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 1st problem. The 2nd 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 2nd 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.
