Episode 1 (s.5) The One With 86 FC

05/03/08 9.15pm
Matt, Alan 2, Leo, Robbie, Gareth 1, Nathan 2

LOST 13-5

They say it’s the simple pleasures that keep a simple man happy. If that’s true then, slap my forehead and call me Benny. Having come back home from the proper pasting we received at the feet of 86 FC, I learn firstly, that the first rock band I ever saw live 8 years ago are coming back to the UK. I would suggest you check them out (the recently reformed Filter), but I know you lot are only interested in toss like disco, hard-house, dance, trance and Mika. Secondly, the winners of the latest Golden Wank Rag team award – The Granite (the winners of our league last season) have been beaten tonight by 11 goals to 4 in the big boy’s league. They’re karma’s bitch now.

There were casualties of war tonight. Despite the late kick-off and the opportunity for the family men to escape the drudgery of married life, the scrapping of barrels could be heard with a tight squad of six being mustered to do battle against the five of 86 FC. A kick-off scheduled at 9.15pm, actually started at 9.30pm. And even then our Newbury resident only just made it in time - probably texting his Facebook about being stuck behind a caravan. People can die that way. Yeah, I said it.

Matt was disenabled enough to cheer everyone up by sporting his bet-winning new facial hair. It kinda evoked memories of that toy where you push plasticine into the back of a plastic man’s head, and it pushes out all stringy out of the top of his head and his chin, and you can cut it with plastic scissors (Google is useless).

With Nathan doing the honourable thing and starting as substitute, Leo and Robbie were tasked with defending zonally left and right, whilst Gareth and Alan were tasked with the attack, with Nathan taking over up front when he came on. That was the theory. The reality was a lot worse. Tactically we got it completely wrong. The kind of completely wrong that allows the existence of Meet The Spartans.

Back in the seminal days of The Molly Maguires, as far back as when Matt was just a glint in Mike Hall’s eye, there was a contest waged between the two best defenders in the squad. The eternal struggle between Leo and Robbie for the MVP defender award, (before Steve came along to muddy the waters). They were the ruiners, the great destroyers, nothing more pleasurable than slamming the tackle, or blocking the shot, to deny others their goal-scoring glory. That was a long time, and since then, the man once whispered in hushed reverence as ‘The Turk’, has gotten soft. The same career face-plant as Steven Segal. No longer able to take on a whole platoon of marauding attackers single-handedly, Robbie has the contracted The Fear. When once he would patrol the edge of the D, like a solo sentinel, he now finds comfort in the company of other men.

The end product of these shenanigans was a formation that played entirely into 86FC’s deliriously grateful hands. In hindsight it was obvious what was wrong, but on the pitch we couldn’t adapt. All the symptoms are now diagnosed - the illness? No midfield hub. With the majority of the game played with a box formation, defenders on the left and right, attackers on the left and right, we had no control, no foothold in the centre of the park. We sat too deep which invited the attackers to run onto us, with their spare man able to blast his way down through the middle of the pitch to the edge of the D. Our cross-field passing was going horribly array, intercepted at every turn, because our forwards were too spread out from each other.

The recent substitute controversy was being drowned out with the blood, sweat and tears of the Mollys, constantly feeling the shattering effects of chasing the game they had no control over, and needing the rest break, though an 8 man squad would’ve done little to quell 86 FC’s power-packed, all out attack. Matt spread his legs open with the usual charity normally afforded by Lindsey Lohan, as his inner thighs felt something other than each other.

Still, we failed to do much damage to their keeper, a consistent shot-stopping performance that Gareth and Nathan struggled to breach, and the waves upon waves of opposition retaliation chipped away at the score-line like cancer in an ex-Roadhouse bouncer. 86 FC were a sporting team, playing the game in a spirit that could be appreciated by those in blue, but getting stuck by a smiling assassin, who apologises afterwards, isn’t going to close the wound.

Other stuff happened, but nothing to write home about, and therefore nothing to write at home about. My brain is so fried and my creative juices so dried up, I can’t wait to go on vacation to the U.S. Oh wait, I’ve already been. Bugger.