Ah, now this is what I like to read. Q.E. 2 Seven Four 7 and our first trip into the FA Vase didn’t produce the slip-up I so solemnly predicted before the game. Actually, it was so one-sided it was embarrassing at times, and to be honest I think any team playing us yesterday would have been taken apart. We went 3-0 up after 10 minutes, and had it not been for a rather shite comedic kick by our goalie, we would have gone in 5-0 up and ready to rack up a decent score. That said, I was getting a bit worried at 3-1 up : Westfield had got their tails up and were sniffing around for a comeback (well, they ventured into our half a couple of times). However, hat-trick hero Coops restored a more reflective scoreline. Second half? More of the same, they got a penalty but we still blasted them
Rest of it?
Plus points: Winning. Away. Potential banana skin overcome. Some of the best attacking seen for a while. Defence looked solid for once. Kept going. Looked like we could have scored more when the mood took us. Only Westfield goals came from our mistakes.
Minus points: Clean sheet, perhaps? Oh, and Danny O getting sent off.
The referee’s a ….. : Do you remember those “You Are The Ref” things that people like Match and Shoot used to do? Well, get your thinking gear around this.
Q: A foul in the area is committed by a defending player on an attacking player. What is your course of action?
a: Give a penalty to the attacking team
b: Give a free kick to the attacking team
c: Give a penalty to the attacking team then immediately and for no apparent reason award a free kick to the defending team. You will also be required to book players from the attacking team who may be surrounding you questioning your parentage.
Now, anyone with more than 0.01% of refereeing ability would have awarded (a). I’ll leave you to guess what the ref gave (clue: it wasn’t the first two). Decided to send Danny O off for their penalty as well, which was the cause of much verbal gurgitation from your humble and esteemed editor. The chicken fucker made a name for himself, which was what he wanted.
Them: As is usual for Westfield, they supplied us with their rather nice pavillion, decent cups of tea and a nice view of where they usually play. If Chessington and Hook can hold games at Chalky Lane, surely Westfield could hold our games here? Never mind. The team themselves were embarrasingly shite, though I was given grief by a couple of people for attacking their goalie, who did make some good saves. Some reckon that despite letting in seven goals the goalie is quite good, which is a bit like saying the weather in Manchester is good despite the fact it rains all the time. Oh, and they tried to get our players sent off after 7-2 down, AND their penalty scorer tried the hard man act to us. Wouldn’t try it if he was the other side of the barrier…
Deja vu: Their steep stand – very steep stand – was £2 to transfer and you had to queue up to buy a transfer ticket AND you had to show your stubs to the jobsworth at the entrances AND I’m surprised I wasn’t told to sit down, shut up and watch the team more often. Corporate football, eh?
Song sung blue: Didn’t hear many songs about winning the FA Vase. Guess we’re trying to find something that rhymes with “Vase” and doesn’t sound corny. CS gets a nice if ironic airing, along with the now traditional “Charlie Koppel sucks a penis, Charlie Koppel sucks a [insert noun here] penis”. Face it, this song will still be sung 50 years from now, live with it. Sung quite melodically if I remember, though it will never compare to the beautiful rendition at Frenford…. Oh, and we really do only need 10 men.
Point to ponder: How young was that team yesterday? Apparently, the average age is something like 22 (open to correction). Now, if this team can keep in with each other the predictions of conference football in a few years time is NOT beyond the realms of possibility. We are a team and not a collection of individuals. How different to that first ever Sutton game.
Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) The subtly and poetically named “Moaners Corner”. Ought to have similar at KM I reckon : just think, the Main Stand could be the Flask of Tea stand, John Smith’s Stand could be the Comatose area, the areas around the catering could be Chernobyl Corner, the West Bank could be the Garden Shed section and the hardcore Athletics End could simply be called Greenland. (2) Westfield’s half time team talk. Come on, that HAS to be strange. Imagine that Rowan Atkinson sketch : “Right, this round white thing is called a “ball”. And what do you do with this ball? You kick it, that’s right”. (3) Sky TV filming the game. Well, they need something to fill the Sunday schedules. (4) Crunched car in West Byfleet with an AFCW sticker in it. Nice, I don’t think.
Anything else? Could mention about how we played, but instead I just found it rather nice driving home last night (inbetween trying to find out the Ireland score on Radio Dive Live) how many AFCW cars there were about. Seriously, I know there is about to be some sort of civil war ready to break out in certain quarters, but when you look at it from a less close-up point of view, we really don’t have that much to fight about.
So, was it worth it? First time scoring more than six in a competitive fixture since doing Windsor and Eton all them years ago? Possibly not…..
In a nutshell: Anyone fancy some 7-Up?