18th December

Match report by Rory

Bumper Special Christmas Edition #1

Disclaimer: any resemblance, real or otherwise to any living or deceased characters within this match report are totally coincidental. Any comparisons with the football that took place on Monday are purely imaginary.

The sound of jingle bells must have been rattling around in Breck’s head when he picked the teams as they were as well matched as our Keef’s clothes on a night out. Furthermore, the late additions of Dazza and Breck himself merely compounded the problem. As everyone knows, Breck is a pretty good goalie, particularly when he’s standing in the tiny hockey goals making it nigh on impossible for the reds to score.

The blacks had deployed a mathematical genius to plot their intricate geometrical passing and (running not) walking movements around the pitch, much to the bemusement of the Maths CSE grade 3 red team. Our Keef started out as an inverted full-back for the blacks and was quick to develop a cosy pass and move arrangement with the two Daves. To me, to you, back to me etc etc…yawn.

Surprisingly, the reds dominated the early possession in the first five seconds, before they lost control of the game. Ian took up a holding midfield role where he could make good use of the fact that his arms and legs move totally independently of each other in random directions. This enabled him to break up a number of threatening moves through the middle before the blacks could unleash any shots on goal. It was only 10 minutes into the game when both teams realised that Fireman John the ref, had been given a new whistle as an early Christmas present as he couldn’t stop blowing the damn thing for imagined running by both sets of players. This slowed the game to such a pace that it would be quicker to make a Wallace and Gromit feature length movie (clue: 5 minutes of the movie takes 60 hours to make).

Anyway, while the reds contemplated what the slowness of the game was doing to the space time continuum and whether this would set off a catastrophic event which would destroy the planet, the blacks broke down their right flank and released Dave the cab to bear down on goal. Sure enough, he slotted the ball into the net from a tight angle, deflecting in off Kevo’s flailing arm. Blacks 1-0 Reds

The reds had their chances with numerous shots raining in on the blacks’ goal. Unfortunately, any that hit the target were well saved by Breck, or anyone else they chose to stand between the sticks. Sonic was playing the lone striker, but was tightly marked by Wrexham’s finest, Steve who gave no mercy in his determination to secure a clean sheet for his team. Meanwhile, Bambi was proving elusive to pick up as for some reason he had stopped berating his teammates for failing to make impossible passes to him. Deploying his new found radio silence, the wiry (formerly) expletive driven frontman shimmied his way into space just in time to be picked out by a nice combination of passes from our Keef and Dave. Bambi wasted no time in opening his legs and showing his class by battering the ball past the helpless reds’ keeper. Blacks 2-0 Reds

The good news for the reds was that thunderbolt Dave was getting through the game without injury thanks to the compression sleeves on both his calves making him look a bit like Paula Radcliffe after she’d won the Great North Run annual pie eating competition. Dave was taking it easy though, and the few howitzers he did manage to fire off failed to hit the target and merely killed some locals who happened to be passing by. With Kevo now out of goal the reds started to get more of the possession (reds 10%- Blacks 90%), and managed to get a few more shots on goal. However, this tactic of trying to score a goal backfired on them and the blacks picked them off on the breakaway. Both Dave and Bambi helped themselves to more goals thanks to some smooth approach play from our Keef and big Steve. Before you could say – that’s a tackle from behind, the blacks were four goals up and cruising, while the reds started to look increasingly forlorn. Even with the Fish making some driving runs down the right flank, they couldn’t penetrate the solid defensive work of Welsh Steve and man for man Dave the bus, who finally proposed to Rory following yet another half hour of close contact.

The reds missed the opportunity to make the scoreline a tad less embarrassing by managing to squander two penalties. While Kevo calmly drilled his effort wide of the goal, Dave took some comfort from striking the post.  The reds found a straw to clutch onto when Kevo finally got one past the blacks’ defence and scored from a tight angle, providing a modicum of respectability to the scoreline. However, the humiliation was completed when a dubious penalty was awarded to the blacks for Dave the Cab to step up and show how it should be done by sending Klaus the wrong way and sliding the ball into the empty net. Final Score Blacks 5-1 Reds.

At the end of the game, Fireman John pocketed the 500,000-lira laundered through Saudi Arabia by the Mafia and the rest of us pondered how to reconcile quantum physics with the existence of black holes. See you all at the last game of the season on Thursday.