LOST 13-5
1.Matt 2.James 3.Alan 5.Leo 7.Nathan 8.Rob 9.Gareth
Friday, 22 May 2009
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Blast From The Past - Southampton vs. Portsmouth
Date: 19/11/05 Time: 11:00am
Location: Vida, Southampton
Line-up: Matt, Pete, Leo, Robbie, Dean, Gareth, Steve
Final Score: 8-8
Location: Vida, Southampton
Line-up: Matt, Pete, Leo, Robbie, Dean, Gareth, Steve
Final Score: 8-8
“Sure as I know anything, I know this - I aim to misbehave.”
So West Ham United FC are relegated from the Premiership with eight games of the 2005-6 season still to play, and Harry Redknapp is sacked from Southampton FC, to be replaced by, of all people, Terry Venables. Hardly a prophetic vision of a future to come, but instead the ludicrous statistical juggle of numbers in a cheating b*stard PC sim that is Football Manager 2006 (For the uninitiated, PC stands for Personal Computer, and sim stands for simpleton).
Such relegation consequences forced me to start the game again, and thus putting this match report low down my priority list below ‘do nothing but breathe’. However, benefiting from the participants’ vague recollection of events and time elapsed, this author is free to digress wildly and to make sh*t up, without fear of challenge. This report is purely from a Southampton POV, unquestionably biased, and always right.
The pr****ion/n****nal o*****er management* (delete as bothered) acolytes of Southampton and Portsmouth converged on the frost covered artificial pitch of the loss-making VIDA company, to do battle with a rival hostility, that only South American soccer could measure up to (a pitch invading Brummie gesticulating at a Villa keeper seems a bit tame in comparison). Such a competitive edge would ultimately be curtailed by Widow Twanky with a whistle, as the match descended into some sort of pre-determined diplomatic exercise. Life’s a pitch then you draw.
A match, years in the making, in danger of living up to the all-expenses spared hype of a single e-mail announcement, billed as the ultimate in pantomime, with guest appearances from Ro-land of Grange Hill fame (the ringer from Basingstoke) and Gareth, the apparently newly anointed Case Administrator/Trainee* (delete as better lie).
Southampton sported a plethora of touchline totty in the form of Jon, Jo, and Steve’s wife and daughter, backed up with a trio of up and coming youth players. The incentive was clearly there to ram some of that Spirit of the South baloney straight down the gullets of the scuzzwozzers of Portsmouth.
The nine strong squad of Pompey, with an equally large entourage had arrived seriously early for this humdinger, playing themselves into match fitness with a half hour prologue to the main event. Home team Southampton, meanwhile, can usually be relied upon to have a slow trickle of players, with Pete making his usual post kick-off arrival. Knowing too much about an opposing team had never really been of great benefit to the currently defunct Molly Maguires, but the seven Southampton representatives, veterans of a year’s worth of edgy competitive football, would surely be too much for their uglier counterparts.
With one of our own donning the metaphorical referee’s shirt, expectations were high of at least a fair contest, if not one tilted slightly in our favour. Alas the referee may as well have been holding his johnson out there, for all the correct attention he paid to the action.
With a solid rotating system of personnel, Southampton had the necessary defensive and attacking quality to win this inaugural south coast derby, and started and finished the first half easily the superior. Leo, fully demonstrating his rehabilitation from defensive brinkman to offensive midfield, lashed home the first from a smooth pass into uncharted Pompey waters on the right wing.
Then someone from Southampton swore. Used an expletive. Said a rude word. On a football pitch. Instantly bringing the game into disrepute, and the very columns of our national sport crashing down in a rubble of shame. The referee had no hesitation in pointing to the spot, waving away protests that the swearing had taken place outside the semi-circled box, and that he was a f*cking idiot. No warning, no caution, no sin-bin. Matt dived the right way but the resulting penalty shot was too accurate for him to claw away, and the scores were artificially levelled as a consequence of an atrocious decision beyond the ambit of the referee’s jurisdiction.
With Popeye and Bluto forming a useful partnership in the heart of defence, Leo and Gareth were providing the necessary cutting edge up front, ably supported by Pete’s deft dribbling and Dean’s numbers making up. Alas Gareth had taken too much to heart the pre-match instruction to “play good, but not that good” (for fear of exposing his ring). His shooting was wayward and lacking in the usual positional accuracy, but still Southampton were doing enough to maintain a suitably tight grip on proceedings.
Throughout the match, Portsmouth were easily Southampton’s match in the physical battles (except for the wet dishcloth in the West Ham away kit). Cheating like something that cheats for a living whilst also cheating in its spare time, Portsmouth used every conceivable shoulder barge, back push, elbow nudge, shirt pull, foot trip in a desperate bid to tip the scales that weighed heavy in skill against them. Of course like all good fouling teams, they were quick as liquid crap to whinge when said same punishment was returned at them with ironic hypocrisy. Unfortunately only Steve possessed the body strength to knock flying his assailants, landing in crumpled heaps on the floor, as Steve, the gentlest of gentlemen, appeared to all and sundry, to be our designated hardman. Pete also did his best to mix it up, but his body checking was unsuitably unsubtle. One observing wag was quick to note that for an ex-player quick to shout down referees and players for such unsporting conduct as physical contact, the referee’s lack of “hand’s down” calls was perplexingly impotent.
Leo completed his first-half hat-trick with a velocity-engorged strike from the half way line, through every outfield player between him and the opposition goal, as Southampton edged some distance in front, despite a blatant penalty against Portsmouth being inexplicably ignored, as their Little Man keeper contrived to save a quartet of rebounding shots from the Southampton frontline, before cheating his hands outside his area, to thieve the ball into his deceiving arms, whilst the referee stood silent like a mug.
As the first half was drawing to a close, the referee was desperate to know when he’d actually kicked off the match, and how long each half was because he didn’t appear to know himself - the sun had gone behind a cloud rendering his dial next to useless. Little wonder then that a slipshod approach to the rules of the game had thus far been demonstrated. The Southampton players were therefore quick to remind the referee of the correct score, on the off chance the ref’s abacus had broken.
There was time for Gareth to shoot and score direct from kick-off, something that Dean attempted throughout the second half with the copy quality of a dirty ten-fold dot matrix facsimile. And time for Portsmouth to reduce the deficit further, as Southampton still ended the first half 4-2 to the good, and looking comfortable. After a nostalgic half-time team talk from Jon, now an officially diagnosed cripple, there were no fears that Southampton could not see this match out to a bragging rights victory.With their Little Man keeper now an outfield player, and a potent threat with his left peg, and Portsmouth happy to rotate men between the sticks, they came back into the match with suitable vengeance. Confident passing had been surprisingly in abundance from the Southampton players, with some crisp swift two touch manoeuvres, and good link-up play initially dominating proceedings. The second half however saw the available time and space curtailed, as Portsmouth started to occupy our defenders more, getting forward with alarming regularity.
A useful close range brace from Pete, and one each from Leo and Dean in the second half, saw Southampton maintain the gap, but Portsmouth slowly turned their possession into more accurate shooting, and traded goal-scoring blows, as our tiredness and sloppy structure let them get the best of our keeper. A ‘seen-it-all-before’ ricochet off Matt which crept over the line, and a bludgeon from distance that left him rooted to the spot, would’ve disappointed the Southampton keeper as much as his team-mates, as his reaction skills were again called into question.
The added dimension of Little Man in the Portsmouth attack, started to produce some frustrating panic-defending, and rash challenges from Southampton that again saw many a man hit the deck. With the ref seemingly unable to see beyond the end of his nose, it was left to the players themselves to shout the odds. With Leo slashing thorough a poorly-judged tackle from behind, he received a somewhat patronising verbal tirade, about the game being a friendly, from the dirtiest player on the pitch. Very satisfying then to see said player later pole-axed, and limped off, when Bruiser Broughton walloped into him, with all the grace of a dump truck.
With Southampton 8-6 up, time seemed to exponentially increase to allow Portsmouth the fighting chance to pull back the deficit. With the referee having already received a righteous rebuke from Robbie about his inability to blow the f*cking whistle when a foul was committed, especially by the ruffians of Portsmouth, it was little wonder that the match that should’ve ended five minutes ago, was still going on. And so the enemy pressed on with nothing to lose, grabbing their seventh and then their eighth goal, as Southampton’s concentration levels appeared to evaporate. With cunning, the final whistle blew (with only half a blow, and indicatively amateurish) direct from the last kick-off, and a game that had Southampton leading throughout was cruelly exposed for the hoax it had become.
Still, the match ended with a modicum of positivity. Southampton looked comfortable in their passing and their rotation of players around their formation, and for all the hype and slam on the pitch, no-one held any grudges as the players left the field of play. The true footballing cliché is that you barely remember the referee’s involvement in a football match when he’s had a good game, made the right decisions, and the football has spoken for itself. How much football did you read about in the above report?
Goal Scorers: Leo 4, Gareth 1, Pete 2, Dean 1
So West Ham United FC are relegated from the Premiership with eight games of the 2005-6 season still to play, and Harry Redknapp is sacked from Southampton FC, to be replaced by, of all people, Terry Venables. Hardly a prophetic vision of a future to come, but instead the ludicrous statistical juggle of numbers in a cheating b*stard PC sim that is Football Manager 2006 (For the uninitiated, PC stands for Personal Computer, and sim stands for simpleton).
Such relegation consequences forced me to start the game again, and thus putting this match report low down my priority list below ‘do nothing but breathe’. However, benefiting from the participants’ vague recollection of events and time elapsed, this author is free to digress wildly and to make sh*t up, without fear of challenge. This report is purely from a Southampton POV, unquestionably biased, and always right.
The pr****ion/n****nal o*****er management* (delete as bothered) acolytes of Southampton and Portsmouth converged on the frost covered artificial pitch of the loss-making VIDA company, to do battle with a rival hostility, that only South American soccer could measure up to (a pitch invading Brummie gesticulating at a Villa keeper seems a bit tame in comparison). Such a competitive edge would ultimately be curtailed by Widow Twanky with a whistle, as the match descended into some sort of pre-determined diplomatic exercise. Life’s a pitch then you draw.
A match, years in the making, in danger of living up to the all-expenses spared hype of a single e-mail announcement, billed as the ultimate in pantomime, with guest appearances from Ro-land of Grange Hill fame (the ringer from Basingstoke) and Gareth, the apparently newly anointed Case Administrator/Trainee* (delete as better lie).
Southampton sported a plethora of touchline totty in the form of Jon, Jo, and Steve’s wife and daughter, backed up with a trio of up and coming youth players. The incentive was clearly there to ram some of that Spirit of the South baloney straight down the gullets of the scuzzwozzers of Portsmouth.
The nine strong squad of Pompey, with an equally large entourage had arrived seriously early for this humdinger, playing themselves into match fitness with a half hour prologue to the main event. Home team Southampton, meanwhile, can usually be relied upon to have a slow trickle of players, with Pete making his usual post kick-off arrival. Knowing too much about an opposing team had never really been of great benefit to the currently defunct Molly Maguires, but the seven Southampton representatives, veterans of a year’s worth of edgy competitive football, would surely be too much for their uglier counterparts.
With one of our own donning the metaphorical referee’s shirt, expectations were high of at least a fair contest, if not one tilted slightly in our favour. Alas the referee may as well have been holding his johnson out there, for all the correct attention he paid to the action.
With a solid rotating system of personnel, Southampton had the necessary defensive and attacking quality to win this inaugural south coast derby, and started and finished the first half easily the superior. Leo, fully demonstrating his rehabilitation from defensive brinkman to offensive midfield, lashed home the first from a smooth pass into uncharted Pompey waters on the right wing.
Then someone from Southampton swore. Used an expletive. Said a rude word. On a football pitch. Instantly bringing the game into disrepute, and the very columns of our national sport crashing down in a rubble of shame. The referee had no hesitation in pointing to the spot, waving away protests that the swearing had taken place outside the semi-circled box, and that he was a f*cking idiot. No warning, no caution, no sin-bin. Matt dived the right way but the resulting penalty shot was too accurate for him to claw away, and the scores were artificially levelled as a consequence of an atrocious decision beyond the ambit of the referee’s jurisdiction.
With Popeye and Bluto forming a useful partnership in the heart of defence, Leo and Gareth were providing the necessary cutting edge up front, ably supported by Pete’s deft dribbling and Dean’s numbers making up. Alas Gareth had taken too much to heart the pre-match instruction to “play good, but not that good” (for fear of exposing his ring). His shooting was wayward and lacking in the usual positional accuracy, but still Southampton were doing enough to maintain a suitably tight grip on proceedings.
Throughout the match, Portsmouth were easily Southampton’s match in the physical battles (except for the wet dishcloth in the West Ham away kit). Cheating like something that cheats for a living whilst also cheating in its spare time, Portsmouth used every conceivable shoulder barge, back push, elbow nudge, shirt pull, foot trip in a desperate bid to tip the scales that weighed heavy in skill against them. Of course like all good fouling teams, they were quick as liquid crap to whinge when said same punishment was returned at them with ironic hypocrisy. Unfortunately only Steve possessed the body strength to knock flying his assailants, landing in crumpled heaps on the floor, as Steve, the gentlest of gentlemen, appeared to all and sundry, to be our designated hardman. Pete also did his best to mix it up, but his body checking was unsuitably unsubtle. One observing wag was quick to note that for an ex-player quick to shout down referees and players for such unsporting conduct as physical contact, the referee’s lack of “hand’s down” calls was perplexingly impotent.
Leo completed his first-half hat-trick with a velocity-engorged strike from the half way line, through every outfield player between him and the opposition goal, as Southampton edged some distance in front, despite a blatant penalty against Portsmouth being inexplicably ignored, as their Little Man keeper contrived to save a quartet of rebounding shots from the Southampton frontline, before cheating his hands outside his area, to thieve the ball into his deceiving arms, whilst the referee stood silent like a mug.
As the first half was drawing to a close, the referee was desperate to know when he’d actually kicked off the match, and how long each half was because he didn’t appear to know himself - the sun had gone behind a cloud rendering his dial next to useless. Little wonder then that a slipshod approach to the rules of the game had thus far been demonstrated. The Southampton players were therefore quick to remind the referee of the correct score, on the off chance the ref’s abacus had broken.
There was time for Gareth to shoot and score direct from kick-off, something that Dean attempted throughout the second half with the copy quality of a dirty ten-fold dot matrix facsimile. And time for Portsmouth to reduce the deficit further, as Southampton still ended the first half 4-2 to the good, and looking comfortable. After a nostalgic half-time team talk from Jon, now an officially diagnosed cripple, there were no fears that Southampton could not see this match out to a bragging rights victory.With their Little Man keeper now an outfield player, and a potent threat with his left peg, and Portsmouth happy to rotate men between the sticks, they came back into the match with suitable vengeance. Confident passing had been surprisingly in abundance from the Southampton players, with some crisp swift two touch manoeuvres, and good link-up play initially dominating proceedings. The second half however saw the available time and space curtailed, as Portsmouth started to occupy our defenders more, getting forward with alarming regularity.
A useful close range brace from Pete, and one each from Leo and Dean in the second half, saw Southampton maintain the gap, but Portsmouth slowly turned their possession into more accurate shooting, and traded goal-scoring blows, as our tiredness and sloppy structure let them get the best of our keeper. A ‘seen-it-all-before’ ricochet off Matt which crept over the line, and a bludgeon from distance that left him rooted to the spot, would’ve disappointed the Southampton keeper as much as his team-mates, as his reaction skills were again called into question.
The added dimension of Little Man in the Portsmouth attack, started to produce some frustrating panic-defending, and rash challenges from Southampton that again saw many a man hit the deck. With the ref seemingly unable to see beyond the end of his nose, it was left to the players themselves to shout the odds. With Leo slashing thorough a poorly-judged tackle from behind, he received a somewhat patronising verbal tirade, about the game being a friendly, from the dirtiest player on the pitch. Very satisfying then to see said player later pole-axed, and limped off, when Bruiser Broughton walloped into him, with all the grace of a dump truck.
With Southampton 8-6 up, time seemed to exponentially increase to allow Portsmouth the fighting chance to pull back the deficit. With the referee having already received a righteous rebuke from Robbie about his inability to blow the f*cking whistle when a foul was committed, especially by the ruffians of Portsmouth, it was little wonder that the match that should’ve ended five minutes ago, was still going on. And so the enemy pressed on with nothing to lose, grabbing their seventh and then their eighth goal, as Southampton’s concentration levels appeared to evaporate. With cunning, the final whistle blew (with only half a blow, and indicatively amateurish) direct from the last kick-off, and a game that had Southampton leading throughout was cruelly exposed for the hoax it had become.
Still, the match ended with a modicum of positivity. Southampton looked comfortable in their passing and their rotation of players around their formation, and for all the hype and slam on the pitch, no-one held any grudges as the players left the field of play. The true footballing cliché is that you barely remember the referee’s involvement in a football match when he’s had a good game, made the right decisions, and the football has spoken for itself. How much football did you read about in the above report?
Goal Scorers: Leo 4, Gareth 1, Pete 2, Dean 1
Thursday, 7 May 2009
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