Everything we humans have ever done, and will ever do, is ultimately meaningless. A few billion years from now as the sun depletes its hydrogen and scorches the earth before swallowing it whole, everything that has ever happened on this planet will be forgotten. Many eons later, as the universe inexorably heads towards the heat death that will herald the end of information - a soupy mix of blandness that is second only to 8 out of 10 Cats - everything else will be forgotten; all the efforts of everything, everywhere, will be for nought.
Except for one event. One event will ring down through the ages. One event will stand the test of astrological time. One event will never be lost to the inevitability of entropy: that time when Tyson called the opposition striker a wanker two weeks in a row. And boy was he right.
But first, the lineup. Tys in goal, natch. Then a backline of Qualter, Neal Chettle, Boyband and me. I fucking hate playing at the back. Where are all our defenders? Molby? Sam? Jackson Flash? Stu? Hoofer? Charlie George? All missing, all living up to the C in BoC (Clowns. It stands for clowns). Speaking of Charlie George, he was a late withdrawal due to "minor surgery, nothing serious, but the Doc advised two weeks lay off". Rumours were flying as to what it was for, with the bookies' favourites being Septum Repair and Rectal Prolapse, while Neck Muscle Enhancement was favoured by those with inside knowledge. Get better soon Charlie, we need you!
Midfield of Hoff Jnr, Neil, Phil and Jordan with Latch and Ilyas up front, Tom warming the bench as he was late, no doubt busy at work maintaining their stable of hit websites.
We dominated early, and had them pinned back in their half for the first ten minutes or so, but couldn't score. Their central midfielder, Leigh (I'm sure it's not spelt Leigh, but I dislike him intently, so I'm going to spell it that way as I feel it's more emasculating), finally cajoled them all into pushing up higher the pitch which evened things up a bit. Lowlight was baldie at the back, Paul, almost breaking Hoff Jnr's wrist by shoving him full-tilt into the hockey goals. He's a dirty bastard that baldie. Never mind Hoff, every injury is grist for the sympathy-root mill.
0-0 at half time, with plenty of long balls from Neal at the back, y'know, the ones where he looks down with his head but up with his eyes, points his right arm to the sky, almost like Hitler, and the belts it with his left. UPDATE: Just checked the official Opta stats, and it says his conversion rate for those long balls for the game was 20% (1 from 5), with 40% (2 from 5) skidding straight out for a goal kick and 40% (2 from 5) nestling gracefully in the arms of the opposition goalie.
Second half was a minor switcharound, Zamora doing some bench time for the start and I moved to CB, Zondervan at right back briefly. Did I mention I hate playing at the back? We need to get some rotation going, or a roster, or a rota, or a schedule. I don't care what it's called really. Actually, we need to get Hoofer back. Side note: no one tell him that the Mexican has closed - he may never play again. It's highly suspicious that he is out for six months, and within that time the Mexican is forced to close its doors. Coincidence? I don't think so.
We finally opened the scoring, Jordan providing the assist for Ilyas. Illy's stats are through the roof early doors this season: 7 games, 5 goals, 7 assists, 362 whinges. Great stuff from the Turkish wizard.
And so we come to The Event. Zondervan won the ball in midfield, as usual. As he turned away to protect it and lay it off to a defender he was tripped and fouled by their pacey left winger. Everyone stopped, as we'd all seen it. Except their winger, who ran on and passed it to their striker, who also didn't stop. Ignoring all the cries of "Foul! Free kick!", he slotted it past a static Tyson who was standing hand on hip and pointing at the prostrate Zondervan.
Wait, what's this? "No, no foul", says Zondervan. "In fact, I fouled him". ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!? We look on helpless as ASJS celebrate the equaliser, one of our own too generous to a fault. Tys was having none of it, yelling his new-found catchcry of "Wanker" at the back of the departing striker. Somehow, Tys has a quality about him that lets him get away with this. I must learn from him. The striker's retort? "I was playing to the whistle". Oh yes, very good sir - if you could just point out the ref and his whistle I'll happily play along too. Jerk.
1-1, but Zondervan knew what he was doing - making a game of it that's what. We harried and hassled, Qualter planting a header narrowly over the bar, Hoff getting into the box a bit but getting denied with a few last-ditch tackles, Illy missing a header, Neal Chettle blazing just over the bar from fully 40 yards. Left-foot, natch. But it was Jordan Zola (great name!) who finally got the winner, picking up a loose ball and dancing past, around, through, between and once more around four defenders before burying a right-foot shot from the edge of the box into the bottom corner. Terrific strike, that's his second wonder goal in two weeks. Play him at CB, I say. And, in a BoC first, a bystander filmed some footage of the winning goal.
"8 o'clock, all change", rang out, which was the cue to agree, "Five more? Yeah, five more". Tys was having none of it though, storming off in protest at the wankery behaviour of the opposition. A few plaintive yelps of "well, it is free football" weren't enough to sway the wiley goalie, "Fuck 'em, they're gonna play like wankers...fuck 'em. Wankers.". And you know what, I'm with you Tys. Besides, the hockey lasses had already shown up.
A small pub squad of me, Tommy Dazzler, Qualts, Boyband and Latch decamped to the DoC. There were some surprises in store, as Tommy's website, via the farting horoscope, revealed that some players were clearly not born when they think they were. Boyband in particular, despite claiming to be a Virgo, is clearly a Scorpio due to his penchant for subjecting his wife to Dutch Ovens. Interestingly, science has proven that the only thing on earth that can approximate the impending heat death of the universe is a Boyband Dutch Oven.
