I must admit I'm a little out of practice - it seems so long since my last post!
The season ended a couple of months ago and while it's been a bit dull with no football, plenty seems to have happened. The end of season presentation bash came and went and congratulations to Paul was named the Vet's Player of the Season. Thoroughly deserved after some brilliant goals last term and I was delighted just to even be nominated. It was quite touching to see Lev being honoured with an award for his long service to Latymer. As a 'newbie' to the club I found it fascinating to look through the evening's programme to find the names of lots of the current Vets side who have picked up numerous awards for the 1st XI and so on over the past twenty five years or more! Lev's name popped up in the archives several times so his award was a mark of his commitment and passion for the club over so many years. Well done mate!
The timing for me personally for the season to be over was actually quite perfect as rather out of the blue Ewelina and I had just bought out first house. With the move and the amount of to-ing and fro-ing I needed to do I doubt I could have been available for any matches! We're still getting settled but it feels great to be in our own home.
And of course we've had the Euro's in Poland and Ukraine. Ewelina's parents were visiting as the tournament got under way so our house was very much a Polish fortress for the opening match against Greece. I thought the tournament on the whole was excellent but of course I can still taste the disappointment in England's performance. Yes it was great to see us so solid at the back but I found our play extremely cautious and ultimately quite negative. For me, getting out of the group should be a 'given' and an absolute minimum expectation but the way we played against Italy was actually quite embarrassing. We were properly schooled that night.
With the new season still weeks away it was great to look forward to a wee 6-a-side tournament that Lev had mentioned to me at the awards night. Apparently this was quite a good, well-organised affair and would feature some strong teams including the likes of Garston and the Met Police who play in our league and several other teams who we don't know.
Everyone knows just how crap the weather has been over the last three months with so much rain falling so I wouldn't have been surprised if the whole thing had been called off. As it was, the club that were hosting the event opted for a rather inventive way of avoiding their main pitch getting fucked...
Belstone FC is a proper club. I was impressed by their set-up which included excellent changing rooms, a comfortable club-house and a superb-looking, flat, carpet-like pitch. Usually they split the pitch in two and play the 6-a-side matches across with two matches running side by side. I could see why they would want to preserve the lush surface though and so they had clearly thought about how to still host the event.
Next to the main pitch and behind the dug-outs is an area of land that, I'm told, has always been over-grown and generally ignored. The whole area was now completely flat and Belstone had marked out two good-sized 6-a-side pitches next to each other, complete with nets and flags. It looked great. The only problem was that in essence this area was really just a field- nay in fact it was probably more like a meadow! Alas, the grass hadn't quite been cut short enough and if a couple of cows had ambled over they'd have been like pigs in shit. The rain had been falling again and we all had visions of how the pitches would end up like mud-baths.
It was great to see the lads again. We were looking healthy in terms of personnel with a squad of Nick, Codz, Luffy, Swailsey, Lev, Greg Goumal, Phibsey and yours truly. Standard rules applied with roll-on/roll-off changes throughout; each match played would be a straight fifteen minutes (no half-times) and no pass-backs at all to the goalie.
There were five teams in both groups with the top two going through to the semi finals, the next two going through to 'The Plate' semis and the bottom team in each group due to meet in the 'beer match.'
It's fair to say that it wasn't quite our day. First up we faced Garston. We were the very first match and probably benefited from the meadow being in it's least fucked state. We played some OK football and carved out some half-decent chances. The lads rotated well enough and as the heavens opened and the rain lashed down we were heading towards a good point. That was of course until Mr. Marseille popped up and struck home for Gartson to make it 1-0. That little fucker always scores!! I popped up with a couple of decent stops to keep the score down and their Keeper did well at the other end to deny a couple of our lads. Finding it hard to score would be the theme for us for the whole day...
So a bit of a break before our next match and the opportunity to have a look at some of the other teams on show. On the whole, they all looked fairly decent but I was sure we could pick up a win somewhere...!
Alas, we were hammered 4-0 in the second game where we failed to show up completely and poor Luffy managed to rip his hamstring or something again. It was a wonder to see as he found this burst of energy to fly past a couple of their lads but it was always going to end in tears as that wee burst proved to much and he literally broke down. It was gutting to see cos he's had no luck whatsoever with injuries. I'm gonna order a massive wad of cotton wool and wrap him in it before the season starts properly! Our boys did manage to regain some sort of pride in the third game which ended 0-0. A solid display which we controlled the game for once. Just couldn't finish and nearly threw away totally when we let their lad in only for him to hit the bar!
Funnily enough, if we could get a point in our last match (I forget the names of the other teams) then we actually would progress in fourth place to the plate semis...
We lost 3-0. Bollocks.
So it was the beer match for us but then it turned out that the bottom team from the other group had had enough and had trudged off to have a shower. Ever the 'Keeno', I would've preferred to play - especially when I found out it was going to be a penalty shoot-out!
Yes, Constant Reader, we failed to score any goals. A bit disappointing but truly, we were unlucky as we did create plenty of opportunities. If anything else, it was useful for us to shake of a bit of rust in readiness for the new season ahead.
Nipper and I had a good chat at the awards evening where he revealed his own past as a bit of a writer. The reaction to this blog has been really positive, for which I am grateful, and it was during a conversation about this that Nipper told me that he had actually written and published a book! I was mega impressed with this and demanded a copy as soon as possible. Well, after the tournament finished, Nipper caught me in the car-park and offered a copy of 'Dear Alan, Dear Harry', his book that we'd spoken about. The book charts a series of letters and correspondence between Nipper himself and Alan Sugar/Tottenham Hostpur FC & a reporter for The Mirror newspaper called Harry Harris, as well as the back-story about the inept running of spurs during the Sugar years. To date, I'm about half way through the book and I have to say it is a good read. It's interesting and revealing and really well-written. I guess it makes it more so because it's by someone I know but I think most football fans would enjoy it and I'd recommend it to anyone.
It has inspired me to finally do what I've wanted to do for a long time which is to write a book of my own so watch this space...
Time for a look-a-like methinks...
Those pitches really did look like they were in the meadow!
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