Boyband in goal, Charlie, Sam, Hoofer, Stu at the back. Midfield of Andy, Intertoto, Punter, Wayne and Latch up front. That’s only ten, so we played a man down. As a result Reays had a field day, and spurned chance after chance in the opening exchanges. They could’ve easily been 5-0 up within 15 minutes, but for once it is a pleasure to summarise the opposition as “profligate” instead of us. Shots placed wide, shinned over the bar, fresh-airies – obviously this is mainly due to the imperious presence of Boyband in net, back in the side fresh from ushering his third offspring into the miserable rat race existence that is Planet Earth.
Eventually the oppo’s pressure paid off, with little Boyzie could do, and they went 2-0 up. Their first was a bit of a fluke from the centreback, a left-foot rocket into the top corner giving Boyband no chance. They all chortled to him “Oh you never score, hahahaha!”. Laugh it up punks, no one likes you. Their second was a cracker from Van, their Sponge-Bob-t-shirt-wearin’, headband-sportin’ central midfielder. Outside the box, hit with his right, whistled into the side netting. Again, no chance for Boyband.
At this point a friendly passer-by had done the differential equations, integrating with respect to S and dividing by the number he first thought of, and concluded we were one short, and offered to fill in. Fantastic! He headed off round the fence, we assumed to come and join us, but then never actually appeared on the pitch. Intertoto pulled one back with another typical bizarre fluke of a goal. After spotting what he thought was a butterfly on the sidelines, he went trotting off for a closer look, only to get in the way of my superb through ball to Latch. The ball hit him on the thigh and bobbled off his shins a few times, wrong-footing several defenders who had no idea why this clown was stammering “Flutterby! Flutterby!” Phil, stumbling at this stage, was gesticulating wildly to where he thought the butterfly was, distracting the keeper enough that the final ricochet off his knee dribbled into the goal. Hilarity all round, and utterly undeserved, but we’ll take it.
At half time our ringer finally made his glorious appearance resplendent in shining white from tip to toe, including hair, cantering to our rescue. Can You Hear The Drums Fernando was his name. Can You Hear The Drums Fernando the silver fox who played on the left. He was magnificent for 5 minutes, almost scoring, and then went missing for the rest of the game. Just as we moved to the full complement of 11 players, Reays found themselves forced down to 10, when Olly, their tattooed striker headed off injured. This prompted Van to say, without any hint of irony, “Gee, it’s annoying only playing with 10”. The roles reversed in the advantage stakes, we piled on the pressure, with numerous opportunities to equalise. Wayne had a couple of glorious one-on-ones with the keeper, but spurned both. Ever since he killed that Fosters bloke a few months back he hasn’t matched that deadliness in front of goal. Let it go Wayne – it’s not your fault. Besides, no one liked that Fosters fella, he didn’t have any family so no one misses him, and he smoked like a chimney so was headed for an early grave anyway. And he hurt puppies. And who doesn’t like puppies? No one who deserves to live, that’s who.
Despite tremendous pressure we couldn’t equalise, Reays had a strong team out including a new central midfielder named Woodsy who was annoyingly rather good. We’re still shooting blanks up front, is it too late to make a bid for Benzema? Special commendation for Boyband in goal who did rather well, making several great saves and doing an all-round bonza job. Having said that, right at the death he let a dribbler go right through him. He maintains it was after the “8’o’clock all change” announcement and therefore doesn’t count, although opinion is divided on the precise timing of the incident. Regardless, it didn’t affect the outcome so all is forgiven.
Morrissey missed out on most of the pub chat, as his missus rang with the classic “oh, I’ve lost my keys, can you please come and let me in?” No one’s buying that, but off he dashed. Mrs Punt tried that once. Friday, 5pm, I’d just settled in for the first after-work Punt Pint only to have her frantically phone, “The apartment’s burning down, the fire brigade are here and have evacuated everyone! Come home now!” I sprinted all the way, arriving 15 minutes later only to find her sitting quietly on the couch, with no sign of the fire brigade and no sign of a fire. “Oh, it was the neighbour’s place and it was a false alarm”. I’ve never let her forget it. In other Mrs Punt news, this happened over the weekend:
Mrs Punt (whispering): “What’s that red thing on the cabbie’s phone?”
Me (also whispering): “Liverpool screen saver. Must be a fan.”
Mrs Punt (louder, to the cabbie): “May They Not Walk Alone.”
A BoC decathlon was mooted, although dreams of sporting glory were quickly dashed as we realised it would probably be dominated by anyone under 30; wisdom and experience are not necessarily conducive to crossing the line first in the 100m. But BoC are a charitable bunch, and thoughts soon turned to how we could use the event to raise money to help one of our own in his impending time of need. “By Jove I’d pay a lot of money to see Molby compete in the hurdles!”, “Oh jolly hockeysticks yes!”, “ …and the high jump!”, “Oh my, what a wizard idea – huzzah!”. It is truly heart-warming to see such generosity of spirit and willingness to support a fellow team-member.
As I departed I handed over a stack of Natalie Imbruglia stick mags to Boyzie to utilise post-snip, before Tommy arrived fashionably late wearing his fashionable glasses. He’s probably one of them ones young enough to be a decathlon contender.
