22nd Decemeber 2001

Old Parkonians Vs Old Parkonians (Friendly)

Twas 3 days before Christmas and a dazzling array of talent was on display for the traditional Old Parks friendly. It didn't start off very friendly however as Jesus clattered into Gayberg leaving him with a cut half way up his thigh and us substitutes wincing from the bar. Surprisingly for all concerned, that level of commitment was not sustained for the full 90 minutes, allowing a plethora of goals to be scored in an eight goal thriller. You may think that the forwards must have had a good game. If you thought that, you would be wrong. In fact I haven't seen a more appalling display of shooting since my blind cousin was given an AK47 for his birthday.

Part of this was exactly according to plan. My suspicion is that Big Jim picked Monkey and myself solely so he could miss lots of chances and I could take the piss out of him in the match report. Well, my furry friend, having so admirably performed your side of the bargain, the task now fulls to me. And what a hairy freak he is. I first want to add a touch of moral indignation to this (even before he made me pay his £9 cab fare to get home that night). During one of his all too common whinges, he told me that after I made a regular job of picking on him in every match report, everybody else has continued to do the same all season. I felt guilty about this for a whole day or two before checking again the reports for this season, and I found barely a mention of the fluffy fiend. So unless he has been miraculously called up to the 1's and been slagged off by TC in a report I missed, the fuzzy fool deserves all the abuse he gets. The possibility doesn't seem to be concerning me too much. Of all the one on ones he missed, the most personally upsetting occurred half way through the second half. It is personally upsetting because I made an error of judgement and passed it to him. With only Chopper Northedge to beat and an open area the size of Wales around him, he went for a deft chip over the keeper. Sadly, it was more Stephen Hawking than Stephen Gerrard, as the ball rolled gently off the field approximately half way between the post and the corner flag.

Remarkably, it is not the shaggy beast who must take the brunt of the abuse on this occassion. That award goes to one who is not often seen attempting to score goals. We now know why. For many years I have known that he is ginger. I can now confirm, as the rumours say, that, yes, indeed, he is a tosser. Never before have I seen such a stead-fast and unshakable ability to miss the goal from any angle and any distance whatsoever. And this is coming from someone who's played 7th team football for many years. As I recall it, there were several occassions on which the goal-mouth occupied approximately 90% of the possible directions the ball could be kicked in. Of these, there were certain instances in which the ball would probably have rolled into the goal even if no further force were applied. Yet on each occassion, and I stress that there were many, the Ginger Tosser managed to miss the goal by a clear 6 to 8 feet. He never lacked power. Oh no - a fine striker of the ball is our pigmentally challenged friend. Kicking the ball hard in a given direction i.e. forward from goal-kicks, has long been mastered. Yet the more difficult task of kicking the ball into a slightly smaller area than a football pitch looks to be years away. Time and time again, the shout of "he must score" was met by cackles of laughter, normally from his own team, as the ball disappeared into the horizon. Perhaps it was just a bad day for strikers, perhaps he's just shite. I guess we'll never know.

Also worthy of mention was the appearance in the team of the smallest boy that anybody has ever played football with since primary school. Son of Grit, (Speck?) proving to be far and away the most talented player in the Smith family. I don't want to say he was small, but we did notice that he was orbitting Big Jim for a good half hour before the gravitational pull of the nearby Chris Dillon gave him enough energy to escape. The joy was short-lived as Dillon turned out to be the only person on the team impolite enough to tackle him. What a scrooge. May your hair fall out and your belly grow fat.

Scorers: Lots
Teams: Assorted arseholes