Soccer

Last week was a much better game than our first. I played right half ineffectively for twenty minutes or so, then went back to defense where I played much better. One good run up, but the resulting pass didn't connect. No injuries. The official match report, which doesn't mention me, I think:



ETA Buffalo Vets 0-1 Middle Park Vets



The second game of the season saw the vets hit winning form. Dressed in their unfamiliar away strip they resembled the Man City team of old, Bell, Summerbee, Lee…



The game started well with the MP team passing the ball around along the ground easily and creating openings in the ETA defence. In fact there were so many openings in the ETA defence it resembled ‘buy one get one free night’ at the Daily Planet. This became the way of the game, good solid football in the build up, creating chance, after chance, after chance, after chance…and no goals.





The collection of people gathered on the line, Danny, Marty, Strati, etc, were not discussing the usual things of a Middle Park crowd; who scored the best goal…it was the previously unknown conversation of ‘who missed the easiest chance’. Well??? There were a few contenders; Goran, clean through on goal only 12 yards out, took a dislike to a small dog playing close to the corner flag and skilfully struck the ball with the inside of his right knee, sending the dog scampering away. Thom, again clean through on goal, with the keeper on his line, close to the penalty spot, looked forward to choose his spot, did he choose the left bottom corner, or the right bottom corner?…no, he chose the roof of the changing rooms, some 50 yards behind the goals…both of these and many more were worthy winners of the prized ‘sitter of the year miss’ award. But on a day when missing sitters was the norm, one man stood out from the crowd; was it a defender lost in the opponents penalty area, panicked by the sudden appearance of the ball?...no…was it the keeper with a sudden attack of the Peter Schmicals?…no. This was the man who at least twice in the last 7 years has been the leading goal scorer in a Middle Park team, Mr Dominic Moran. He received an inch perfect ball from Scott from deep in the left corner, only 2 yards out, with the goalkeeper already beaten, all that was left to do was to let the ball hit him…anywhere! and as long as it didn’t drift wide of a 160° arc to either side or a 70° arc upwards it would be a goal…which leaves us to conclude that Dom must have a forehead the shape of a Nordic ski jump, as the ball cleared the bar by at least 2 meters, making the angle of trajectory at least 85°. A clear winner on the day…although, not one to be beaten, Goran did try a number of further times to better Dom’s effort, or win by just sheer quantity of missed sitters.



Finally in the last ten minutes of the game, Scott broke through on goal and hit the ball cleanly into the bottom corner, just before desperation set in and Strati had to put his boots on again.



The merits of the day went to a solid defence, led by Adrian Pender, who fittingly received most votes for BOG. Between Adrian, Chris, Thom and Rhys, Graham was left with little to do but dream about dancing in cages at Abode.



All in all, a good win for the MP Vets and a good reply to last weeks result.