Football’s alive! Once again the aged soccerball toe-punters defied the climatological odds and pitched up at the Poli to avail themselves of the 1990’s school gym facilities with wall bars included. Keef had put together some well matched teams with 6 reds playing rush goalie against 7 blacks. The former QPR kitman gave his usual spiel about not running and no physical contact which the boys applied for the first 5 mins of the game. It’s fair to say that Keef had packed the reds with ball-conjuring pass and movers. With the sinewy big Al leading the line, backed up by Eddie the Archie Gemmel impersonator, the team looked full of goals. The reds had a strong spine with Keef literally playing everywhere, and Steve and Johan doing an Alexander-Arnold out from the back. The Fish started in goal, but would later take up some dangerous positions down the right flank.
The blacks started out with super-goalie Breck between the jumpers and Rory lining up alongside the skilful glider Manuel at the back.
With John and George (USA! USA!) playing in more advanced positions this enabled Dave to ghost between the lines and fashion some good scoring opportunities. Simon played in the hole behind the front two, seamlessly linking defence and attack.
Both teams cancelled each other out in the early exchanges, but the reds started to make more headway as the wily Scot Eddy started to see more of the ball and stretch the reds’ defence. George was proving to be a handful for the blacks and was only blown up 23 and a half times for running in the first 15 minutes, which was a big improvement on earlier performances. The reds had done a good job of defending the Fish until the blacks resorted to some long efforts. Surprisingly the blacks secured to 2 goal lead following a couple of long-range speculative shots from Rory and Dave.
The blacks goalie rotation was working quite well until Rory decided to test out the density of the flooring by whacking the back of his head onto the glossy deck. Fortunately the WFS concussion protocol kicked in and the head banging defender took the gloves. Was it more than a coincidence that big Al saw the chance to add to his already table topping goal-scoring tally? Sure enough some neat interplay with Eddie gave the big frontman the chance to fire a shot into the top corner past the flapping goalminder. With Steve and Johan shutting the door at the back, things started to look ominous for the blacks. Sure enough big Al was released in the inside right position and fired another thunderbolt past the hapless keeper. Reds 2-2 Blacks
The blacks decided to cut their losses by changing keepers, however the reds could smell blood and the hardworking Eddie slotted in a nice goal following some good interplay with Keef and big Al. The blacks hit back with the industrious George bustling through on the right and picking his spot. Reds 3-3 B
lacks. The game continued to flow end to end with Johan driving the reds forward. It was only a matter of time before big Al scored another classic goal to give him a hat-trick and apparently seal the game for the reds. However, the blacks were not down and out and following a good spell of pressure, the ball fortuitously fell into Rory’s path after some great work from Dave and John. The headbanger picked his spot and drove the ball into the middle of the goal. Reds 4-4 Blacks.
With the clock ticking down and big Al searching for his fourth goal the tension started to build with both teams not wanting to give anything away. Simon was increasingly stretching the reds’ defence with his penetrative runs into the heart of the defence. The hard work eventually paid dividends when in the 98th minute, Dave managed to break through the reds’ back line to set up John to slot the ball into the bottom corner past the despairing Fish. Reds 4-5 Blacks. Another sensational, highly competitive game with some top-notch finishing. Well played lads in the “Spirit of the Game!”
