9:8 Ali Jazeera FC 11/3/09 7.00pm

DREW 16-16
Matt, Leo3, Steve4 (2 pen), James3, Alan6

It’s not been the most fun of recent weeks in the real world. A reality TV star continues to die in my living room. Schools and shotguns remain synonymous. No one stays locked up for murder anymore.

So I retreat back into my selfish little personal bubble, and enjoy partaking in a cracking little football match, with more spills than a two fingered Hooters girl, and more thrills than a Michael Jackson O2 residency.

With Gareth crying off, pigtails pulled, the team were down to five, and each individual player was going to have to step up and shoulder responsibility for attacking and defending in required measure. In recent games, we’ve not been shot shy - on two occasions striking 15 and 17 goals on our way to delicious victories. Of unfortunate note, our defence has been porous poor, conceding goals of 10, 15, and sweet 16 on two occasions.

This game met both the above criteria - a pinball, ping pong, NBA street match, that saw waves of attacks crash against each, as two footballing galleons, just stood there and cannonballed the fuck out of each other.

On the strength of tonight’s performance, and their scorelines of recent weeks, Ali-Jazeera must go through strikers and keepers like Tottenham. Some games they can barely score a fistful, other games, like tonight, they shag Matt with the age of consent.

Their keeper immediately gave himself away as a novice, passing the ball out with his feet, and conceding a penalty within a minute. As everyone stood around, and Alan and James decided who would take the penalty, Steve, the desperate old bugger, trotted to the ball, paused, then slotted home, surprising all and sundry. Amazingly the ref allowed it, and we were off the mark.

With only five players, the Molly formation chose itself. On the left wing, Alan was grafting, and running at defenders with staggering energy, linking up superbly and often with James, who was given the task of pressuring the last defender. On the right hand side, but significantly deeper, Leo was being all wing-back, balancing his direct one-touch shooting, with supporting Steve at the back, who himself showed off his definitive tackling manoeuvres to superb effect.

A second penalty award soon followed for a foot in the area, and again Steve barged aside James to slide the shot under the keeper. The taste of a hat-trick was almost on the tip of his tongue.

On the right wing, Leo was maximising his efficiency by using as little effort as possible, never running with the ball, and instead passing the shot away quickly, or just smashing it goal wards for another long range net buster.

On the left wing, Alan was retaining the ball, dominating his marker and striking home goals from all over the park, always willing to make that run from deep onto the edge of the D to get a couple of lucky breaks, or superb interventions. A match that finally saw him able to answer Leo’s question at the end, of “How many goals did you get?” with an inconclusive lost count answer.

Up front, the young boy of the team, was having to use all of his youthful zeal to harry and chase their defenders, and then assist Alan in the counter-attacks. James stepped up to take our third penalty, but only because Steve had already got his hat-trick by this point, and promptly smashed it against the post, which luckily rolled right back to him to slot home at the second attempt. Down the pecking order he goes.

He got used to the fact that it was his responsibility to stand in front of their centre kick-off, after being shouty reminded half a dozen times, and will hopefully accept the one occasion of criticism of his man-marking that allowed the opposition through to goal, without a repeat hissy fit, in the same way, every Molly player shouts abuse at each other on the pitch (by which I really mean just Leo shouting abuse at just Matt). Tell the darts team to stick their bench warming up their arse, and James will continue to be vital to our play, performing some exceptional through balls from deep, to set both Alan and Leo up with goals.

At the back Steve was surprisingly not getting run over, run away from or run around. The opposition loved to try and run through him, and his superior tackling as the last man, with Alan and Leo overlapping back, was profiteering of the highest quality. He even managed to score a couple of real goals, as an energetic full-on forty minutes would’ve left him very sore, but very happy, in the morning.

And yes, Matt. Even though he conceded sixteen goals, this time it was actually difficult to fault his performance. The opposition’s shooting and the skilful opportunities created by their yellow-shirted MVP, were presenting fast and furious angled drives, that even on his greatest day, the gaffer would have difficulty getting to.

Although whether Matt actually conceded sixteen goals, or really perhaps a couple less, was the subject of much conjecture. We’d finished the first half a solid 10-7 up, and held a grip on that three goal lead up to 12-9. After that, it all got a bit hazy. Somehow the opposition dragged themselves back into contention, as our lead suddenly became 13-12, as we skipped through time, with barely any memory of such routing going on, and it finally surprised us to learn that Alan’s last goal of the match, was just enough to snatch a draw from the jaws of invisible defeat. The ref, for all his fair decisions, advantage playing-on and complimentary comments, showed himself up to be a real dunce with the numbers, and so the Mollys finished the match dazed, confused, slightly bruised and bemused.

Still, a draw saved us from a place in the top two, and the still present threat of promotion to a division where we would get ripped to pieces, so not all bad.

After the match, Matt and Leo went off on their epic man-date, holding hands at the romantic pitches of Pitch Invasion at Eastleigh Football Club. It wasn’t the best man-date I’d ever been on (that’s still with you, Deano baby) and quite frankly was a bitter disappointment. As I type this now, I struggle to think of any advantages it had over Goals, other than it was cheaper. Atmosphere-wise it was dead - you’d actually miss the thuggery, the chavs, the entourages, the characters. There were no supporters, absolutely no noise on the pitch, no shouts of “fuck, yeah” or “shit, missed”. There was one bloke collecting money, no bar, no TV screens, no burger van. It was the very definition of low-key.

As Matt rightly sweet whispered in my ear, it would be purely about the football, but even then I’d question that. We watched two top teams going at it, for about ten minutes, and not once did I see a goal. With balls going out of play, there wasn’t the constant pressure and speed, but the pitches weren’t even that big enough to allow space to run or pass into, so shots were still ridiculously ambitious, and at goals that appeared smaller in width than at Goals. You wouldn’t get a sixteen-all here, believe me.