Following Mr Brew’s harsh departure from the Vale’s 2005-6 championship chase, an advert was placed in the Shropshire Evening News for a suitable replacement centre back. After interviewing for three straight days in the week, with Cam finding no suitable alternatives (“Too good”, “Not good enough”, “too good looking, will distract me”, “already got a mophead in the team”, “American” etc ad naueum), he was forced to look further afield. A note was attached to his prize winning pigeon Clarabella and released. No instructions or directions were necessary… Clarabella had only one calling. She had come from a long line of pigeons, specially bred and handpicked from a litter of over two thousand, born into this world only to locate and retrieve a player steeped in Vale folklore, pickled in the very juice of the fabled Shire and sent far away until the world was ready once more. And ready it was.
As the players got changed, a sense of hope was cast amongst the Valains, an amber hue was cast over the room that grew steadily stronger and stronger until all were forced to squint against the light and then it climaxed and was gone. Flight Leiutenant Slackbladder Horatio the 4th, dothed with cap and impeccable uniform, entered the room and saluted the team to rapturous applause.
The gaffer talked through the team. Brazilian import Shozzamaroo would make his first start in a Vale shirt up front, Slacky and Smudge the centre backs, with Pete Gouge on the left and Smelly Mick on the right… hang on… isn’t that the.. the…{gasp} ginger flying V? Never in this humble reporter’s life had I been so excited yet petrified. The ginger v was manipulating nature, treading where man should fear to tread, playing God. The very fabric of existence could hinge on the next ninety minutes and the Vale’s ability to hold the tainted formation together.
Stourbridge Spots had come to Valeton and they wanted blood. Before the match had even kicked off, they were on the lookout for the one and only Gobbler… and his friends. The Vale were stretched, as Danbo, Stubo, Mezzbo and Brewbo were missing, and the Baldy striker for the Spots obviously thought that yours truly and my webmonkey buddies would be making up the numbers. Asking the ever helpful Smudger where the Gobbler played, Steve replied “He plays everywhere and nowhere, his essence is found in every living organism in the universe and only those possessing a bizarre gene mutation can sense him”. With the retort somewhat lost on the striker he called Steve a “C*nt” then pointed at Mick “Is that him?” Steve simply shook his head firmly. “You’ll never achieve true enlightenment using only your five senses”. And so on it went. He plucky fella thought he was alone for the day and would escape the criticism but how wrong he was. After attaching a miniature webcam to his lucky undercrackers I was granted the once in a lifetime opportunity to observe this species’ behaviour in the wild.
Off kicked the game and I was forced to switch off the audio in my booth, the neverending stream of unintelligible babble emanating from my subject became nauseatingly overpowering. The Vale got promptly stuck in, with everybody riding high on the back of the previous weeks win. Unfortunately the Spots resorted to dirty tricks, deafening the lads with their neverending handball shouts. Luckily Squealer kept his mouth shut this time, only responding to Smudge’s question about Baldy “How do you put up with him every week?” with a “He doesn’t play very often”. The game was end to end then finally the Spots had a break and Baldy only went and scored. My knobend-cam recorded the moment in perfect detail and I detected excessive use of the toe, and judging by his pulse and biorhythyms, the player was clearly surprised he kicked it that far. 0-1.
Back came the Vale and they started to get the ball down and work the defence. A corner finally came in from the left hand side and bobbly bobbly bobbly, defensive mixup and Slackbladder got in the mixer and punted the ball home. “Right ho chaps, chocks away and all that, lets bladdy well get back at them and that’s how you do it what what” came the celebration. 1-1.
Half time came and went and baldy went into moaning overdrive. Pete and Gerry inserted their ear defenders, whilst for Rob and Steve it was already too late, showing signs of disorientation and nausea, they went off for rapid medical attention. The Spots managed to break through again and despite Rob’s best efforts with an army-chesty-arm manoeuvre, seemingly allowed in the forces, our subject snuck past. With only Andy to beat with Smudger and Mophead closing rapidly, Andy did what he had to do and took him out at the knees with his hideously oversized right forearm. After going to ground quicker than a labour of moles at the hole-digging Olympics, Baldy rolled around a lot and moaning intensity increased tenfold. The Sofa was booked for his efforts, with Pete and Smudge playing pattycakes on the goal line, at which Baldy moaned a bit more and must have pulled something. He slotted the penalty in the corner, Andy unlucky not to stop it, and promptly subbed himself off, his game obviously impeded with lack of voice.
The Vale dug in, ten minutes remained and they felt they had done enough to salvage a point at least. Several attacks came to chances as the Spots tired, but our boys couldn’t finish off. Big Timmy Ellis came on to try to rebalance the hairloss statistics but still couldn’t convert. Then it came, Tim won a free kick on the edge of the box. The whistle dangled betwixt lip, spittle and lip in the ref’s mouth and he inhaled his final inhale. Cam took the kick and bollocks, its out… for a corner. Mophead dashed over to pop the corner in, everyone groaned as he wound up the right leg. Over flew the ball in slow motion, the ref had finished his long inhale and the lips closed over the whistle, Laan called and flew into the air athletically, the ball intercepted by a defender flew vertically as Laan landed in a heap, the ref’s cheeks started to bulge, the ball landed at Rob’s feet and again he lashed out goalwards. The p of peep peep peeeeeeeeeeep came out of the whistle as the ball rebounded off a defender to the Pirate. Out lashed the pegleg and splinters flew as it connected, and the ball floated up and into the goal. 2-2 in the dying embers of this game. Baldy regained his voice “You bunch of tossers, why did you lose that”. The Vale celebrated until news of a subs surcharge to pay for Gerry’s prosthetic filtered through the ranks. Not to worry they all said, especially Pedro. “It’s always good to beat teams like that isn’t it?” Isn’t it just Pete, never a truer word said.
Attendence 16
Nibbler
