'AVE IT!
Reports
Birmingham Blaze 3 Leftfooters 6
Saturday 7th January 2006
Moor Lane, Perry Bar, Birmingham
Arriving at Euston Station on Friday after having returned from a wonderful week at Châteaux Shamone, we set off for our first fixture of the new year, the rematch against Birmingham Blaze who had been the first team to beat us at Regents Park. Revenge was on the menu, along with chips and gravy.
The Brummie Abramovich and Blaze Uberguru, Dave Nikel put on a special red themed night at his Club Distraction where the music policy made a welcome change to so many of us and it wasn't long before shapes of Richard Hayward proportion were being thrown on the dance floor. Drinks were cheap and the hot midlands men were even better value. Mark Baldin found inspiration for his goal celebration in a cubicle while Oli made sure that despite failing to score on the pitch, he certainly left his mark in the second city. Even angelic Richy Cafubell left the evening looking like he'd gone ten rounds with Dracula…
The next day saw a blizzard of snow (I can confirm that despite a cold, I had not sneezed) but didn't settle so we kicked off in cold and slushy conditions. Early pressure from London was soaked up by the confident and fast breaking Blaze who were lucky to avoid an early set back when Lenny managed to hit the post. Instead the mistake was made in the London penalty area when Gayczar in goal, called for the ball and promptly threw it back in to the path of the Birmingham forward to net the opener. "Doh!" I think is the expression. For the rest of the half it was pretty even with Footers passing and picking holes in the Birmingham defence only to be outdone by superb handling from Gary in the Blaze goal. The Blaze hit back, getting plenty of practice taking corners but London held out to go in at the break only 1-0 down.
A change of personnel and formation saw Haffi don the gloves and Gayczar move up front with Ghandi - there were definitely goals to be had in this game, and we weren't wrong. Unfortunately for us it was Birmingham who got the next goal. Good pressure outside the London area resulted in a shot being deflected inside the post giving the keeper no chance whatsoever and the West Midland team a 2-0 lead. Difficult situations are what we thrive on though and it wasn't long before we were stringing passes together and setting up opportunities that the Brummie keeper did well to keep out. The breakthrough came when a ball in from the right was controlled by Ghandi on the edge of the box, and left for Gayczar to lob the keeper in spectacular fashion. I say spectacular but really I'd meant to hit it low and it was all a bit of a fluke really. With our tails up we then attacked from the left hand side and Basiurski turned onto his weaker but no less deadly right foot and hit a curling effort around three defenders and a diving keeper to make it 2-2.
Leftfooters were now tearing into Birmingham as they had done to us back in October. Basiurski took the ball along the touchline before cutting back to Mike English who smacked the ball home as hard as one of his infamous right hooks to put the Londoners in command for the first time. With Oli on up front for Ghandi, the equal opportunities employer's close control was a joy to behold and a cheeky back heel into space allowed Gayczar to latch on to the ball in space and dispatch a curling effort from the edge of the D around the Brummie keeper. Sensing that Gayczar was hungry for another hat trick, Ghandi quickly threatened with a Cypriot Gypsy curse and the beffuzzled manager subbed himself off. Within minutes Ghandi hit a sweet shot from another Oli pass to make it 5-2 and the footers seemed to be playing for fun. Basiurski who had caused problems all throughout the half then played a ball across the face of the goal for Baldini to shin in the sixth goal to kick off the bizarre lickyshirt celebrations.
The scoreline was rather unfair on the Blaze who had gone close on a number of occasions in the second half but seemed a bit shell shocked from the footers onslaught. Perhaps then it was fair that this goal fest was completed by Birmingham pulling one back near the end to make the final score 6-3.
Birmingham were great hosts and have become great friends. 17 goals in the two games between us shows that this is a fixture to look out for next season in the league.
Thanks to our very own Antonio for reffing the second half and allowing Tez to play after reffing the first half. And we wont mention what Oli did with the ball half a yard from goal, for without him we wouldn't have scored countless others.
Besides… I don't think anyone could explain it anyway.
Mikey x