LOST 12-5
1.Matt 3.Alan (1) 4.Steve 5.Leo (1) 6.Robbie 8.Rob (3)
I was sat in the cinema last week, and contemplating what would happen if someone came crashing through the doors coughing and spluttering over everyone, shouting “I’ve got the swine flu, die you fuckers”. I wanted to know what would’ve happened in that confined area; whether there would be mass panic and trampling for the exit, whether the Cineworld staff would have the speed to shut tight the doors and quarantine us infected; whether the carrier would’ve got his head kicked in. Then X-Men Origins: Wolverine started, and I fell asleep.
Playing for The Mollys is like some surreal dream. Only we can make a song and dance out of playing football. Only we can make drama queens out of adult males. Only we can turn a 5-5 draw into a 12-5 defeat in the space of ten minutes.
With the addition of Rob, in another useful cameo appearance, to a stilted line-up, Matt for the first time in ages (if ever) was actually our youngest Molly player tonight, and against a team of youths, for whom Shake N Bake is probably a reference first heard in Talladega Nights, whilst for the Molly team, many probably actually bought the crispy skin coating product.
First things first, and Steve once again handed out his 9p bottles of energised tastes-like-fruit coloured water, in the hope that such nutrients would improve our performance, short of knocking out our opponents by throwing them fully loaded at their heads. We were assigned pitch 5 - the graveyard, and it gave us an excuse to watch the pretty girls playing football on that pitch, with accomplished effort. I’ll hold onto my piece as a refrain from sexual innuendo, but query this - why do the biffers always play in goal? Why do girls always seem to have an extra stage between pulling their leg back, and kicking the ball? There’s a weird extra stutter - it can’t just be me, someone else must notice it…..
Once we got on the pitch, Steve was scared witless by the prospect of having to wear the red bibs. Deep in his psyche is a war wound or a childhood horror about this. Best not open that can of worms. With bibs duly donned, one of me looked svelte. Some of us looked like we were wearing boob tubes. Others of us looked like we were wearing bras. Even so, the hideousness of Matt’s latest keeper’s jersey - green and black - won the most needed visit from Gok’s Fashion Fix.
We started the game really well. We were focussed in our ambition, our formation and our tactics - Rob and Alan would do all the running, and the rest of us would prattle around a little bit. We scored first, as Alan carved himself a beautiful opening, taking one touch to drag him back inside from the outside right, smashing home a sensational barnstormer.
They scored in reply, before Leo then got a lucky loose ball off the back wall, actually controlled it first, before smashing it into all four angles of the far post with Torres-like precision. The opposition then got a couple more to take the first half into a 3-2 deficit to the Mollys.
The opposition came across as fairly decent young lads, with a perchance for disliking our somewhat more rough-house, manly tactics in levering them off the ball, or just kicking them in the foot, or just running straight into them. We’d like to think this a deliberate attempt to rough them up a bit, and not our general inadequacies at winning the ball back. They played with a very obvious pass-and-go triangles style, that was easily met by hard-working, never isolated, four man wall of red bibs, propelling away all invaders. Although I think Matt let another goal slip softly under his bollocks (it happens every week now, it deserves it’s own weekly show on ITV2, right after Celebrity Juice), he was having a pretty good half, and his short and long distribution was as well as his limited options allowed him.
Up front, there was no less effort from the Skinner brothers, running dead into the left channel, the right channel, and at least two other channels that quantum physics has yet to discover. At the back, Robbie and Steve were doing their usual facing up to the opposition, hoping they didn’t run fast at them, whilst Leo was marking space, in the useful way, dropping into holes to intercept passes from.
Half-time. Lots of civilised, genuine praise for effort. But as we were losing we should’ve had the right to choose whether to change ends, and we didn’t want to. The opposition of five, weren’t particularly happy with us subbing on their ball, when their keeper had possession, nor having to cover the oncoming sub who could position himself straight into a dangerous position (we were kicking towards the door, radio listeners). So the ref made us swap, under the pretence that a floodlight was out in their corner, and it wouldn’t be fair for them to continue with that disadvantage. Seriously, even me just relaying this information makes me sound like a bullshitter.
Second half, and Rob came into his own, taking off his shirt and just wearing his bib, in the closest approximation we’ve had to bringing sexy back. Rob took the game to the younglings, grabbing a hat-trick, including a beautiful isolated turn on a central through ball straight from Matt’s throw out (yeah, I know, that happens so rarely, it deserves it’s own annual national holiday day), and taking a penalty with a cheeky two stutters, and then one step forward, that the ref called good, after their keeper slid out of his box. Matt would get away with something similar, like he does every week, but he was in the dark corner of the pitch.
We’d got it to 5-5 with relative ease, but then our usual can of faults reared their ugly heads out of the woodwork. As we tired, our hitherto excellently balanced formation took a nosedive, with Alan and Rob dropping deeper, we were getting schooled in constant attack waves, which forced Leo higher up the pitch, and even onto the dreaded left wing, in an attempt to keep the opposition busy.
They instead changed tactics completely, running straight at us, forcing us to not to tackle and foul them whilst they then siphoned the ball wide for close range shooting against Matt. As we were too deep, we were static in our defending, and their individual dribbling skill was smashing straight through our too straight back line. When they pulled ahead 8-5, we abandoned all hope ye who entered here, and went on some suicidal rampage up top, our attacks breaking down so swiftly, without occupying their keeper, that they countered us in numbers, overlapping us in a devastating spell of five goals in barely the last four minutes, most of which put Matt one on one against the striker, and Matt failing that particular task.
So a respectable majority performance was sullied by a shabbily naïve last few minutes. The story of The Molly Maguires. Still we had fun….
I write this report a week after the event and with the benefit of hindsight. Or is it foresight? If I know something now, that I didn’t know then, but am writing from a past perspective…I should write an episode of Lost. Hopes are high, for me anyway, that the squad numbers can return to a more manageable level once again, with the threat of the return of Molly stalwarts such as the Boy Wonder, the Water Carrier and the Silver Fox. Am I still asleep? Is this X-Men Origins: Wolverine?
1.Matt 3.Alan (1) 4.Steve 5.Leo (1) 6.Robbie 8.Rob (3)
I was sat in the cinema last week, and contemplating what would happen if someone came crashing through the doors coughing and spluttering over everyone, shouting “I’ve got the swine flu, die you fuckers”. I wanted to know what would’ve happened in that confined area; whether there would be mass panic and trampling for the exit, whether the Cineworld staff would have the speed to shut tight the doors and quarantine us infected; whether the carrier would’ve got his head kicked in. Then X-Men Origins: Wolverine started, and I fell asleep.
Playing for The Mollys is like some surreal dream. Only we can make a song and dance out of playing football. Only we can make drama queens out of adult males. Only we can turn a 5-5 draw into a 12-5 defeat in the space of ten minutes.
With the addition of Rob, in another useful cameo appearance, to a stilted line-up, Matt for the first time in ages (if ever) was actually our youngest Molly player tonight, and against a team of youths, for whom Shake N Bake is probably a reference first heard in Talladega Nights, whilst for the Molly team, many probably actually bought the crispy skin coating product.
First things first, and Steve once again handed out his 9p bottles of energised tastes-like-fruit coloured water, in the hope that such nutrients would improve our performance, short of knocking out our opponents by throwing them fully loaded at their heads. We were assigned pitch 5 - the graveyard, and it gave us an excuse to watch the pretty girls playing football on that pitch, with accomplished effort. I’ll hold onto my piece as a refrain from sexual innuendo, but query this - why do the biffers always play in goal? Why do girls always seem to have an extra stage between pulling their leg back, and kicking the ball? There’s a weird extra stutter - it can’t just be me, someone else must notice it…..
Once we got on the pitch, Steve was scared witless by the prospect of having to wear the red bibs. Deep in his psyche is a war wound or a childhood horror about this. Best not open that can of worms. With bibs duly donned, one of me looked svelte. Some of us looked like we were wearing boob tubes. Others of us looked like we were wearing bras. Even so, the hideousness of Matt’s latest keeper’s jersey - green and black - won the most needed visit from Gok’s Fashion Fix.
We started the game really well. We were focussed in our ambition, our formation and our tactics - Rob and Alan would do all the running, and the rest of us would prattle around a little bit. We scored first, as Alan carved himself a beautiful opening, taking one touch to drag him back inside from the outside right, smashing home a sensational barnstormer.
They scored in reply, before Leo then got a lucky loose ball off the back wall, actually controlled it first, before smashing it into all four angles of the far post with Torres-like precision. The opposition then got a couple more to take the first half into a 3-2 deficit to the Mollys.
The opposition came across as fairly decent young lads, with a perchance for disliking our somewhat more rough-house, manly tactics in levering them off the ball, or just kicking them in the foot, or just running straight into them. We’d like to think this a deliberate attempt to rough them up a bit, and not our general inadequacies at winning the ball back. They played with a very obvious pass-and-go triangles style, that was easily met by hard-working, never isolated, four man wall of red bibs, propelling away all invaders. Although I think Matt let another goal slip softly under his bollocks (it happens every week now, it deserves it’s own weekly show on ITV2, right after Celebrity Juice), he was having a pretty good half, and his short and long distribution was as well as his limited options allowed him.
Up front, there was no less effort from the Skinner brothers, running dead into the left channel, the right channel, and at least two other channels that quantum physics has yet to discover. At the back, Robbie and Steve were doing their usual facing up to the opposition, hoping they didn’t run fast at them, whilst Leo was marking space, in the useful way, dropping into holes to intercept passes from.
Half-time. Lots of civilised, genuine praise for effort. But as we were losing we should’ve had the right to choose whether to change ends, and we didn’t want to. The opposition of five, weren’t particularly happy with us subbing on their ball, when their keeper had possession, nor having to cover the oncoming sub who could position himself straight into a dangerous position (we were kicking towards the door, radio listeners). So the ref made us swap, under the pretence that a floodlight was out in their corner, and it wouldn’t be fair for them to continue with that disadvantage. Seriously, even me just relaying this information makes me sound like a bullshitter.
Second half, and Rob came into his own, taking off his shirt and just wearing his bib, in the closest approximation we’ve had to bringing sexy back. Rob took the game to the younglings, grabbing a hat-trick, including a beautiful isolated turn on a central through ball straight from Matt’s throw out (yeah, I know, that happens so rarely, it deserves it’s own annual national holiday day), and taking a penalty with a cheeky two stutters, and then one step forward, that the ref called good, after their keeper slid out of his box. Matt would get away with something similar, like he does every week, but he was in the dark corner of the pitch.
We’d got it to 5-5 with relative ease, but then our usual can of faults reared their ugly heads out of the woodwork. As we tired, our hitherto excellently balanced formation took a nosedive, with Alan and Rob dropping deeper, we were getting schooled in constant attack waves, which forced Leo higher up the pitch, and even onto the dreaded left wing, in an attempt to keep the opposition busy.
They instead changed tactics completely, running straight at us, forcing us to not to tackle and foul them whilst they then siphoned the ball wide for close range shooting against Matt. As we were too deep, we were static in our defending, and their individual dribbling skill was smashing straight through our too straight back line. When they pulled ahead 8-5, we abandoned all hope ye who entered here, and went on some suicidal rampage up top, our attacks breaking down so swiftly, without occupying their keeper, that they countered us in numbers, overlapping us in a devastating spell of five goals in barely the last four minutes, most of which put Matt one on one against the striker, and Matt failing that particular task.
So a respectable majority performance was sullied by a shabbily naïve last few minutes. The story of The Molly Maguires. Still we had fun….
I write this report a week after the event and with the benefit of hindsight. Or is it foresight? If I know something now, that I didn’t know then, but am writing from a past perspective…I should write an episode of Lost. Hopes are high, for me anyway, that the squad numbers can return to a more manageable level once again, with the threat of the return of Molly stalwarts such as the Boy Wonder, the Water Carrier and the Silver Fox. Am I still asleep? Is this X-Men Origins: Wolverine?
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