Sunday, January 18, 2009

Mother’s pride

Taken from the mysterious Man in the Dugout's match reports...

"Your ever-willing servant has made a new year’s resolution. As well as being nicer to Mrs Dugout, and pledging to go on a Dugout-building course, the main one is this: try not to criticise referees. They do a very difficult job, and, at our level at least, only get paid £35 for two hours’ worth of pure abuse. It takes a special kind of masochist to take that punishment every week, and for that they should be applauded, even if they are USELESS NO-EYED MONG-HEADED TWAT-BURGLARS.

But I digress.

As such, my resolution makes writing the report for today’s game (for I’m writing this the VERY SAME DAY, only a couple of hours after the match. Put that in your heartbroken pipe and smoke it, Kavanagh) rather difficult. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to focus on the boring stuff, like who played well, and the goals, and Ginger digging impressive snouty-holes, and stuff.

The game was a swirly ding-dong humdinger with everything a dugout-dweller could hope for. Describing it as a “close cup tie that, fittingly, finished two-a-piece” doesn’t do it justice. Which is a shame, as that means I have to write a bit more. The first half was as tight as Burner at an airport check-in. Street were compact and effective, like a surprisingly spacious badger sett, as headband-Alex led the charge with headers, tackles, and all kinds. Chances were at a premium, despite these days of VAT reductions and fiscal rescue packages, and the hoops were left hanging on for a Sale, whose ample backside still raises a smile during straitened times.

It seemed that it would take a lucky free-kick rebound to separate the teams at half time, and so it was. Shouty-screamy stand-in keeper Gem “dramatic dive on to my chest for the cameras” de Silva tipped the looper on to the bar, and Street’s snoozy defenders were hapless to prevent some eager Leys’ lad having a happy poke from five yards. Fnar.

But the hoopy-loopy boys were doing their mothers’ proud, what with all their kicking and shouting and tackling and so on. Like snow on a mild day, the BBBBBBBBBBL boys had no time to settle, and the second half carried on where the first one left off. With the swirly wind at their backs, and with teamwork the like of which we haven’t seen this side of The Crystal Maze in the 1990s, the minty twerp-faces fought their way back, helped in no small part by a far-post corner knock-in by Mr Headband.

Alas, the other lot went straight up the other end and got back in the lead quick smart, but still the ferocious twits kept fighting. Davies was running, Crispin was running, Dunkirk was running, Eddie was running, Shane was running. There was a lot of running.

And then there was another bungled equaliser courtesy of Dunkirk, who may or may not have been offside. And then there was a lot of shouty-arguing directed at our dear friend the referee, the poor thing. And whilst we were still calming down after all that, we ‘lost’ our defensive stalwart Chris to the vagaries of a referee’s addled mind. It may have been some kind of referee payback thing, or just a shit decision. Whatever, it deprived Street of their most composed and handsomely bearded player, which was a great shame for all concerned.

And that, ordinarily, would have been that. Street would have crumpled, we would have lamented and, much later, sang sad songs of pain and incompleteness. But this is a different kind of Street. This is the 09 Street. A great vintage. The plucky-stripy dudes closed the game out, shut it down, sent the Bailiffs in and reopened a whole new game all of their own. And that’s the Street that I love.

Blackbird Boys (1) 2 – 2 (0) Union Street
Headband, Dunkirk

de Silva, Sale, Hendy-Isaac, Mozley, Burn M, Kirk, Davies, Pratchett, McCulloch (Smith), Shane (Munday), Angood
Linesman: Ginsburg
Ref: [your expletive here]

Other notes: The fragrant kit (Beaumont’s Tesco-value fabric conditioner working wonders: “Look after the kit and the kit looks after you” were his sage words, and who were we to disagree?). The whopping attendance (last-minute cancellations for heartbreak notwithstanding): burrowing dogs, shouty braveheart-a-likes, parents with kids, midfielders stuck in traffic, and latecomers with newly-fixed cars. The Great Big Swan Samosa turn-out (it's what great teams are made of)."

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home