WON 8-7
Matt, Leo2, Steve, Gareth3, Alan3, Mike
Vicariously viewed foreign wars. Celebrity Big Brother. Saints in relegation scrap. Judas Defoe takes another thirty silver pieces. What is so new about this new year, but a spin of the last digit? What differentiates one year to the next, when other anniversaries have more potency, be they birth, death, marriage, fiscal?
Thank heavens then, the unpredictable Mollys have left the mutilated corpse of 2008 to decompose behind a dumpster, and wiped down the passenger seat for the sparkly new and innocent 2009. And we showed her a good time, winning our first contested league match in the same time it takes me to grow out my wispy upper lip hair. So that’s like forever then. An early seven o’clock kick off against mildly agitating weak sauce opponents was the perfect way to ease us back into the cockpit.
At a boardroom level, Steve had been appointed new club treasurer, completing his first audit of the man-purse contents (£42.85, and a manky filling, bean-counting fans). Leo is now expecting rent for the custodianship of the team’s football. That car footwell doesn’t pay for itself y’know.
The three paragraphs above are those that I wrote before the match took place, and I wasted no intimidation tactics telling the team as much, faith rightly placed that we would shake that monkey off our backs, and smash it’s brains out.
I’m again getting ahead of myself, so let’s take it back to the pre-match build-up. Alan and Mike both took the opportunity to mistakenly congratulate Steve on being the new gaffer, much to Matt’s chagrin, and their face-etched disappointment. The injury excuses got an early workout - Steve’s groin having enjoyed a three week break, and Alan’s bad back being selectively recovered for Wednesday football duty. Matt continued to fend off corruption allegations about his boots, hardly assisted by Mike’s tale of CHIP N’ PIN-less thievery from SportsSoccer.
More new leaves and radical changes were to turn and follow, but it was a reassuringly familiar and balanced Molly line-up, on a usual frigid cold pitch, that would do well to deliver the prophecy.
We started shit. A poor first five minutes saw neither team capable of breaching the other’s goal. We looked lethargic and lobotomised. Gareth was dribbling around defenders with all the nuance of a six-year old taking a cycling proficiency test, hitting every bloody cone. Mike looked like a fat blunderer, bundling through the opposition, like someone who’d consumed all his festive food and drink, mashed up, through a beer bong 10 minutes before kick-off. And Alan still couldn’t get his head round when and where he should be taking one touch, two touch, or hitting the fracking ball first time. He wasn’t getting it right.
At the other end, it was business as usual, Steve and Leo, still ace. Leo then subbed himself for a breather, and we conceded two goals. No coincidence.
Gareth pulled one back, as a cheap penalty from a foot in the D was given away, but still we trailed, as Matt got beaten with a menagerie of shot types, as the team shape started dropping to a flat-line so far crammed up our own half’s backside, we could push our belly button out from within. We clearly lacked the fitness for any remote man-marking system, which would’ve extinguished their rather obvious tactic of playing one-twos in off the wingers.
But the most criminal neglect was our painful lack of shooting against their keeper. Alan couldn’t get his shots off quick enough. Gareth couldn’t get past their last defender who patrolled the edge of their D, and Mike for all his worthwhile tackling in the centre, found the ball forever trapped under his feet, and his long-range shooting really stunk.
We got so predictable, that the opposition were able to intercept our back passes to Matt from within the corner, and even made one of their own man-mark Gareth, as the only one seemingly with any skill. We’d win the tackle in the centre of the park, but couldn’t break through into open water because all our outlets were side-on.
So half-time came. We were about 5-3 down by this point - Alan and Gareth only on the balance of probabilities, getting further goals. But there was no panic. Instead there was a constructive team-talk (again something new for the year). We had to play with a higher line when we had the ball. We had to take shots, from the wing to negate their sweeper. Rebound the ball off the back wall. Give them something to keep them occupied in the final third.
And that’s what we did.
There appears to be a new trend to cast aspersions about Leo's shooting, with both Anonymous and Gaffer singling out a particular rugby kick attempt at goal for mention. What they neglected to say was that this shot was after Leo had dragged the team back out of hell with a bat of a lash, after being teed up by Gareth on the right wing, that flew through their keeper. And after his air balloon kick, there then followed his patented intercepted ground volley from the keeper's slow-ish throw-out, that Leo one-touched back into the net, which teased a clearly audible yelp of "YES!" out of Matt, as the Mollys drew level at 7-7.
With Leo pressing forward on the right to support the strikers, Alan was finally getting his sums right on the left, and the correct correlation between the distance from goal, and the number of touches permissible, was provoking some high calibre shooting, as the link-up play with Gareth was starting to pay off. The team were starting to win tackles, then keep hold of the second ball, then produce some forward passing, that made the opposition chase back. The number of times the defence, Steve especially, poked the ball away back up the field, gave the team multiple counter-attack opportunities, that only Mike's irascibly inconsistent skills were putting to grief. Gareth also smashed another goal, a tight-angled effort into the corner, as he finally started to drag defenders out of his firing line.
Matt was getting all good in the second half, and was less inclined to allow the opposition to pass shots around him, and more inclined to put his back into it - drawing flashbulb fire as he arched into the night sky Free Willy-style to pluck a ball out, and then managed to hit the ground to shave a ball onto the post, and then react uncharacteristically quick, to stop any spillage leaking over the line.
Steve took the last few minutes off with an injury that would require "Deep Heat on my todger", forcing Leo to hang on in there having almost hit the wall. Alan buried the deserved winning shot, with a sweeping outside foot, as the ball cuddled the net, with barely two minutes on the clock, and the team held on, as the whistle blew to signal "about fucking time", and the team walked away from the beautiful wreckage without a scratch. Sure the team were rusty, lacking a sure touch in the first half, but showed great skills of adaptation to turn around a game against opponents that were really performing the most basic of skills from the Football For Dummies handbook.
So finally the date of 10th September 2008, can be dragged and dropped to the trash can, and the 7th January 2009 can be the new date of the last time the Mollys won a match. For another 5 months. Nothing really changes.
Matt, Leo2, Steve, Gareth3, Alan3, Mike
Vicariously viewed foreign wars. Celebrity Big Brother. Saints in relegation scrap. Judas Defoe takes another thirty silver pieces. What is so new about this new year, but a spin of the last digit? What differentiates one year to the next, when other anniversaries have more potency, be they birth, death, marriage, fiscal?
Thank heavens then, the unpredictable Mollys have left the mutilated corpse of 2008 to decompose behind a dumpster, and wiped down the passenger seat for the sparkly new and innocent 2009. And we showed her a good time, winning our first contested league match in the same time it takes me to grow out my wispy upper lip hair. So that’s like forever then. An early seven o’clock kick off against mildly agitating weak sauce opponents was the perfect way to ease us back into the cockpit.
At a boardroom level, Steve had been appointed new club treasurer, completing his first audit of the man-purse contents (£42.85, and a manky filling, bean-counting fans). Leo is now expecting rent for the custodianship of the team’s football. That car footwell doesn’t pay for itself y’know.
The three paragraphs above are those that I wrote before the match took place, and I wasted no intimidation tactics telling the team as much, faith rightly placed that we would shake that monkey off our backs, and smash it’s brains out.
I’m again getting ahead of myself, so let’s take it back to the pre-match build-up. Alan and Mike both took the opportunity to mistakenly congratulate Steve on being the new gaffer, much to Matt’s chagrin, and their face-etched disappointment. The injury excuses got an early workout - Steve’s groin having enjoyed a three week break, and Alan’s bad back being selectively recovered for Wednesday football duty. Matt continued to fend off corruption allegations about his boots, hardly assisted by Mike’s tale of CHIP N’ PIN-less thievery from SportsSoccer.
More new leaves and radical changes were to turn and follow, but it was a reassuringly familiar and balanced Molly line-up, on a usual frigid cold pitch, that would do well to deliver the prophecy.
We started shit. A poor first five minutes saw neither team capable of breaching the other’s goal. We looked lethargic and lobotomised. Gareth was dribbling around defenders with all the nuance of a six-year old taking a cycling proficiency test, hitting every bloody cone. Mike looked like a fat blunderer, bundling through the opposition, like someone who’d consumed all his festive food and drink, mashed up, through a beer bong 10 minutes before kick-off. And Alan still couldn’t get his head round when and where he should be taking one touch, two touch, or hitting the fracking ball first time. He wasn’t getting it right.
At the other end, it was business as usual, Steve and Leo, still ace. Leo then subbed himself for a breather, and we conceded two goals. No coincidence.
Gareth pulled one back, as a cheap penalty from a foot in the D was given away, but still we trailed, as Matt got beaten with a menagerie of shot types, as the team shape started dropping to a flat-line so far crammed up our own half’s backside, we could push our belly button out from within. We clearly lacked the fitness for any remote man-marking system, which would’ve extinguished their rather obvious tactic of playing one-twos in off the wingers.
But the most criminal neglect was our painful lack of shooting against their keeper. Alan couldn’t get his shots off quick enough. Gareth couldn’t get past their last defender who patrolled the edge of their D, and Mike for all his worthwhile tackling in the centre, found the ball forever trapped under his feet, and his long-range shooting really stunk.
We got so predictable, that the opposition were able to intercept our back passes to Matt from within the corner, and even made one of their own man-mark Gareth, as the only one seemingly with any skill. We’d win the tackle in the centre of the park, but couldn’t break through into open water because all our outlets were side-on.
So half-time came. We were about 5-3 down by this point - Alan and Gareth only on the balance of probabilities, getting further goals. But there was no panic. Instead there was a constructive team-talk (again something new for the year). We had to play with a higher line when we had the ball. We had to take shots, from the wing to negate their sweeper. Rebound the ball off the back wall. Give them something to keep them occupied in the final third.
And that’s what we did.
There appears to be a new trend to cast aspersions about Leo's shooting, with both Anonymous and Gaffer singling out a particular rugby kick attempt at goal for mention. What they neglected to say was that this shot was after Leo had dragged the team back out of hell with a bat of a lash, after being teed up by Gareth on the right wing, that flew through their keeper. And after his air balloon kick, there then followed his patented intercepted ground volley from the keeper's slow-ish throw-out, that Leo one-touched back into the net, which teased a clearly audible yelp of "YES!" out of Matt, as the Mollys drew level at 7-7.
With Leo pressing forward on the right to support the strikers, Alan was finally getting his sums right on the left, and the correct correlation between the distance from goal, and the number of touches permissible, was provoking some high calibre shooting, as the link-up play with Gareth was starting to pay off. The team were starting to win tackles, then keep hold of the second ball, then produce some forward passing, that made the opposition chase back. The number of times the defence, Steve especially, poked the ball away back up the field, gave the team multiple counter-attack opportunities, that only Mike's irascibly inconsistent skills were putting to grief. Gareth also smashed another goal, a tight-angled effort into the corner, as he finally started to drag defenders out of his firing line.
Matt was getting all good in the second half, and was less inclined to allow the opposition to pass shots around him, and more inclined to put his back into it - drawing flashbulb fire as he arched into the night sky Free Willy-style to pluck a ball out, and then managed to hit the ground to shave a ball onto the post, and then react uncharacteristically quick, to stop any spillage leaking over the line.
Steve took the last few minutes off with an injury that would require "Deep Heat on my todger", forcing Leo to hang on in there having almost hit the wall. Alan buried the deserved winning shot, with a sweeping outside foot, as the ball cuddled the net, with barely two minutes on the clock, and the team held on, as the whistle blew to signal "about fucking time", and the team walked away from the beautiful wreckage without a scratch. Sure the team were rusty, lacking a sure touch in the first half, but showed great skills of adaptation to turn around a game against opponents that were really performing the most basic of skills from the Football For Dummies handbook.
So finally the date of 10th September 2008, can be dragged and dropped to the trash can, and the 7th January 2009 can be the new date of the last time the Mollys won a match. For another 5 months. Nothing really changes.
1 comment:
Although time is short as I am traveling to sunnier climes tomorrow I'm on a scouting mission to try and trace Carlos. Maderia is my next official stop( for the uneducated and slight less knowledgeable Ronaldo was born on this Island)I might be able to con one his relatives to play for us? Getting back to the more serious issues WE WON had to believe with Matt in goal and Mike chosing to play instead of going into de-tox. God he looked knackered and didn't play very well either to tired to run back or score goals either.Steve unusually was strong in defence And Allan's overall game was roy of the rovers stuff and couldn't be faulted.Leo's effort was excellent however he put on the wrong trainers again and his shots were of rugby worthyness. I know he has seen the surgeon about reducing his instep but a different set of trainers may work and save the NHS a load of money on surgery and improve his self image.Seriously well I have to be at some stage unfortunately. The mollies played well passing the ball to each other and was proud of them but for their excellent goal keeper we would and could have been in double figures. Your faces spoke volumes after the match and I have to eat my words about you liking to lose more than winning. I hope my scouting mission proves fruitful but I couldn't change the team lineup after last nights performance.
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