Latymer Old Boys 2nn XI away @ Unknown - lost 2-0

I think I'm going to have to make it my mission to play for every Latymer team this season after my latest call-up involved stepping into the 2nd eleven last Saturday. This means that I've now played for the Vets, the first's, second's and fifth's and so if the opportunity arises to turn out for the third's and fourth's I'll have a full house!

I'll keep it brief, as I need to go and but some last minute pressies for Christmas but both myself and Phil Hartley got the call on the Thursday before the game and as my usual Vets game had been postponed (again!) I was happy to squeeze in a final game before the "winter break."

Thankfully it was only in Edmonton so I arrived into the unknown in plenty of time before kick-off, knowing nobody at all and without Phil who had gone down sick. The Second's were very welcoming - something that is prominent through all the sides in the club and I got myself ready listening to funny banter between the lads as the Arsenal fans slagged of the United fans - and vice-versa.

The Second team can play football. They look to pass and move all the time and I was impressed with the short Geordie lad called Alan in the centre of Midfield who was lively and skillful in his play. Sadly though, they found it quite hard to be a force in front of goal and rarely created an opportunity to have a shot. The opponents were tough in the tackle but our boys gave as good as they got and the first half was a bit of a stalemate.

I had little to do except be on my toes to mop up through-balls but frustratingly we went one-nil down towards half-time as their striker was put through to slam home past me. It was a decent shot and I don't think there was any expectation that I should have stopped it. Even so, I did go to ground earlier than I usually would and it might have made a difference if I had stood tall.

We should have had a penalty but the Ref was having none of it as our lad was clipped down.

The second half was very bitty and again we lacked any real penetration. I grabbed a few balls out of the air and punched a free kick to safety but apart from that the play was centred around the middle of the pitch. Their second goal was a scrappy affair that saw a long range free kick lofted into the box. Our defender was out jumped as their striker nodded the ball down - it bounced and like a pin-ball for a few seconds before it went up in the air only for one of them to bloody overhead kick it with a looping shot into my net.

Disappointing.

I enjoyed the run out but I think the lack of fire power was the difference.

Looking forward to 2012 and the Vets kick-starting our season with a win or two.

Happy Christmas everyone and thanks for supporting this blog with your continual reading.

Latymer Vets away @ Atlas - lost 2-1

I knew that eventually my penchant for dishing out a bit of abuse on this blog was going to land me in the shit. Readers of my last post may remember my reference to the Referee for the Maccabi game which was, shall we say, a little unkind....

No-one thought to tell me that this particular Ref was in fact a bit of a Latymer legend with over forty five years of service to the club and who was of course a former club Captain and honoury Life-President. I also wasn't aware that he was in-fact on the email distribution list so when I sent out my usual brief alert that the post was available to read, he of course had full view of my over-the-top description!

Steve Last, our man in question, thankfully saw the funny side of it all but I was extremely embarrassed to say the least and rather sheepishly offered a wave of apologies when I saw him for our next game which he was again referee for. Steve laughed it all off again and it says an awful lot about the man with his ability to be so forgiving. But once again for the record- my sincere apologies.

We were rather hoping to build on our 1-1 draw from the last match and an away tie in Greenford to Atlas Vets, we felt, might just bring us our first win of the season.

Indeed, we have discovered the ability to be much more disciplined in our play and hold two banks of four in a much more organised and professional manner but this time round it seemed that lady luck wasn't on our side as we went down 2-1.

Codz was back this week to partner Scottish John  in the heart of the defence with Mark in his usual left-back slot and Marcello on the right. We started with Nipper down left midfield and Dino on the right with Jonesy and Paul in the engine room. Sully again partnered Matt up top, while Lev and Adam on the bench this time. Sadly, Nipper lasted only five minutes before limping off with what I think was a pulled hammy so Lev was employed as an emergency left winger! Marcello also experienced a bit of a niggle of sorts so took an early rest with Adam slotting in at the back - good for me because he's my goal-kick merchant!

Atlas started quite brightly and it was evident that they were very much a passing team. They perhaps over-did it a bit but they moved well for each other and popped the ball out wide in an effort to get any cross over. I felt our boys coped pretty well and were really good at staying on their feet and not diving in, getting pulled out of position.

I didn't have an awful lot to do in the opening quarter of the game and bit by bit Latymer began to take control of the game.

We enjoyed a flurry of encounters on their goal which led to a string of corners that certainly caused them a few problems. Codz was getting himself into the fray in their box as much as possible from these corners and only narrowly slammed the ball over from one half chance. Our own passing and moving was really good and Jonesy was asking his usual questions with through balls for Matt and down the right wing for Dino. I think Sully was gutted at the end of the game because he had some really good chances to score, one the Keeper did really well to stop, another that he curled inches wide with the outside of his left peg and yet another that was a little back-heel on goal from a shot from Jonesy.

My own little adventures as the half wore on included a decent but expected stop as one of their lads fired on goal after the ball was scrambled clear from their corner. It was straight at me but I did see it late as it came through a crowd so a double-fisted block was enough to send it clear of danger. There was also a one-on-one as their attacker came clean through. Closing the angle quickly was enough to force an early shot that flew wide and over.

Then the sucker-punch. We failed to stop a cross coming over from their right winger and it sailed beyond me onto the head of an incoming striker to nod home from six yards. A few of us threw our toys out of our prams but thankfully it only took a minute for us to grab a cheeky equaliser.

And yet again it seems we owe a bit of grateful debt to our truly fantastic Referee as for the second week in a row his out-of-place whistle evidently helped us out. Last week he was forced to disallow a perfectly good goal for Maccabi when he blew his whistle when the ball was in mid-air (and going over my head and in) for a dodgy offside. This time it was our throw-in on the right which of course, Matt launched into the box. All I saw was Paul connect sublimely with the sweetest volley to drive the ball into the bottom lefty hand corner. Paul turned and ran off in delight, mobbed by our boys and we thought that was that. The Atlas lot were going bonkers at Lasty, complaining that they had heard him blow his whistle as the ball came over and they reckoned it made them all stop. This time, the Ref was having none of it, I think denying he'd blown at all, and firmly awarded the goal!! Superb. I love a favour!

We lost Matt towards the end of the half as he rather nastily turned his ankle badly and had to be carried off. The latest news is that there is no break but agonisingly he has injured some ligaments. Gutted for him. Matt's been a really strong player for us this season so I hope he can get back soon.

The second half was one way traffic all the way really but at the same time we dealt with it really well. There weren't any major dodgy moments for us and we coped really well - mainly because we kept our shape and Atlas were forced to play it side ways. Scottish John had a superb game and did save our bacon a couple of times with a last-ditch sliding tackle, but other than that it looked like we'd get another draw. In-fact we could have nicked it as twice we were able to counter attack and catch them on the break - one in particular saw Lev slide a super weighted pass down our left flank for a charging Mark to run onto. We couldn't make the final ball count and just weren't able to get a shot in on any of these breaks though.

Their little front guy (who looked about twelve) was a little ferret who had no sense of humour. Codz had properly wound him up at the end of the first half and it was comical to see this little 5ft Turkish chap tyring to square up to 6ft 5 Codz! Their lad looked like the little creature from Harry Potter called Dobby trying to take on Lord Valdemort!

Dobby found himself through one-on-one with me and as I rushed out to block him he chipped the ball over my left arm only to see it rebound off the left post and then cleared by the Scotsman. He wasn't happy as I chirped in his ear and he was being a right little gob-shite.

I only had a free-kick from twenty yards out to deal with that curled round the wall and straight at me so with only five minutes left I was sure that we'd done enough to get another draw.

Of course, things don't always go according to plan but it took a speculative long range effort that crashed the underside of my bar, bouncing down and in to beat me. I was so pissed off as we had worked really hard and deserved to get at least a draw.

Dobby found me after the final whistle to have a final swipe - little fucker!

To add insult to injury, there was no bloody bar open and no grub laid on by our hosts. I vote we send 'em to the Kebab house when we play them in Enfield in 2012.

This week's look-a-likes clearly have to be their little chirpy centre-forward and our very own Codz. Dobby and Valdemort take it away...

 

Latymer Old Boys Vets @ home to Maccabi Lions Vets - 1-1 Draw(!)

It was nice to be contacted in the week by Pete Collop, Captain of the 1st XI, to ask if I could play again on the Saturday, and I would have snatched his hand off had there been no Vets match scheduled for the Sunday. Two games in one weekend kind of takes the piss a bit on poor Wifey, so I declined and was majorly focused on putting in a solid performance for the 'overs.'

Our home games have, thus far, been non-existent as the club seem to be in endless negotiations and talks over our proposed use of the new Queen Elizabeth II stadium at the top of Enfield playing fields. This new arena seems to have taken an age to finally get to the finished article but I have to say it is rather splendid. Complete with an athletics track round the pitch (rather spoiling the atmosphere no doubt!), the ground is the new home of Enfield Town and we have been led to believe that the Vets will be allowed to use it on a Sunday. Given the excellent venues that the likes of Maccabi Lions and North Greenford use it would be fitting and in-keeping with the standard of the league to be able to host our opponents in this new stadium.

Alas, we were put off again for this weeks game at home to Maccabi so had to slum it on the regular pitches on the fields. The new changing rooms were also "not quite finished" and so we had to use the joyous Central Pavilion. The Central Pav is proper old school. There are no individual changing rooms - rather a full-on open room where all the teams (and there are always loads) have to get changed with only a few inches of bench and a broken clothes peg for every couple of men! You're afraid to bend over to tie your boots for fear of getting knocked arse-over-tit and the testosterone in the air is only overshadowed by the smell of sweat, deep-heat and some fat blokes Indian from the night before.

Even so, a home fixture is a home fixture and surely the place you might hope to build s decent run of results from....

We were up against Maccabi Lions who were our opponents for the opening game of the season. They were too strong for us on their big, beautiful pitch that day running out as 6-2 winners. I feared a similar story if I'm honest, purely because it had been about a month since our last game! For different reasons we've had fixtures postponed and I was worried the gap since our last promising performance against Garston would have filtered out any drive and momentum we might have looked to build on.

Thankfully, we had decent numbers in terms of personnel for the match with fourteen names on the squad list for the fixture. Nick Klinsman was still out having still not been able to recover from an ankle injury picked up six weeks ago against the Met Police! I think Nick must have felt he was in the Doctors surgery before the game as about four of us offered expert opinions and advice on what the injury had to be. I diagnosed tendinitis and told him to "keep it elevated wherever possible and use ice or freeze gel as much as possible." Dr. Luffy took Nick through his symptoms and recommended a sort of flexing routine of exercises to "keep it loose" while Doctors Lev and Scottish John nodded in approval while concurring.

No Codz either (bad back) meant that Wrexy was partnered at Centre Back by the Scotsman for the first time after a run of games at full back. These slots were filled by Mark as usual on the left and Adam, back in after missing a couple of games of the right. We had a very attack-minded midfield with Luffy and Dino on the flanks and Jonesy and Paul in the middle. It was nice to have our play maker back and I was looking forward to him linking up with Paul who also had missed the last two games. Matt was partnered by Sully up top and to be fair I thought we looked a strong unit, especially with Lev, Nipper and Shamzey on the bench.

I loved the fact that Ref looked like some fat trucker, complete with dirty baseball cap and scruffy beard. I think I even saw traces of brown sauce on his chops from his morning bacon butty!

So did we take another spanking or did we finally manage to notch our first win of the season? Well the answer is no - to both questions. Yes, Constant Reader, our first points of the season came by way of one of the luckiest, frenetic, ball-hits-woodwork-fifty-chuffing-times, cheekiest 1-1 draws known to man. And this is how it happened...

I actually thought we played well for the first fifteen minutes or so, keeping the ball and putting a decent string of sensible passes together several times. The game was generally being played around the halfway line and more so into their half, with once again, Jonesy totally dominating possession. He is always looking for the ball and creating the angle to receive the ball back after a pass and just doesn't stop running. His link up play with both Luffy and Dino was really good and Paul was really strong too. I felt we were coping really well and I hadn't really been troubled at all through the first quarter of the game. Maccabi are a good side and slowly did start to exert themselves into the game. They were constantly looking to get the ball wide, especially down their left, with a view to getting a cross in. Adam was having what I think was his best game of the season at right-back - closing down their winger as much as possible and Dino was doing well to support this as well.

I was called into action for the first time when scramble saw the ball fly into my penalty area to the feet of Mister Attacker. He sort of hesitated as he came forward because suddenly he was one on one with me. This lack of initiative from him meant that I was able to close him down enough to get down quickly and get a boot on the ball to scuff it wide for their first corner.

This proved a good moment for me too  - the corner was smashed high and at pace but was literally coming straight down my throat as I was looking at it. A nice early scream from me saw me follow up with a really decent take out of the air as the ball stuck to my gloves like glue. For a goalkeeper this is always a nice moment as it inspires confidence.

Not long after that their attacker broke into my box down their left hand side. As he strode forward on goal the angle was fairly tight and in my favour. Even so his shot beat me but not my post as it luckily hit my left upright and literally rebounded straight into my arms as I was lying on the floor!

You could say we had started to ride our luck just a little bit. Various incidents included a one on one of sorts as their bloke was put clean through - I committed to come really far out to meet him while he was still outside my box, forcing him to pelt a chipped effort over my head. The bar came to our rescue this time, although I must admit I felt good that I'd rushed him into that particular effort.

Another moment saw Adam rocket the ball over my own bar as he cleared more danger and then of course the inevitable happened, and they scored.

Their lad broke into the box down their right this time and sprinted in on goal. The angle was again quite tight and I hugged my near post so I couldn't be embarrassed with any shot there. When the shot came it went across me and I did get a decent body behind it making a standard save. As it rebounded back towards the penalty spot a mad scramble from the Latymer boys wasn't enough to stop it rolling straight to one of them and he cooley popped the ball into my bottom right hand corner.

The pressure had been quite strong from them but it was still disappointing to concede.

Our forwards hadn't had a great deal of joy and I think I remember only a couple of efforts that didn't trouble their keeper. Their number one was a different lad from the first game and it has to be said - this bloke was a bit of a pudding. He didn't look like he could get off the floor if he was called into action and I was just praying Matt could unleash one of his unstoppable long-range shots on his goal. Matt and I had spoken before the game started as I pointed out to him what I saw as a possible Achilles heel, and Matt assured me he'd be setting his sights as much as possible. Frustratingly, the opportunities just weren't forthcoming, and the one half-chance that did come Matt's way was from quite far out and sadly he just couldn't keep the ball from going high and wide.

It wasn't long after going a goal down that the ghosts of high-balls past came back to haunt me. I could see their winger desperately trying to shape to get the ball over at my goal from their wide left position. I wanted him closed down, no-one did and finally he lofted the ball directly at me . I had all the time in the world to see it but yes it was a windy day and I felt that on its path towards my goal it did experience a sudden whoosh that helped it loop and fly more than just a bit. I stumbled back and caught a stud on the bumpy grass under-foot. In my defence it was always going into that tricky area between bar and post and it was coming down from a silly height. I missed it and it went in as I fell like a pile of bricks into my own net. Gutted.... The funny thing was as that Scottish John was saying "Dinna worry Greg - it's not a goal..."

Confused, I quickly got the gist that as the ball had flew over, one of their lads was standing in an off-side position. I mean he wasn't active but Nipper popped his flag up anyway and had the ball required a touch off him it would have been a genuine free-kick to us. Rather brilliantly, the Ref had blown his whistle before the ball had gone in and while it was in mid-air!! Maccabi were off celebrating and our lot were going mad at the Ref. After all we play to the whistle right? The Ref was desperately trying to back-track over his premature whistle saying that the ball was going in anyway. That was until I rather cheekily and bare-facedly piped up that it was in-fact his whistle that had "made me stop" had "put me off" and "I had it covered but let it go cos your whistle went!"

The poor Ref had no choice but to disallow the goal and award the free-kick!! Priceless.

Even though it was ruled out, I was genuinely chuffed to make amends minutes later. The ball pinged about round the edge of my box and eventually was driven very low and very hard at my bottom right hand corner. I almost left it as I thought for a second it was going wide but before I knew it I had managed to get down and offer a full, firm hand to palm it round the post. As I looked past me post save I could see the ball literally curling inches wide. Relief! It was almost a carbon copy of a save I'd made for the 1st XI a coupe of weeks earlier and I didn't feel such a twat after the goal that wasn't incident.

We made it to half time and were really geared up to give it a real go in the second half. Matt had to disappear to a prior commitment so Nipper came into the fray. Paul assured me he needed no encouragement to shoot when I pointed out their fat keeper and we kicked off and prayed for a miracle.

Someone was listening somewhere because for the next forty five minutes we soaked up so much pressure and cashed in our lucky dollars for the season as Maccabi did everything but score a second goal. They were firmly camped in our half and had a few shots fly wide or over that perhaps they could and should have scored from. Luffy's hammy seemed to go again so Shamzey came on and later, Lev replaced a hobbling Scottish John.

They crashed my bar another two times and I was punching balls clear where possible as lady luck smiled on us and it got to the stage where John Motson would have said something like "and you can just sense that Maccabi Lions may be made to pay for squandering what can only be described as a mountain of opportunities at the Latymer goal!"

And you know what? Motty would have been right. We picked up a free kick as one of our boys was chopped down midway into their half and down our right. Adam took it a pinged the ball at pace straight onto the edge of their six yard box. It was such a scramble and from where I was I couldn't;t really see it but at least three of our lot went up for the ball as did their keeper. He missed it, someone connected with it and the ball ended up in the net!! Fuck me we'd scored. 1-1

Maccabi were going bonkers claiming a foul on their Keeper but the Ref wasn't having it and awarded the goal. Shamzey said he'd got "something on it", Sully was desperately trying to convince anyone who'd listen that he had "the final touch" and Paul described how he'd "barged through the Keeper with an elbow and headed the ball home!" Either way it was more like tag-team move out of WWE on their poor Keeper because Paul admitted later that it was a definite foul. Who fucking cares? We deserved the goal because we've had nothing this season and were due a bit of luck for a change.

The goal came with about six minutes left and for the final five it was like the Alamo on my goal. Maccabi prodded and poked trying top break through to nick a late winner. And sure enough they had their chance...

I was ultra determined that I wouldn't concede, so when their attacker managed to wriggle past our last defender to be clean through in a one-on-one I stood tall, and I stood firm. The shot was hard but I sprang to my right and made a strong, decent save. The danger was only averted when the ball that rebounded to another of them was sent wide of my post.

They had corner after corner and I did enough to block a header point blank as I rose with their striker, and there was time for one final shot on my goal that was going in until, for some reason, their number 17 decided he'd get a flick on it that sent it over!

The final whistle was music to my ears and I was elated that we had finally got some points. It felt as good as a win and I know that all the Latymer lads were just chuffed to bits. It was nice to see Pete and Andy had arrived during the second half to watch the game and they enjoyed the result as much as anybody. Jonesy and Adam commented that I must have been carrying my rabbit's foot, four leaf clover and lucky horse-shoe in my bag that morning - something like that!

Yes, we had been lucky but I firmly believe you make your own luck. Football is the best game in the world and we proved that against a strong team, who had previously beaten us heavily, we could compete.

The new cafe and bar facilities were open so we thoroughly enjoyed a pint and a sarnie and looked forward to our next game and the thought of making it to our first win.

This week's look-a-like's must surely be Paul and Sully after their impression of the Legion of Doom with their double-team on the Maccabi Keeper: