, Gav, TT, Cashley and the Nottsborough centre back.

Despite the fact that we enjoy standing in receptions, it is decided we move somewhere with a bit more atmosphere. A local off-licence is visited where Reg looks at the gentlemen’s literature, whilst the rest of us get some travel beers and spoof shots. 

We catch the train and Daniel takes over with the drinking rules. We both have two cans each and are instructed to have them both finished by the time we have reached Waterloo. He even gave us a halfway point to make sure we had one can finished by then. I have missed having a bossy goalkeeper. We then start spoof. Obviously Reg makes the final. This time he is up against Gavin. Gavin loses, but pretends he likes whisky. It takes him 3 gulps to get the whisky down. Reg then makes it to the second final against TT. TT managed to f@ck it up and ends up with the vodka. TT knows he doesn’t deal well with vodka, but thinks to himself don’t make a scene, just man up and drink it. TT does this and then swallows back down his sick. We arrive at Waterloo and everyone bar Reg has finished their cans. To be fair he spent the most time playing spoof. He does need to stop being such a pu$$y at drinking though. 

We hit the nearest pub and then decided it is sh1t, so move on to the next one round the corner. Spoof is started again and this time it is Macca who ends up drinking Baileys or something. He whines about it in his silly little tone. By this point we are starting to get pretty hammered. This would normally be the time that Reg would point and say “look over there” and then slip off back to his bed. Muzza thought he would prevent Reg from doing this by spilling his whole pint over Reg’s lap. Reg looked crossed. Muzza took Reg to the toilet and took his trousers off.  Reg then snatched his trousers back and spent the next 20 minutes holding them under the hand dryer. Whilst this was going on some Welsh lads, probably Ricky’s mates, came over to the table and tried to join in spoof. Nobody understood them and they walked off. 

Within the next half an hour, people started to make their excuses and they started to disappear until it was just left with Gavin and TT. 

Gavin and TT decide it is time for some food. They walk down to the embankment and get a savory crepe each. They sit down next to a girl and a boy. The girl isn’t blessed with looks and the boy is a white guy trying to look like a samurai. Please. Anyway the girl had good banter and the boy was happy to sit there and say nothing. Gavin started asking about the girls boyfriend who she keeps mentioning. Gavin then decides to mug the girls boyfriend off whilst looking at samurai boy. Samurai boy humors Gavin and smiles back at him. Gavin then asks samurai boy how he met his friend. The girl then butts in and tells Gavin that Shinobi is her boyfriend. Gavin shrugs and carries on eating his crepe. Boy and Girl quickly make their excuses and leave. 

We then get the tube back to Shoreditch and go to another bar and get horribly drunk. Get in at two, only to find I have been left with the kit to wash. Great.

Good night world.

Old Pakonians vs Norsemen FC

Old Parkonians vs Norsemen FC

Fairlop

Saturday 16th April 2011

3.00pm

Park We Sung

Dear Diary,

The time has finally come to put the virtual pen down for the year. This is our last game of the season. I will tell you about the game in a bit, but first I am going to rewind the clock 12 or so hours, to the night before.

Finish work and go to meet Jarrett at Moorgate. Get a call from the Gaffer on the way, he is still writing his speech and wants a few pointers. Nothing quite like good preparation..... Meet Jarrett and get on the tube to meet up with the other lot. Meet up in Chad’s bar in Kings X and get bang on it. The likes of Ossie, Macca, Ballers, Muzza, Chef and Hemps are already there. Then Reg turns up after going for a long lunch with work. Last but by no means least, Paul Murray turns up. Couple of people mug him off (mainly the Chef though) for looking like a washed up 80’s 2nd rate pop star. Muzza doesn’t defend his brother though.

We all get fired up on premium lager and then set off to the tube. Macca buys a miniature and we play spoof. Paul Murray loses. Most people got off the tube when we got on, as we must have been quite annoying. Muzza was being very boisterous and being the most annoying. I say this because whilst people watching I saw plenty of people shaking their heads with disappointment when Muzza opened his mouth.

We get to Southgate a bit behind time and then head straight for the venue. Do a wee and then head straight for the bar. Grab a beer and then sit down in preparation for Mr John Bayer to get the ball rolling for the night. Unfortunately Radio couldn’t make the dinner, so in his absence Mike Pearl took over the honour of announcing the night’s winners. I think Joe Morris and Ballers are the subject of most jokes. We eat a 3 course meal in the space of 15 minutes. Weeroy then picks up young Norsemen of the year, despite being 25!

Finally comes the time for the Gaffer to do his speech. He has been a little quiet for the last hour, understandably as it is never nice doing a speech. I think Ballers gets mugged off one more time before Thomas calls Ricky up to do a quick emotional speech. Ricky doesn’t really look like he is on this planet whilst speaking. Thomas then hands out some awards, before we finally get to the big boys stuff. Norsemen of the year.

Despite all the ribbings he has received this year for not actually being very good at football, this guy is reliable and puts in 100% every time he plays (he has to really as trying is his only attribute). Ballers only goes and wins the award. I think the club were a bit short of nominations this year. Never the less he has won it now and we can’t take that away from him. Ballers smiled like a Cheshire cat for the rest of the night. Fitzy played him a lovely victory song on the piano, whilst the 1’s table won almost everything from the raffle. We went to the bar and got utterly smashed. Most Norsemen went off to the Tesco country club, whilst the people that don’t live out in the sticks had to prop up the bar and hopefully get the last tube. Obviously we missed the last tube and had to get a taxi home. It meant we got to see Lotty though. Lotty is Muzza’s Mrs. I also got to witness Carriao and Weaver have an argument with a woman in a taxi queue. I think it makes them feel big and clever arguing with women. Pathetic........

Got the taxi back to Shoreditch and went to bed feeling disgusting. All in all a very good night. Well done to Weeroy, Ballers and the Gaffer.

Back to Saturday.

Woke up feeling absolutely horrendous. I guess the feeling was felt by most in the team. This made me feel better that I didn’t have to suffer on my own. No idea what I did for most of the morning as was feeling rough. My first memory is of Louise asking me what I would like for breakfast. She is very nice like that. It turned out to be a repeat order of lasts weeks breakfast plus bacon, minus the shoddy egg poaching. Then I went upstairs and made the final playlist of the year, packed my bag and said goodbye to Lou. The gaffer and myself then plonked ourselves in the car, dropped the roof and set off rather late for Essex.

Arrive at Fairlop and greet everyone. Quite a quiet group this afternoon. Gav Morais isn’t liking people wearing sunglasses so goes around confiscating them. Ballers is still drunk. Not sure if he is drunk on alcohol or the fact that he won something connected with football. Hemps is greenish in colour. Macca starts telling his story of how he fell asleep on the tube last night and ended up in Acton. Everyone started to walk off to the changing room when they heard Macca open his mouth. The changing rooms had a very odd scent.

Takes us a while to figure out what we are doing, so we sit down in silence and look at each other, whilst feeling sorry for ourselves. After we snap out of that we don the blue uniform and gingerly trot out to the pitch. The pitch is as hard as concrete.

Quite a strange feeling today, as normally we get out and want to kick the ball about. Today however we just want to sit down and chat. I get up and try a shot. The ball ends up on the cricket pitch behind the goal. This would have been ok, if it wasn’t for the fact that the fielding team had just bowled. I jog over and apologise. I don’t think they accepted my apology. Oh well, cricket is rubbish anyway so I don’t care what they think about my poor shooting aim. I walk back to the 5 or so who are still sitting down and we all watch Jacko walk out to the pitch. He appears to still be intoxicated by something as he is talking to himself. Jacko then kicks the ball into the net by himself and then has a small tiff with the gaffer, at which point Thomas decides to put himself in goal. 10 minutes later and Jacko decides he wants to play.

Due to the nasty hangovers everyone is nursing we have a relatively relaxed warm up. When I say relaxed I just mean slow run and half hearted keep ball game. Ballers is buzzing from being named Norsemen of the year and because of this he manages to only lose the ball 5 times. Thomas calls everyone over and names the squad.

GK Jacko

LB Muzza

RB Ossie

CB Macca

CB Tajae

LM Jarrett

CM Tadd

CM Morais

RM Ballers

CF Weeroy

CF Reggie

SUBS

TT

NRC

The Chef

Thomas

Ballers is handed the captains armband as a reward for being named Norsemen of the year. I can’t think of any other reason for giving him the armband.

It was a hot day and that didn’t help with the hangovers. Put Ballers on a level playing level with everyone else though.

The ref blew his whistle at 3.00pm and that meant Norsemen got the ball rolling. We started the much better of the teams. The ball was passed around with pace and space was found all over the pitch. Weeroy and Reg both looked threatening upfront, with both having good early chances. Morais was given the job of man marking the Parks danger man. He did a good job throughout the whole game, apart from his first tackle. I think the alcohol played a big part in Gav completely missing his tackle and man all together in the opening minutes.

10 minutes into the first half and The Chef, NRC and myself set off on a voyage to get some water for the chaps playing. Thomas tells me that Old Parkonians put together the move of the match whilst I am gone. Unfortunately I didn’t see it so couldn’t tell you what actually happened.

When the waterboys reach the changing rooms we realise that getting water mission was going to be hampered by the fact that the bottles were too big for the sinks we found. That was the 1^st problem. The 2^nd problem was that the water was f-ing boiling. Hot water is that last thing the brave chaps playing football needed. It was all we could find though so they will have to like it or lump it. Lump it they did.

We get back just in time to see a ball slipped through the Reg. Reg took a lovely first touch and then calmly rounds the keeper and places the ball in the back of the net. Barry was on hand as the official Norsemen photographer for the day to take a nice snap of his boy. Barry gives Reg 50p for every goal scored. That is £2 Reg has made form his dad this year. I will let you do the math. Old Parkonians 0 – 1 Norsemen.

After the goal, Parkonians started to find a bit more rhythm with their play and started to create chances. A good effort from the edge of the Norsemen box saw Jacko make an excellent save to tip the ball on to the bar. The rebound fell nicely to a Parkonian player, who took a touch and had a shot at goal. Tadd saved it with his arms and gave away a penalty. Well done Tadd. The penalty was neatly dispatched and levelled the score. Old Parkonians 1 – 1 Norsemen.

Shortly after the goal I wondered over to Barry Ayers, who was standing behind the Norsemen net, poised to take more photos. Can I just mention that despite Barry having the camera for the whole of the game, he only took about 15-20 photos. I thought I would be sifting through the photos for days. Turns out Barry is a man of few photos. Whilst chatting to Barry, Norsemen won a dubious penalty. Not sure who won it, or how for that matter. The penalty was given to Tajae to score his first goal of the season. Tajae took a very weak penalty, which the keeper parried. Tajae wasn’t having any of that and so run up to the rebound and smashed it into the back of the net. Tajae claims he wanted to score from open play, and this is why he played a one-two with the Parks keeper. That now makes Muzza the only player not to have scored for Norsemen this year, despite going up for every set play…. Old Parkonians 1 – 2 Norsemen.

This was the last action of the first half. The gaffer gathers everyone in and we all huddle and wait for our last speech of the year. Not much to say to be honest but he said some stuff. First thing was to make a sub. Norsemen of the year made way for TT. TT was at last handed the captains armband. He is a really special player. NRC decided he was still too ill to play and went for a lie down. Thomas just told us to keep playing the way we had been and the win would come. On a hot day both teams were showing some nice touches and putting in a good shift. Morais moved out to the right and TT teamed up with Tadd in centre midfield.

The second half got underway at a good pace. Old Parkonians looked like they had been yelled at by their manager at half time and came out to do business. However Norsemen showed the kind of form that has kept them at the top of the table for most of the year and managed to get back on top quickly. Shortly after the second half had begun, Macca pulled up with an injury. Not sure what it was. I just don’t think he fancied it this week. Tadd went to centre back, Gav moved back in to central midfield and NRC came on to occupy the right wing. Hempsey wasn’t wrong when he said he didn’t feel very well. I’m not sure if it was nerves or alcohol, but NRC was sick twice as he entered the field of play. The parks team just looked at him and must have thought what a joke. To be fair to NRC he is only a wee lad so it makes sense that he can’t handle his alcohol. After NRC’s first run, he pulled up again and vomd on the pitch once more. At least go over to the touchline next time NRC. That kid has no pitch etiquette.

The kid did good 10 minutes later. It must have been a corner or free kick that was half cleared. Muzza had carried his big head upfront and must have known the attack wasn’t over. That or he is lazy and slow. The ball broke to NRC out on the right. NRC whipped in a delicious ball into the box. Muzza found himself in acres of space, about 10 yards out. Muzza delicately lobbed the ball into the far right corner of the goal with his big ginger Swede. There it is, every outfield player for Norsemen has scored in the 2010/11 season. Well done to you Muzza. Old Parkonians 1 – 3 Norsemen.

Reg makes way for The Chef. Shortly after The Chef is introduced into the game, Old Parks find a lifeline. The ball is played back to Jacko. The ball takes a bobble and Jacko has to take an extra touch, this gives the Parks striker time to close down Jacko’s kick. The Norsemen defence manage to get back and pack the goal, however the Parks striker’s shot is well placed and he reduces the deficit to 1. Old Parkonians 2 – 3 Norsemen.

Almost from kick off the ball is played up the right by NRC. The Chef gets a touch to the ball and guides it into the path of Weeroy. Weeroy weaves through 3 or 4 challenges and neatly passes the ball past the keeper. Weeroy has probably now scored more goals on his own than the rest of the team. As we know though it is a team sport and there is no Weeroy in team. Old Parkonians 2 – 4 Norsemen.

Norsemen see out the game and on the balance of play deserve the victory. Saying that, the Parks team is very different to the team we played earlier in the season. I suspect if they needed the win then we would have faced a tougher opponent on the day. Well done to Parks for the season though. Climbing from bottom of the league to 2^nd is a big achievement. It will be a pleasure to play against the nice bunch of lads next year. They play the game as it should be played.

We go back to the changing rooms and have a little sing before doing the round of willy dances in the showers. Good showers this week. Norsemen of the year managed to pull off the best dance. Well done to him. He has had quite the weekend.

Everyone still seems to be hungover in the changing room so not much celebrating to be done after the little sing. NRC seems to have a bit of colour back in his cheeks now though. Go and get some nice Spag Bol off of the lovely kitchen ladies at Old Parks and then try and leave with the Gaffer. Took 3 attempts of saying goodbye and leaving the room before we found a door that let us out of the building.

Thanks again to Chunky, Barry, Mike Pearl and Nigel for showing their support today.

All in all a good day for Norsemen. Due to the previous nights activities I doubt anybody went out for beers. I positioned myself on the carpet in front of the TV and watched football for the next 6 of so hours. I don’t even like watching football all that much, I just felt too disgusting to move. As this is the last match report of the year I am going to have another educated guess to what the rest of the team did when they left the clubhouse. Now I must stress this won’t be factually accurate, but it will be pretty close to what they actually did.

Jacko – Went to a fried chicken establishment on the way back to Enfield and then went to watch Rio 3D with Arda.

Ossie – Went home and created the pilot for his new TV show that is based loosely on The only way is Essex.

Muzza – Went home and bored Lotty about his goal. Then he made her play “Stack of truth”. Lotty probably won and then told Muzza the truth about his hair…..

Macca – Played dress up with his Mrs. Was then made to vacuum the house and make dinner.

Tajae – Washed his new boots and then text Jacko to see if he wanted to do something. Jacko didn’t hear his phone as he was in the cinema. Tajae watched MOTD and went to bed.

Tadd – Was put out on his leach in the garden.

Gav – Ran home from Fairlop. Did some squat thrusts and sit-ups. Ate his 5 fruit and veg for the day and then went to bed.

Jarrett – Got home and did a bottom burp. Was sent to his room and had to play Monopoly on his own. He won.

Weeroy – practiced his dance moves infront of his mirror for a couple of hours. Then penned some chat up lines in his diary before finishing up with kissing practice on his arm. Weeroy loves them B1tches so has to put in his homework.

Reg – Went round to his dad’s house to pick up his pocket money. Went home and had a chat with Gabriel for a couple of hours because his wife is sick to death of talking to him.

NRC – Got the tube to Liverpool Street. Got to sit with the driver. When he got to Liverpool Street he did his regular 3 hours of train spotting. Went home and probably had pie, chips and gravy.

The Chef – Went home and got tied up and gagged by his Mrs. I will let your imagination do the rest.

The Gaffer – Went up to his room and listened to his speech that he taped from the night before. He listened to the speech on loop for 3 hours and then had a curry and went to bed a happy boy.

That is it.

Bye now.

Champs

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

Civil Service FC vs Norsemen FC

Civil Service FC vs Norsemen FC

Chiswick

Saturday 9^th April 2011

3.00

Civil Faulty

Dear Diary,

So the league draws to an end and the penultimate weekend serves up an away fixture to high flying Civil. Just a little bit of good news during the week. Norsemen FC 1’s only went and got blimmin promoted didn’t they. All the seasons hard work has finally paid off.

Massive thanks to Phillip and the Chef for all the hard work and dedication they have put in for us.

Back to the game in hand. Civil required a win to keep in contention for promotion, whilst Norsemen required a win to keep on track for being crowned champions. Today’s fixture had the potential to be epic.

Woke up to the glorious sunshine beaming through the gap in my curtains. Attempted to put a pillow over my head to regain total darkness. Annoyingly this didn’t work and the sun had beaten me. 7.45 and I was up. Thought about doing something and then thought better of it. Had to keep my reserves for the game in hand. Went downstairs and had some children’s cereal. Then had a chat with the gaffer, before he went off to the gym. Nipped down to our local supermarket to get some fluids for the day’s game. What a wonderful day it was. Got some food for a bit of brunch for Thomas and myself. Tried to make a poached egg for the first time, but failed miserably. The egg hit the water and just decided it didn’t like it surroundings. After deciding it didn’t like what was going on, the egg made the water go misty and rank. Had to call Thomas down to give me a quick poached egg master class. I have only recently converted to poached eggs from scrambled eggs and this is the reason for my inability to cook a poached egg. We ate our breakfasts and they were yummy. We then noticed we were running a bit late for the agreed meeting time. We grabbed our stuff and walked to Liverpool Street.

Get to Liverpool Street a bit behind time. Give NRC a tinkle to find out where we have to be and when. We have 25 minutes to get to the rest of the team in Vauxhall. Looking a bit unlikely but we head to the underground anyway. Sit on the platform for 5 minutes with no sign of a tube. Then decide to get a taxi. The taxi driver assures us we are going to be able to make Vauxhall train station in 20 minutes and on his word we climb into his taxi. The taxi driver’s word is kosher and he gets us there with 2 minutes to spare. Thomas gets out at the traffic lights and sprint/jogs for the train. Sure enough NRC’s instructions are correct and everyone is on the platform waiting for us. Jarrett is wearing his summers best. NRC looks like he is going to a beach party themed 50th birthday party and the rest are wearing their nice shirts in preparation to hit the town after the game. 

I am shocked to read on the train that our nuclear submarines can only go to a depth of 300m. To me that isn’t deep. I can rescue a brick from 5 meters and my £7 watch can go 50m. Surely a submarine that costs loads of money can go deeper. Me and Muzza talk about this for a while and then the topic of conversation turns to the Grand National horses. We aren’t interested in the good horses, just the sports editor’s synopsis of the rubbish horses. One horse had a description of “Tries really really hard but all is in vain. This horse will return nothing if you back it”. Imagine if the horse could read and it stumbled across a copy of The Times. It would be absolutely heartbroken.

We get to our station and NRC gives us the nod to get off the train. We then cross the river and head to the Civil ground. I haven’t mentioned it yet but boy what a day it was. It was a little on the windy side, however the temperature was spot on. We get to the pitch and are greeted with a small stand. Civil must have spent all of their money on the stand as the changing rooms are just a bunch of demountables. Tajae and Leroy kick back and sunbathe whilst the rest of us aimlessly kick the ball around. Tadd and NRC find a tennis ball and decide to play catch. They look like a couple of girls as they throw the ball to each other and giggle. If they had decided to play hopscotch, then they would have looked less girlie. I find out that Ballers uses his left hand to throw a ball. At first I think he is just mucking about as he has a weird throwing action, but he assures me that that is the way he throws…….

We line up as follows:

GK Jacko

RB Ossie

LB Muzza

CB Tajae

CB Macca

LM NRC

RM Gav

CM TT

CM Tadd

CF Leroy

CF Jarrett

Subs

Ballers

Carriou

Thomas

Thomas decided as the changing room was extremely small and the weather was very nice, to get changed outside. Gav Morais set up his little changing station in the middle of everyone. I think this was a tactical move on his behalf as he remembered what little gems he had put on that morning. As he dropped his trousers he revealed a pair of salmon coloured pants. On the likes of Muzza or myself it would have looked like we didn’t have any pants on. It would have also looked like we had lost our appendage due to the colour and tightness of them. Due to Gav’s beautiful holiday Tan, the pants stood out. You could see the jealousy in Ossie’s eye and that he was hatching a plan to swap pants at the end of the game. A bit like a player swapping shirts with an oppo, Ossie likes swapping pants.

James takes us for a warm up. Not sure if he just makes exercises up sometimes. He makes us run from one side of the pitch to the other and during the run he will make us do things like rolly polly’s and cartwheels. He will then say this helps with your core balance or something like that. All gym talk that I don’t really understand. This is Gav Morais favourite part of the footballing day.

Phil then lets us play football in a square. The non bibs thrash the bibs in a game of 3 touch. Not really the morale boast that the bibs needed before a big game. The only words I can offer to cheer them up is “just be better at football”.

The ref calls for the captains and we kick off proceedings. We are playing in front of a crowd of 30-40 people today. I think a lot of them have heard about ‘the throw’ and they wanted to see it with their own eyes.....

Both teams start with a frantic pace. Civil have the wind behind them and it is evident from the opening 5 minutes that they are trying to play the long ball over the Norsemen defence for the lone striker to run on to. This doesn’t work as the back 4 were immense in the air for the whole game.

10 minutes in and the Civil left back tries to have a pop at Gav Morais. Being up against the Hulk, the Civil player obviously had no joy. Gav got a scratch on his knee and Civil player stayed down after bouncing off of Gav and falling on his hand. It did look a bad injury and I think he may have broken a finger or too so we all hope he gets well soon. Despite the injury the left back played on, although the injury seemed to jade his performance. 5 minutes later and Norsemen took the lead. Gav received the ball on the right. He jinxed past 2 Civil players before putting a cross in for Weeroy to poke home. A well worked goal and on the run of play, no more than Norsemen deserved. Civil 0 – 1 Norsemen.

5 minutes later and Norsemen attack again. This time down the left wing. Hempsey plays a great ball down the line and Jarrett sets off on a run to retrieve the ball. The Civil keeper starts running out to collect the ball, however upon seeing angry Jarrett running at him, he thinks twice. At this point the Norsemen chairman, who is standing on the sideline starts shouting “you’ve sh1t yourself, you’ve sh1t yourself”. I am sure this doesn’t help the Civil keeper with the situation. Jarrett gets to the ball first and lobs the ball over the stranded keeper. The ball bounces once before hitting the roof of the net. Jarrett finally finds double figures for the season and doubles Norsemen’s lead in doing so. Civil 0 – 2 Norsemen.

Norsemen were buzzing after the goal. Civil started an attack down the right. The left back tried to knock it past NRC. NRC was having none of it so he stuck his hand out to stop the ball. Muzza didn’t like this and had a go at NRC. NRC didn’t like being told off so he said a rude word back to Muzza. This is what is known as “a lovers tiff” in the real world. They didn’t make eye contact for 5 minutes after the tiff.

With 10 minutes left of the half Civil won a throw in the last third of Norsemen’s half. A long throw was nodded on at the near post. Macca and Jacko went for the same ball. The ball fell to the Civil midfielder, who blasted the ball at Macca’s chest. Macca’s hands were in front of his chest and so he handballed it. Ref gave a penalty. Fair shout. The Civil player despatched his penalty into the corner. Well taken and nothing Jacko could do about it. Civil 1 – 2 Norsemen.

Norsemen upped their game after the goal, but found it hard to penetrate the Civil backline with the windy conditions. The ref blows his whistle and it is half time.

Thomas calls us into the shade and Ballers carries over the water. This was Ballers main task for today’s game. He took this job seriously and hid the water under some shade. Well done him. Thomas gave us a nice speech. You could see Tadd and NRC looking for a tennis ball to play some more catch, but the tennis ball was gone. They both looked a bit sad.   

We all trudge back to our starting positions and the ref gets us underway. Norsemen have the benefit of the wind this half and begin well, putting Civil on the back foot.

10 minutes into the 2^nd half, TT and Jarrett chase down the Civil centre back. The ball lands at TT’s feet and he decides to have a run at goal. He only goes and drops his left shoulder and glides past the centre back. This leaves TT through on goal, with only the keeper to beat. He is comfortable with this situation. Then from out of nowhere Weeroy turns up on the scene and starts screeching for the ball to be played square to him. This completely puts TT off. TT is so annoyed with Weeroy that he decides enough is enough and decides to just kick the ball off for a goal kick. That will teach Weeroy for trying to spoil the party.

Within 5 minutes of the Weeroy incident, TT put Norsemen’s 3^rd in. A free kick was awarded on the halfway line. Coleman thinks to himself “I am going to have a shot from here. I have the wind behind me so why not. They all think I am going to cross from here. Yeah have a shot Coleman, go on, treat yourself”. Had a shot and scored. Being a humble and modest gentleman, Coleman just stands there and shrugs his shoulders. Macca is the first on the scene and jumps TT. He is soon followed by half of the team. The ref gives the goal and then starts running back to the centre spot. The ref turns and see’s an upset linesman. The lino saw Gav in an off side position or something like that and gives a free kick to Civil. Cheers Gav.

Gav hadn’t felt like he had spoiled the game enough, so he spent the next 5 minutes thinking what he could do. What Gav come up with was giving the ball away on the half way line and left the Civil centre forward to run at Macca. The forward let off an early shot and managed to put the ball in off the far post. Again nothing that Jacko could do about that goal. A nice finish. Civil 2 – 2 Norsemen.

Thomas thought Gavin had done enough damage and so subbed him for Ballers.  

Almost from kick off Norsemen started to attack the Civil box. The ball was cleared to the right hand edge of the box. Who was there to collect the ball. It was only Ossie, wasn’t it. Did Ossie bring the ball down? No. Did Ossie take his time? No. Did Ossie hit an ambitious volley? Yes. Did Ossie score? No. Did Ossie kick it off for a goal kick? No. Did Ossie’s shot at goal go off for a throw? Yes.

During the game there were couple of incidents I would just like to share. Tadd being called a “lanky streak of p1ss” being one of them. The other was the blossoming romance of the Chef and the Civil number 9. Throughout the game they had been exchanging love notes, just as you do at the start of any good relationship. Then from there the odd wink and kiss was blown. At half time they met up on the adjacent pitch and had a talk and cuddle. They swapped numbers and everything seemed to be falling into place. Then as all relationships seem to end in the 21^st century, things took a turn for the worse. Number 9 stopped returning the winks and the Chef started to become jealous. The final exchange of words went a bit like:

Number 9 “At least I’m not fat”

Chef “I would prefer to be fat than ugly”

Two classic lines straight out of the playground insult book. Shortly after this exchange of words Barry Ayers was asked by the ref to escort the Chef away from the side of the pitch. Love can be cruel sometimes......

Back to the game and you could see a belief in Civil for the first time in the game. From a corner, number 9 hit the bar from a header. The ball bounced to a Civil player, who hit it goal bound, only for Muzza to clear off the line. This is the first time Norsemen didn’t look in control of the game. This short spell of attack soon came to an end and Norsemen started to get back in the game.

Weeroy pounced on a poor pass from the Civil defender and managed to toe poke the ball into the goal. We naturally went f-ing mental. All I could hear was Tadd and Jarrett screaming with joy. Then from the corner of my eye I see Gav Morais sprinting down the line in relief from not costing Norsemen the game. We all jumped on each other and celebrated nicely. Civil 2 – 3 Norsemen.

Shortly after the goal Weeroy managed to hand the victory to Norsemen and score what seems to be his billionth goal of the year. Hempsey sprayed a ball across the pitch to Ballers. Everyone thought Ballers would let the ball role under his foot. It didn’t. The Civil defence obviously don’t know who Ballers is and so they tried to close down the angle for Ballers, to prevent him from shooting. Ballers then did something nobody thought he was going to do. Ballers crossed the ball back across the goal to an unmarked Weeroy. Weeroy took a touch and then curled the ball into the far corner. Probably the goal of the game. We go crazy again and mob the little man.

Muzza goes off for Carriao. Dan’s first touch was to fall over and trap the ball on the line with his toe. It was a nice move to be fair to Daniel. He then got up and pretended as if nothing had happened. Shortly after this the ref blew his whistle to end the game. We go bonkers and start hugging each other and shake as many people’s hands as possible. Civil have been one of the best teams this year and if they have another season like this then they will be back up to the top division next year. Their season mirrors our season last year.  

Complete a half hearted warm down with an embarrassed Chef and then head back to the changing room for an epic willy dance.

Unfortunately on returning to the changing room we were met with a disappointing set of showers.

Shower number 1 – Resembled a hose end. The pressure of the shower would suggest the hose had a kink in it.

Shower number 2 – Had the appearance of a shower. However the pressure was equal to that of a water can that was running out of water.

Shower number 3 – Again disguised as a shower. Instead of being attached to the water pipe, the other side of the shower head was attached to somebody’s mouth. This person used spit and saliva to provide the water flow.

The showers affected getting clean, but not the dancing. It was only 3 dancers at a time, but this gave the rest of the team a chance to sit back and admire the hard work and thought that had gone in to each dance. I think Macca won this week’s dance. Macca’s preferred move of the day was the reverse helicopter.  

Ballers and Tajae had some really nasty wine that Thomas had won in a raffle and then we set off to the club house for some fish fingers and chips. I think this is the meal awarded to the World cup winning team after success......

We watch Norwich get beaten and Thomas stitch up Weeroy with 3 shots. Macca gets a jug in for conceding a penalty and we all get bang on it. Forbes, Chunky and Barry all offer their hands in congratulation. Another big thanks for all the old boys who have shown their support this year. Makes a big difference seeing some Norsemen legends on the pitch side. We leave the Civil club house with Weeroy lifted in the air and everyone shouting his name. Gav Morais gets out some Cuban cigars from his travels and a couple of members of the team think they will be cool and smoke them.

From here we go to a pub that doubles as a jazz bar. Bit random. Weeroy is struggling from the shots and decides to take a breather. The pub don’t like our noise and we are asked to be quiet. Shortly after this we leave and make our way back to Waterloo. We are joined by our Chairman, who tries to make a quick escape at one of the stops. However Thomas runs after him and drags him back on to the train. At Waterloo we go for a quick half and Ronnie manages to escape.

Jump in some cabs and head to the Nelsons Retreat in Shoreditch. Juke box goes on, pool is played and pints are consumed. Everyone starts to look a bit worse for wear now. It has been hot today and a couple of people have had one too many. Me being one of those. We then drop our bags at the gaffers and go to the Commercial Tavern. People start to sneak off now. This has been the pub that has sorted the men from the boys........

We then head to Brick Lane and meet up with everybody’s 17^th favourite 1^st teamer, Neil Mordi. Luckily it is only £4 for a can of beer in the place we meet Mordi. Ballers argues with the bar tend that he can buy 6 cans for £5 in the shop around the corner. The bar tend tells Ballers to go there then. Ballers decides to go home instead. We quickly get asked to leave the bar and then head to bedroom bar. We are left with:

Thomas

The Chef

Carriao

TT

Morais

Muzza

Macca

The rest decided enough was enough. I wish I had now as I still feel a bit rough. Got kicked out at 1 and went to a house party. Then went to another house party when we got kicked out of that. Just TT and Morais surviving the whole day. Although I think Gav got lost and ended up at a complete strangers house. He said he didn’t recognise anybody there, but decided to stay none the less. Got home at 6 feeling wretched and went to bed.