Salmon Leap: An Incomplete History pt4

LOST 4-9
11/8/05 22:00 Match Nine vs Benfica Chicken Tikka

1.Matt 4.Nobby 5.Leo 6.Robbie 7.Dean (1) 10.Dave (1) 11.Steve (2)

LOST 0-8

18/8/05 18:30 Match Ten vs Buffalo Bills

LOST 3-16

25/8/05 21:00 Match Eleven vs Salmon Leap

1.Matt 4.Nobby 5.Leo 6.Robbie 7.Dean (2) 10.Dave 11.Steve (1)

♫ And all the wounds that are ever gonna scar me, for all the ghosts that are never gonna catch me, if I fall, if I fall ♫

Struggle to sleep as the conscious mind throws shapes. Slowly killed by a stress that seeps through the veins. Finding no rest as senseless dreams induce violent paralysis. Breathing hard as the chest crackles within. All ills can be medicated by the thrill of the win, the elation of rewarded skill, the charm of luck, and the glee of camaraderie. The psychosomatic therapy for the psychotic - the social event for the sociopath. I’m feeling real sick right now.

Fellow geeks will have deduced the high concept theme of this match report. I’ve written it three times in big letters above. It is what this team has become. On the pitch, in our heads. The fall from Grace. The race to Space. It’s easy to become. I guess the best way to describe the team at the moment is as a dispirited group of individuals, surviving a plane crash, castaway on an island, dumped into the middle of the Bermuda triangle, fighting polar bears beamed down by aliens, hiding dark secrets, fearful of the religious allegory of the invisible magical beast that tears down the trees*. The heavy-handed Lost metaphor hints at a greater truth. The sum of the parts never as great as the whole. Reluctant leaders, teenage runaway, injured deadweights, in. camp. traitor.

With a squad stripped to its bare knuckles for the last three weeks, the same array of seven would contest the above matches, with a paltry half a handful of players for match ten having to throw in the soiled towel of default defeat. PG-rated (Post Gareth) horror shows either side, contained plenty of gun shot residue but nary a close-up of a blood splattered bullet hole.

*****

The first match was lost on the weakness of our convictions. The first half against Benfica was a war of attrition, as their players laid siege to our goal, battering Matt like a Turkey Twizzler. He was throwing himself around his area as if possessed by the spirit of an epileptic frog (a crazy frog, if you will), confident the pounding his body was receiving would help firm up the loose flaps of skin, the by-product from all the weight he’s shed.

Man of the match, Matt kept the team in the game, as we hung on by the fingernails of one hand, as our undesignated strike force failed to do the required damage at the other end. Dave was drawing blanks from his forays down the left, while Leo was raining shots from the right wing, running onto through balls, but caning only a quarter of them on target.

In the end, it was our set pieces that ticked the required box. But don’t get too excited. Both set plays couldn’t have been any closer to the goal, without actually being in the goal. Firstly, a penalty, handled with responsibility, by Dean, in the absence of our star striker, lifting his shot into the goal’s right hand side, for the easiest of goals. Secondly, a beautifully placed free kick by Steve, sweetly curved through the gap of the two-man wall, with a right foot that can quite literally open a tin of spaghetti hoops. Incredibly handy when sucking mush through a straw is the best you can manage nowadays.

Leashing our opponents down to a 2-2 draw at half time was a brilliant achievement, when there was no let up in their attacks. We couldn’t hold up the ball in their half, even if we’d been allowed to use our hands. Unfortunately, in the second half, we just couldn’t sustain the energy, and found our positioning off skew. We couldn’t tread water forever.

Dave dropped back deep in order to pick up the ball facing the right way, leaving Nobby upfront as the long ball target, and Dean running mindlessly around a very fractured team shape. Nobby continued to play with his back to goal, laying the ball off to the forward runners with the firmness of warm butter. Despite further goals from Dave and Steve, we were losing the battle for the ricocheting ball in the middle of the pitch, and we were getting ruthlessly counter-attacked with two-pass manoeuvres from keeper to striker, reminiscent of the way Division One teams used to tear us apart. The combined defensive acumen of Robbie and Matt was not enough to prevent further smash and grabs, and a final deficit of 4-9.

*****

The second match was lost on the authority of the Gaffa and by circumstances beyond control. Despite the early kick-off time, a number of withdrawals or unavailabilities meant the squad could only boast a team of three players, and Jeff. Even allowing for the fact that those three players are the bedrock of The Molly Maguires defence, even bypassing the inequality of the Bills possessing more players, the prospect of Robbie and Leo blocking shots in front of Matt for 50 minutes, while they wonder where Jeff’s disappeared to, was only appealing if ..…if….., no wait, I can’t think of anything worse.

No great loss to concede defeat against the top team, who would’ve hammered us by more goals anyway, and we saved the kitty money for the inevitable curry forward slash drinking end of era blowout.

*****

The third match was lost on sheer inability. Don’s attendance (sans son) as cheerleader was exceptionally heartening, but if he was looking to report back from his scouting mission about the attractions of re-signing for the team, we may well have seen the last of his boy wonder, a long time after he first dazzled many of us with his frightening skill in the narrow sports hall of the Institute or on the double wide badminton courts of St Marys.

Again the limitations of availability ensured the team that took to the field against Salmon Leap was the same unbalanced, shot shy, paceless, leaderless, luckless, deathly quiet team that had failed two weeks previously. The blood, sweat, guts and jeers of the cookie-munching forgotten man Jon, has been much missed this season - the necessary link-up man for Dave and Gareth, the ear-bashing potty-mouthed midfield general for the rest of us.

We could continue to wallow in the dirty bathwater of the absentees or the could’ve beens, but some players did turn out for the team, continuing to show the same kind of hopeless, futile loyalty that gets suicide bombers killed.

Upon arrival at the match, Dean was immediately keen to let everyone know about the lucky ‘undercrackers’ he was wearing – a black, tight trunk number, supportive and soft on the skin, from the pioneers of quality undergarments, Marks and Spencer. Such psycho-illogical superstitions are at the core of the Molly team’s existence, from the required choice of starting ends, to the curse of pitch one. Unfortunately Dean’s nether regions are about as interesting as it got for this match (and surprisingly mentioned at least half a dozen times throughout the history of my match reports…).

The same unresolved problems in the Molly team’s shape and design meant ball possession was 9/10ths of the Leap’s. We hassled and harried, but the speed and passing movement from the opposition, from the off, just destroyed us. They had the fitness to pass the ball, and move for the return, scything their way through our outfield, embarrassing our keeper with long range bloomers, that Matt made look good with ineffectual reaction times.

In the outfield, no-one took any responsibility for forward movement, we were static and standoff-ish, coaxed into rash and rubbish tackles that failed to connect. Their players easily held us off, blocking our path to the ball, while laying passes off to the runners. We paid them too much respect - Leo, a huge culprit of not sticking his boot in. With Dave giving up the ghost up front, the burden of the team’s expectations finally taking its toil on the shoulders of our father figure, Nobby and Dean had to try to be the aggressors against a comfortable defence playing their way through us, down the wings.

With Leo again denied his favourite position as sweeper, instead having to make up the numbers up front, playing with his back to goal, his shooting was almost accurate, but incredibly weak. Only Steve managed a decent arrowing shot to give us a first half goal, but our passing was found wanting. HARDER, FASTER, FIRMER passing was required to slip it past the speedy opposition. The Molly defence was going to pot, Robbie surely wishing to forget this performance as quickly as the opposition danced around him. Our shots ratio barely hit double figures, but at least Dean’s lucky pants appeared to be working, as he snuck two good plants past the keeper in the second half after nominal work from Nobby, clearly now a burnt out supernova this season.

The referee was intent on ensuring his favourite team (not us) won this match comfortably, and even took time out to chat to his ugly missus, and say good night to his cute kid (two negatives do make a positive), whilst awarding a penalty and other debatable decisions against us. The game ended with a harrowing 3-16 defeat that effectively crushed many a will to play, losing us much impetus to finish this season with some winning pride.

Four straight defeats, all without the tag-team pairing of Dave and Gareth upfront, has meant the team must surely be floundering about in the drop zone, in the final season before an enforced hiatus due to players’ more important commitments. On a recent excursion out, I received a number of questions about how the Mollys were getting on, from women no less (that’s right, they talk to me sometimes), and had to break it to them that the team was being disbanded, as I choked back the tears, and they cooed in sympathy. To be forever associated in the public consciousness with The Molly Maguires is surely the ultimate epitaph. One of them did go so far as to quiz me about my defensive heading skills. In a five-a-side match? But she was a Saints fan after all, so perhaps couldn’t be helped.

Three games left to maintain the legacy of The Molly Maguires. Three games left to find what once was lost.