Match Report

Cold, chilly, wintry, windy, icy, blowing a galey, Sharp, freezing, snowing, ------- yep - it was the closest we’ve come to playing in polar-Arctic conditions this year!! Once again the Ice-pack Twelve turned out on a mother of a day to fight the cause, and battle on from the previous week’s glory bout. So there we were in the Warren changing rooms, lathering up for the ''OLD-FIRM DERBY ''of men in blue versus hearts of gold. Fortunately shares in deep-heat had rocketed in the previous days to allow some intrepid players to embalm themselves in congealed silence. This was the female equivalent to a make-up party; white smelly stuff was being squirted all over the place, much to some irritation. Toby” The Wedge" Manchip suffered third degree burns, while Colin"Nutsonfire" will never have to worry about having children!! It was all getting silly, some players were having real problems finding their own feet from all the acrid vapour, let alone find the pitch...but as the Turkish - bath like dressing room receded, we strode out to......Antarctica.

To the match then, and as usual we started off brightly covering the spaces well, and making a game of it. Dave “I got 9 years” Asseltine was playing well up front, being admirably supported by Colin “My Balls" Mant. Yes, just as before we had risen to the challenge, shaken off those wintry blues, come out of the fridge, and put some decent passes together. As usual we were having the best of it and as usual, what do the "boys in blue" do when it’s not going entirely their own way? Yep that’s right.....they moan......... Moan, moan moan, moan, moan moan. Not surprisingly during one of their major moaning bouts, Dave “But, society''s to blame your Honour" Asseltine, floated in like a polar bear and put us one nil up, and that’s the way it stayed until half-time.

So there we were at half time in the lead against a fit bunch of rozzers and it felt good. During the break a liberal dose of antifreeze seemed to do the trick, and the game continued on apace with all battling away well. And that was that, one nil up, our first win of the season in our sights, against an unlikely foe....hold on there, but this is the vets you''re talking about, so..........10 minutes from the end Toby "LOOK I’M IN GOAL'' Harlow rose like a flowering penguin, and dived at the ball pulling off top marks for an incredible Gordon Banks like Pele save. Unfortunately nobody seemed to have told him that he was not, and that having no gloves on, made him an outfield player!!!!

Needless to say, their player netted the penalty, and as you all know the rest is just history. Within the last 10 minutes they scored another 3 to make it an undeserved 4-1 victory. So what can we take from this? Well another good all round performance from everyone. A good showing up front with Colin “I’m off to the doctor''s now" Mant and Davey ”assault-and-battery“ Asseltine, being replaced by Lee "The Larch" Southby. The midfield dynamos, being Chris "I’m up for it" Bourlet, Steve "Help me out boys from another team" Bloke, Chris "Only good for one half" Ponulakkkkkkkky, and Colin "Well at least I lasted 10 minutes this time" Ebdon. Then the back line of Patrice "Newky-Brown" Mongelard, Steve “3-pints" Blanchard, Trevor "Where’s the ball?" Stewart and Toby “Are you happy now I’ve bought a drink?" Harlow. This of course leaves our goalkeeper/centre-forward Toby "Hole in one" Manchip.

Congratulations to man of the match Toby Harlow followed closely by Patrice Mongelard....................

So on to this week.....well another 7 days will have passed, so we need to lick our wounds, roll up our sleeves, and........against this new team........try scoring more goals than the opposition for a change!!!!!