'AVE IT!
Reports
Leftfooters 2 – 2 Village Manchester
Saturday 1st April 2006
Pitch 10 Regents Park
After a fantastic drunken night in the yard to wish Chris Webster well
in Singapore (lucky bastard!!) and a horrendous time, as always, in
G.A.Y, ‘footers woke up all over London realising they needed
to play football in Regents Park. As we wiped the blood and climbed
out from various saunas, dark rooms & cavities we gathered at the
hub and were changed and ready by 1pm for a 1:30pm kick off. However,
Manchester thought it was 2:30pm kick off so turned up at 2:45pm (???)
and we kicked off at 3pm (?????). This gave us a chance to have a two
hour training session which involved trying to hit the cross bar from
the half way line, marvelling at Richy actually fixing the hole in his
trousers and breaking my back trying to get Paul O’Connell to
tape the net up. That boy has had one too many potatoes in his time.
Anyway to the game we started off 4-4-2 and despite Manchester’s
ability on the ball and arrogance we battled extremely hard all over
the pitch and made a real game of it. The defence in particular and
the Guerrilla in goal helped to really piss them off and frustrate them.
They took the lead after a bit of luck and for a brief period we worried
about an onslaught that never thankfully arrived. With the half coming
to an end Morten limped off after one of their defenders had helped
to cripple him. Nice bunch of lads. Gayczar thankfully still had his
beer goggles on as he sent me on to replace Morten up front because
if I remember correctly ‘I looked pretty’. Last time I was
called pretty was by an old Cambodian border policeman; he said ‘ah
you have big nose, is lovely’.
Sorry I drifted for a moment. I ran on and tried to get involved and
stuck in with the rest of the footers with the encouragement from Beena
and Lisa from the sidelines including “Get these dirty bastards”
and “Play nice Manchester”. Baby Dave won a free kick and
from the resulting cross Michael English hit a shot from the edge of
the area that the goal keeper parried in to my path leaving me with
an open goal and I did the only thing I knew how, stutter like a prick
and get a side foot on it. The ball rolled for what seemed like 5 hours
but was only probably a few minutes and went in the farthest bottom
corner of the goal. 1-1. HURRAH!!
Half Time came and we went out in the second half much like the first.
I don’t recall even from my own limited and undistinguished amateur
football career as much effort and desire against a team. Every single
player was immense and everyone played out of their skin and most importantly
it really annoyed them!! They got a goal from an acute angle (lucky
sods) to make it 2 – 1 but to our credit and with a great support
from the sidelines we ended up out playing them. So much so that at
a corner their big mouth centre back was shouting ‘We should be
beating this shite’ Chris B asked him for a little R E S P E C
T so he could find out what it meant to him, but he kept on insisting
that Manchester should beat this shite. Not long after, Chris B won
a header in midfield and passed it to me to run on too. I took the ball
pushed it past their defender ran in to the box and crossed it for Baby
Dave in a great position to slam the ball in to the net. 2 – 2.
What followed was a group hug consisting of many Leftfooters shouting
‘YEEEAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH’. It was a fantastic feeling.
We pushed them to the final whistle and were extremely unlucky not to
get a third from open play or a penalty with them handballing it at
least twice. Final whistle went and we were well happy with a job well
done. The best thing about this performance is that we did it our way
and we know that if they continue to act the way they do on the pitch
they will end up without any players because football should be fun
and I don’t care if they or any other team win the GFSN league,
because I wouldn’t want to play for and with (especially with)
anyone other team apart for Leftfooters. That’s two points on
the board for the season and more importantly since Yorkshire an unbeaten
run of results hopefully standing us in good stead for a good tournament
in Chicago. Although regardless of results we as always are going to
have a fucking great time.
Well done again everyone who played and the great support from the touchline.
Louder than some Premiership games I have been too (not my team though)
it really made a massive difference.
Leftfooters: Theo, Brian S, Dr Hayes, Lenny, Baldini, Trev, Michael
English, Chris S, Chris B, Baby Dave (1), Morten. Sub: Paul, Shylock
(1), Richard L, Daniella Westbrook, Gayczar
Oli D