Despite our pitch being “too wet to play on”, Boots Wednesday very maturely kicked the under 12s off their playable pitch to line up against Trent Vale on a cold November morning. Despite the manager naming a squad of 17, we were down to a bare 11 (and Simon), with Phil having to start the match between the sticks.
As has been the case in some weeks, Boots were caught napping in the first quarter, leading to a simple passing move by Trent Vale resulting in a goal well uted into the bottom left of the goal. This seemed to give BWFC the proverbial kick as we began to pass the ball around more with the midfield getting stuck in as time went on. Roughly 11 minutes later, a ball played to the feet of Kieran was held up beautifully and a “perfectly weighted pass” (Scothern, 2009) was played in to Rowan on the edge of the box who took one touch wide of his marker and smashed it into the opposite top corner of the goal. No keeper in the world could’ve stopped it! J
However, Boots seemed to hit the snooze button again and allowed TV to push two goals ahead through defensive errors and Boots not being able to clear their lines. The 2nd goal bore witness to the most ridiculous piece of refereeing of all time. Fletch used his weighed in a tackle on their right winger, which caused him to go flying 2 yards outside the box. The referee signalled for a free kick (which some could argue wasn’t even fair), before the Trent Vale players pointed to a divot of mud in the box claiming that was the point of the tackle. Much to everyone’s disbelief, a penalty was awarded. On closer inspection, the mark where Fletch put in the tackle was 3 yards outside the box, yet a completely unrelated mark on the ground pretty much lost us the game. The penalty was converted. The 3rd was a shin-roller from the outside of the box that looped into the corner of the goal leaving on-form Gandy with no chance of stopping it.
A long range effort from Scothern managed to squirm it’s way unsatisfyingly under their keeper to make it 3-2. This marked the start of the “classic Sunday league match” (Smith, 2009). Every time we pulled a goal back, they pushed one further ahead. After many one on one saves from Phil, they pushed ahead with a simple goal from the edge of the box as 50% of the Boots team’s attention (and that of the referee’s) was diverted to a scuffle between Ian and one of their defenders. Our 3rd came from a long throw from Rowan, flicked on in the box by Ian and perfectly converted by Aplin from the 6 yard box. Yet another counter attack from TV left the Boots defence in no man’s land as a cross was well uted at the back post by an unmarked forward.
Kieran converted a one on one with 15 minutes to go to make it 5-4. In one Rowan nipped the ball off their left back but was harshly obstructed by the keeper as he rounded him on route to goal. A little less honesty could have very easily resulted in a penalty, but the toe-poked shot was cleared on the goal line.
For those interested, the match was actually abandoned after Ian “struck” one of their players in the dying minutes. The player replied with, “You’ve picked the wrong person to f**k with, I cage fight for a living…”. The referee took Ian to one side and proclaimed, “I should send you off now, but I’m going to abandon the match instead”.
