LOST 5-10
1.Matt (c) 5.Leo 7.Dean 8.Jon 9.Gareth 15.Aneel
“It’s a cruel, cruel summer, leaving me here on my own. It’s a cruel, cruel summer, now you’re gone.”
It’s been a difficult, testing second season. A season derided from the start with an undeserved and unwelcome promotion into League 1. A season that started like Superman – The Movie, improved with added Zod, and ended with the bummest note of Richard Pryor stealing virtual cents, and a missile attack sequence powered by a Sega Megadrive*.
The squad took a real Barton of a beating. There was the permanent retirement of the Sheriff and the Turk; Dean “The Hatman” Hatton limited to late night cameos, like boobs on Bravo; and Steve missing the season’s second half through senile dementia. Don, Aneel, and Adam made significant contributions, with no one being a fringe player – only Gareth (and Matt) showed anything like consistent and consecutive appearances. It wasn’t all boo-hoo. Nobby made a solid man-of-the-match winning return to action, and Mark provided plenty of column inch ammunition as the latest recipient of the Cluff Golden Wank Rag Award.
With the team conceding 18 goals on three occasions, and only 2 real victories (and a draw) to show for their troubles, the thrill of next season against inferior League 2 opposition stirs in the loins.
Having previously upstaged Derren Brown’s goatee by predicting Nobby’s availability the previous week, Matt outdoes himself again this week, with the memory of a dead elephant and the deniability of Barrymore, by naming a known-to-be-injured Nobby in the squad. Another scoop from the 3am Girls.
So another six man line-up faced/off against an unbeaten, but not unbeatable, Vigilantes side. A six man line-up that did themselves the utmost credit, until two injuries cut the heel tendons from under them with five minutes to go.
Right from the get go, the Mollys were under pressure, but as is their want, the team play best against better skilled teams when under the cosh. With the opposition having the fat kid’s share of the possession cake, it was up to the Vigilantes to create the space, to create the shooting opportunities, and then for the Mollys to seize on any fuck-up, any lucky break, and to counter-attack with ruthless aggression.
Not quite man-marking, not quite zonal, this was still the most combative, disciplined, tactically sound display the Mollys have put on for some time. With Leo operating as sweeper in the final third of the pitch relentlessly getting blocks in on the opposition shooting, the attacking quartet of Jon, Dean, Aneel, and Gareth were having to work their proverbial nutsacks off, in not only going forward to attack, but having to weigh in with challenges in the middle third, and track-back down the wings.
This constant baby-sitting forced the Vigilantes to take long-range pot-shots, or tight angled whips across the D that Matt was making look better than actual, with his over-exuberant one-for-the-photo-album saving. Still Matt’s efficient keeping, and the team’s spoiler tactics were having the desired psychological effect on the opposition’s mistaken belief that their victory was as inevitable as death, taxes, and another series of My Family…..
Rudimentary whinging at the referee, mixed with incessant hack and slash as the opposition followed their coach’s tactics to attack, attack, attack, failed to divert the Mollys from the path of enfightenment, as the team cut swathes across the pitch, shadowing their younger counterparts, like, eh…….shadows. However this was no parking the team bus in the goal (although we did have the bicycle rack there), as (Jason) bourne out by the shock half-time score. Listening to our amnesiac gaffa might have you believing we were leading by 10 goals, but this result wasn’t grown from the fertile imagination of bull manure.
Our chances may have been fewer, but we were making the most of them. Firstly, Aneel snatched a great on-the-D short range poke, that had the Vigilantes bawling into their mushed up baby rusks about the unfairness of it all, as the ref slapped down their protestations of “inside the area”. Aneel would go on to score another, but I didn’t see it – I was too busy massaging my groinal attachment awake, having used it to block a shot – hardly the same as deactivating a laser beam with it, but sacrificial nonetheless. With Gareth rounding off the scoring with a typical right wing drill, the Mollys found themselves 3-2 up at half-time.
As those survivors of the last clash against the Vigies were at constant pains to point out, a similar scenario had manifested itself last time out, with the Mollys never being outclassed, and it was only the usual second half collapse through fatigue that saw them lose 4-11. This time, could the team hold it together? Oh shit, did the ‘LOST 5-10’ at the top of the report spoil the cliffhanging surprise?
You can only imagine the half-time team talk from the Vigilantes’ notepad-carrying coach – probably full of bullspit about “their keeper keeping them in it” (a complete disservice to the total defensive framework in front of Matt). And just to prove the point, in the second half, Matt let in a soft close range shot through his legs as he failed to sit down quick enough, and a long range punt that got slowed down twice by deflections off Leo and Aneel – how much more edge do you want taken off?
In the outfield, there were still mind-boggling attempts to fashion our own chances, Aneel superbly pulling off some link up play with Gareth to thread him a score, and Dean and Leo spectacularly failing to do similar, as the Mollys trailed 6-5, but far from out of the winning equation. Jon was running the central hub, throwing his weight around in smash n’ grabs, but into one particular challenge, he came out of it rupturing his knee again, lying on the ground, in-taking breath, while all those around him looked on with no concern whatsoever. Guess we were all waiting for the barman to finish serving that Magners, and come out with his in need of refill first aid box.
A sarky comment from a Vigilante saw Jon momentarily rise to his foot, as he hobbled toward said perpetrator with clear intent to butt heads, before thinking better of it and rolling away off the pitch in a surreal horizontal pirouette technique. One nail in the Molly coffin, but momentarily with still enough oxygen to potentially one-inch punch our way out of the box, the second nail followed soon after, as Leo pulled up with cramp in both legs simultaneously. With no opportunity to shake it off, the defence was effectively rendered immobile, as the Vigilantes finally created the space to bang shots at Matt, and – he let them in!
A final score defeat of 5 to 10 against a wanky team of arrogant, obsessive shits, who only seemed to lighten up after they had secured the victory, was hardly justice for a professional and inspired first 35 minutes - the positives were evident, but the loss of another squad member long term was a costly negative. You had to wonder if Jon had received better treatment for his knee from the Goals staff, beyond a ramshackle concoction of ice cubes wrapped in a carrier bag, strapped to his knee with sticky tape, and held together by a paperclip, whether we’d have had ice in our consolation Pepsi/s/es and the league tables wouldn’t have fallen off the noticeboard.
And so the League 1 season ended with another casualty of war, another defeat, and a final points tally of 10. It can be but hoped that from this rotting corpse of a season, that genetic material can be saved to create better results and a better season to come. Unlike creating Nuclear Man from a strand of The Man of Steel’s hair, this franchise should only get better.
Goal Scorers: Aneel 3, Gareth 2
Match ratings: Matt 8, Leo 8, Dean 8, Jon 8, Gareth 8, Aneel 8
Man of the Match: Aneel
*I’m keeping it low-brow. I haven’t seen The Godfather Trilogy.
It’s been a difficult, testing second season. A season derided from the start with an undeserved and unwelcome promotion into League 1. A season that started like Superman – The Movie, improved with added Zod, and ended with the bummest note of Richard Pryor stealing virtual cents, and a missile attack sequence powered by a Sega Megadrive*.
The squad took a real Barton of a beating. There was the permanent retirement of the Sheriff and the Turk; Dean “The Hatman” Hatton limited to late night cameos, like boobs on Bravo; and Steve missing the season’s second half through senile dementia. Don, Aneel, and Adam made significant contributions, with no one being a fringe player – only Gareth (and Matt) showed anything like consistent and consecutive appearances. It wasn’t all boo-hoo. Nobby made a solid man-of-the-match winning return to action, and Mark provided plenty of column inch ammunition as the latest recipient of the Cluff Golden Wank Rag Award.
With the team conceding 18 goals on three occasions, and only 2 real victories (and a draw) to show for their troubles, the thrill of next season against inferior League 2 opposition stirs in the loins.
Having previously upstaged Derren Brown’s goatee by predicting Nobby’s availability the previous week, Matt outdoes himself again this week, with the memory of a dead elephant and the deniability of Barrymore, by naming a known-to-be-injured Nobby in the squad. Another scoop from the 3am Girls.
So another six man line-up faced/off against an unbeaten, but not unbeatable, Vigilantes side. A six man line-up that did themselves the utmost credit, until two injuries cut the heel tendons from under them with five minutes to go.
Right from the get go, the Mollys were under pressure, but as is their want, the team play best against better skilled teams when under the cosh. With the opposition having the fat kid’s share of the possession cake, it was up to the Vigilantes to create the space, to create the shooting opportunities, and then for the Mollys to seize on any fuck-up, any lucky break, and to counter-attack with ruthless aggression.
Not quite man-marking, not quite zonal, this was still the most combative, disciplined, tactically sound display the Mollys have put on for some time. With Leo operating as sweeper in the final third of the pitch relentlessly getting blocks in on the opposition shooting, the attacking quartet of Jon, Dean, Aneel, and Gareth were having to work their proverbial nutsacks off, in not only going forward to attack, but having to weigh in with challenges in the middle third, and track-back down the wings.
This constant baby-sitting forced the Vigilantes to take long-range pot-shots, or tight angled whips across the D that Matt was making look better than actual, with his over-exuberant one-for-the-photo-album saving. Still Matt’s efficient keeping, and the team’s spoiler tactics were having the desired psychological effect on the opposition’s mistaken belief that their victory was as inevitable as death, taxes, and another series of My Family…..
Rudimentary whinging at the referee, mixed with incessant hack and slash as the opposition followed their coach’s tactics to attack, attack, attack, failed to divert the Mollys from the path of enfightenment, as the team cut swathes across the pitch, shadowing their younger counterparts, like, eh…….shadows. However this was no parking the team bus in the goal (although we did have the bicycle rack there), as (Jason) bourne out by the shock half-time score. Listening to our amnesiac gaffa might have you believing we were leading by 10 goals, but this result wasn’t grown from the fertile imagination of bull manure.
Our chances may have been fewer, but we were making the most of them. Firstly, Aneel snatched a great on-the-D short range poke, that had the Vigilantes bawling into their mushed up baby rusks about the unfairness of it all, as the ref slapped down their protestations of “inside the area”. Aneel would go on to score another, but I didn’t see it – I was too busy massaging my groinal attachment awake, having used it to block a shot – hardly the same as deactivating a laser beam with it, but sacrificial nonetheless. With Gareth rounding off the scoring with a typical right wing drill, the Mollys found themselves 3-2 up at half-time.
As those survivors of the last clash against the Vigies were at constant pains to point out, a similar scenario had manifested itself last time out, with the Mollys never being outclassed, and it was only the usual second half collapse through fatigue that saw them lose 4-11. This time, could the team hold it together? Oh shit, did the ‘LOST 5-10’ at the top of the report spoil the cliffhanging surprise?
You can only imagine the half-time team talk from the Vigilantes’ notepad-carrying coach – probably full of bullspit about “their keeper keeping them in it” (a complete disservice to the total defensive framework in front of Matt). And just to prove the point, in the second half, Matt let in a soft close range shot through his legs as he failed to sit down quick enough, and a long range punt that got slowed down twice by deflections off Leo and Aneel – how much more edge do you want taken off?
In the outfield, there were still mind-boggling attempts to fashion our own chances, Aneel superbly pulling off some link up play with Gareth to thread him a score, and Dean and Leo spectacularly failing to do similar, as the Mollys trailed 6-5, but far from out of the winning equation. Jon was running the central hub, throwing his weight around in smash n’ grabs, but into one particular challenge, he came out of it rupturing his knee again, lying on the ground, in-taking breath, while all those around him looked on with no concern whatsoever. Guess we were all waiting for the barman to finish serving that Magners, and come out with his in need of refill first aid box.
A sarky comment from a Vigilante saw Jon momentarily rise to his foot, as he hobbled toward said perpetrator with clear intent to butt heads, before thinking better of it and rolling away off the pitch in a surreal horizontal pirouette technique. One nail in the Molly coffin, but momentarily with still enough oxygen to potentially one-inch punch our way out of the box, the second nail followed soon after, as Leo pulled up with cramp in both legs simultaneously. With no opportunity to shake it off, the defence was effectively rendered immobile, as the Vigilantes finally created the space to bang shots at Matt, and – he let them in!
A final score defeat of 5 to 10 against a wanky team of arrogant, obsessive shits, who only seemed to lighten up after they had secured the victory, was hardly justice for a professional and inspired first 35 minutes - the positives were evident, but the loss of another squad member long term was a costly negative. You had to wonder if Jon had received better treatment for his knee from the Goals staff, beyond a ramshackle concoction of ice cubes wrapped in a carrier bag, strapped to his knee with sticky tape, and held together by a paperclip, whether we’d have had ice in our consolation Pepsi/s/es and the league tables wouldn’t have fallen off the noticeboard.
And so the League 1 season ended with another casualty of war, another defeat, and a final points tally of 10. It can be but hoped that from this rotting corpse of a season, that genetic material can be saved to create better results and a better season to come. Unlike creating Nuclear Man from a strand of The Man of Steel’s hair, this franchise should only get better.
Goal Scorers: Aneel 3, Gareth 2
Match ratings: Matt 8, Leo 8, Dean 8, Jon 8, Gareth 8, Aneel 8
Man of the Match: Aneel
*I’m keeping it low-brow. I haven’t seen The Godfather Trilogy.
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