I got up quite early and must admit it felt a bit like Christmas morning. I think it had more to do with the hope and anticipation of what 'might be' than anything else. Also, the chance to impress and wipe the slate clean with a fresh start for a team that knew nothing of any previous goalkeeping errors, was just a bit too exciting!
I'd done the usual preparation with the cleaning of my boots and gloves etc and had neatly prepared my bag the day before. God, I must be a little bit sad. Does anyone else go through these kind of rituals and preparations for Sunday morning football?
Lev had contacted me in the week to take me up on my offer of using the spare kit that I had left from the ill-fated ALC FC's eventual demise. It seemed that Latymer's strip of blue & black (Inter Milan) clashed with Maccabi's all blue kit. Happy to help as ever, I duly prepared and folded the red and black shirts and loaded the kit bag into the back of the car.
I asked my wife, Ewelina, if she fancied coming along to lend a bit of support. We've only been married a few months and I'm very much of the opinion that I really am the luckiest guy alive with a wife like her. But, to be fair football isn't really her cup of tea. I probably watch too much football - any game that's on the telly really - and she is an absolute diamond because she rarely complains. I tried to get her enthused a little by harping on about the Polish boy, Radi Majewski, who plays for Forest. You see, Ewelina is from Poland so I thought If I could spark her interest a little then I could at least convert her to a follower of the 'Tricky Trees.' She wasn't buying it though. I even went a bit further by pointing out the Polish lad, Wojciech Szczesny, who plays in goal for Arsenal. All this did was make her think that Poland produced brilliant footballers rather than make her fall in love with the beautiful game. She was an absolute diamond over the summer though when I played in the Latymer 5-a-side tournament for Phil Hartley's team. Ewelina came along and brought our dog, Jasper, and we even did a whole pic-nic for the day. She was a bit puzzled why I was in goal though as she thought that that wasn't really playing! She asked, "Surely you want to run around a bit?" - Like fuck I do!! In the end I had to persuade her that I actually wanted to be in goal and that it wasn't some kind of punishment. She was impressed with a couple of dazzling saves she saw me make but that soon evaporated because we lost every game and ended up getting knocked out early. The sandwiches and crisps went down well though with the rest of our team - we'd made enough to feed the whole of Enfield!
Ewelina did promise me that she would come and watch a Vet's game at some point but not just yet... I dropped her off at the Catholic church in Waltham Cross and she went off to practice her religion and I went off to practice mine.
I have this habit of arriving early and as I drove into the car park I started to question if I was in the right place because there were two blokes in yellow jackets on car-park duty! I was directed left and drove past the main pitch that was possibly the flattest, biggest and greenest pitch (complete with dug-outs) I'd ever seen. The goals had those thick round posts and bars that you see at Wembley with nets professionally propped up at the back. There was even a white horizontal barrier all the way around the pitches perimeter for spectators to stand behind. There were other pitches further down too but this was the one I hoped we might be playing on. I remembered what Mark had said the week before about the lovely pitches that the Vet's get to play on and boy, he wasn't exaggerating.
I was pleased to find Lev was already there and he confirmed that we were indeed playing on that pitch! Introductions as the rest of the team arrived were as pleasant as I'd expected and Lev fielded questions about where "the nice new kit" was from. I think someone said something like; "Nice one Lev, not only have you found a goal keeper, he comes with a kit as well!"
I was used to being one of the oldest players last season for ALC FC. As I met the Vet's lads it quickly became evident that I was one of the youngest. I mean these guys are real men - proper. None of these fresh-faced youths or lightning quick 17 year olds. It was extremely refreshing to be in the company of like-minded blokes who just wanted to play football. Don't get me wrong, they are as competitive as ever - more so probably - but there didn't seem to be any illusions of grandeur or mis-placed dreams that Arsene Wenger had sent a scout along to watch them play. I was desperate to do well and have to be honest the nerves were kicking in. I just hoped for a nice early save to settle myself down.
I'm good with names usually but I have to say I found it difficult to remember everyone, which didn't help. The boys (men!) who were starting at the back included Wrexy who offered to take goal kicks for me even before I'd made my standard confession (see previous post). Two minutes later, Nick, the skipper, said hello "You OK with goal kicks Greg, or do you want me to take them?"
"Er, no it's OK Wrexy's gonna take care of them..."
I smelt a bit of a conspiracy - maybe Lev had already had a word? I call that good management!
The thing that I thought was the oddest but still the best bit about Vet's football is that they operate with roll-on & roll-off subs throughout - even for non-friendly games. It gives everyone the chance to have a decent game and not be pressured into getting too shagged. There are lots of subs too - unlimited amount it seems. I think we had about 17 players! They kept arriving and at this point I wasn't aware of the rotation system so didn't have a clue how Lev was gonna let so many down. "Er sorry but we've got about 27 players today so you might not get a game. Strip up though cos you never know..." What was interesting was last year when I ran ALC, I struggled some weeks to get a bare 11 - this lot turned up by the dozen. I think it goes to show that the nippers don't realize how quickly it all goes. I could never understand it when I had people not turning up on a Sunday morning, choosing to lake in bed probably and miss our match. These young lads don't know they're born half the time. When I was their age I never wanted to miss a game.
My Vets's debut turned out to be fairly decent from a personal perspective although we did end up getting stuffed 6-2! I've left it more than a week to get this post written so the nature of some of the goals have become a bit of a blur but their first was a cut back from the by-line for a basic tap-in - nothing I could do about that one. Number three was a penalty after Nick, the Skipper, was judged to have pushed the striker over. Nick was far from happy and disputed and moaned and then moaned some more. Not wishing to get on the wrong side of the Captain but I thought it was a penalty. I was sent the wrong way and it looked like we were in for a drubbing.
My highlight in the first half came in the form of a 'super save' that saw me fly across to my top left corner to get my finger tips onto the ball and push it on to the posy and then clear as it fell straight down on top of me. There were another couple of basic stops which any keeper would have dealt with and no real glaring errors. I must admit it took me a while to settle and I was happy when we got to half time. Our opposition were a good outfit and out lot were completely shagged. No pre-season friendlies - just straight in to the first game of the season. Even as a newcomer, I could tell that most of the boys were still shaking the rust off and I hoped we could at least make more of a game of it in the second half...
We scored really early with a good move throughout the team and I thought, hang on, we might be back in this. Then they replied pretty quickly to restore the three goal gap and I knew it just wasn't going to happen. I think number four was another cut back and tap in job; number five came as their player attempted to lob me - I got a decent enough hand on it but I was at full stretch and didn't have the momentum to put it over. As it fell their lad ran in and headed the ball in to the net. Number six was a bit disappointing too - I saved an initial header and would have hoped to push it safe. As it was it went straight to another one of them and he headed in. Our consolation goal right at the end was well deserved because in truth we did carve out three or four decent chances through the second half without reward.
So our tail was well and truly between our legs as we trudged off. I thoroughly enjoyed my debut in spite of the scoreline and enjoyed the beer in the bar after with some of the boys. Lev was kind enough to give me a decent mention in his post match summary email a few days later and that boosted my confidence in readiness for our next game.
Note to self: Come out and punch more....
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