Sick As A Parrot

Little Finger miscontrolled the ball and in doing so threw off the entire defense who was expecting his normally immaculate first touch to bring the ball down and shift it to the right before pushing back onto his left. The aforementioned move to the right never materialized and when the ball which should have been under control, kept fizzing across his body the defense were left stranded allowing Little Finger to pass the ball to the back post. He then proceeded to miskick the pass and it curved apologetically from left to right and into the back of the net past an equally stranded goal keeper. That made it 3 - 0 and arrogance was rife amongst B5 as we started stroking the ball around the backline, maintaining possession and switching the play. Awesome stuff which quickly let to the score being 3- 2 with Bran being culpable in giving the ball away on both occasions. With the last kick of the game, from a corner they had, the ball bounced perfectly in front of one of their midfield...

Without knowing the score you can always tell how we’re doing based on the volume and direction of Little Fingers vocal utterances. Maybe not utterances, more frantic cries of despair and abuse - at his own team mates. Apparently not being on the end of one of his immaculate passes is a heinous crime. So is having a breather after sprinting the length of the field, twice. What is not a heinous crime is dilly dallying on the ball whilst Bran makes a surging run and so when Little Fingers pass is duly dispatched Bran is offside. Bran's fault since “..you ran too fast..”. Obvious really. With our keeper missing it was time for the short straws as to who gets to put in a shift between the sticks. Bran did a spell in goal and, as befitting of someone who has mobility issues, we were soon 2- 0 down. After being replaced by Dr Evil, 4- 0 quickly followed, however at halftime it was 4 - 1. Bran did get an assist, unfortunately it was to pass the ball to the Giroud-esque forward on...

We were playing well and keeping it tight with some great possession football only to find ourselves 2- 0 down after 15 mins. Taking pity on us the refs called for a water break and after some finger pointing and hand waving we got organized for the rest of the half and went in 3 - 1 down.  Halfway through the second half Little Finger showed himself to be a team player by volunteering to go in goal. 15 seconds after going in goal Little Finger shows himself to be team player for the other team by letting the first shot against him sail through his hands to make in 4 - 1. Somehow we got it to 4 - 2, then 4 - 3 with my left foot curler from about 12 yards. At this stage Little Finger is saving everything and simultaneously proving that hands are both over rated and redundant for a goal keeper. 4 - 4 with 5 mins to go and they then get 3 quick corners with 2 mins to go. Balls are flying into our box from all directions, and not in a good way. We’re yelling at the ref to end the...

Not every team has one and I'm fortunate in that very few of the teams I've been on has had one. However when we have pickup games, due to breaks between seasons or public holidays meaning that attendances would be low, I've had this misfortune to have one on my team with startling regularity. There's this particular type of bloke, always a bloke since it's not a co-ed team, who, through genetics, habit or an unseen force anointing him, takes it upon himself to vociferously tell his team mates what to do. That's great you say because communication on the pitch is hugely effective in a team game. Absolutely, I'll concede but I'd like to see some level of correlation between said blokes instructions and his own ability. Screaming 'CONTROL!' at some poor sap at the point at which he would have done something reasonable with ball only then to be startled like a 3 year old with a jack-in-the-box is not really contributing to the team. Even better ...

Here's my caption for today's soccer blog:- "Realizing that his team mates were unworthy of his superlative set-up play, The Unselfish One was finally left with few options other than to peel away from and dribble past two defenders inside the box and crack a perfect finish in off the far-side post to put us in the lead. Indeed the echo of the shot smacking the post rung out across the entire pitch as a testament to the Rooneyesque quality of the goal ..." Basically he lobbed in a cross and with the now expected level of accuracy it evaded the on rushing attackers, waiting defenders and bamboozled the goal keeper who was expecting to leap forward but had to recoil backwards. Fortunately the post saved what was an awful cross and transformed it into a match leading goal. Next week he'll be providing the lottery numbers from under a ladder whilst breaking a mirror etc etc. 1 - 1 in what was a fairly even game that shou...

You try to avoid some things but then there's always this bloke banging on about doing this that and the other... " You have plenty of ammunition for the Blog this week! and don't forget your toe richocet two yards out from my Giggs-like, flighted cross ;-) ". I'm supposed to mention a flighted corner that bounced off a couple of blokes heads and ended up on my right foot and then, before I could react, ricocheted past the post by 2 feet. I should also mention a right foot drive that skimmed off a defenders head and a left foot wallop that troubled no one. All of this is irrelevant compared to the free kick Martin sent to the back post that the keeper failed to hold and subsequently pushed into the net. Great free kick if lobbing in high balls to a midget is your idea of a good time. The reason I have total sympathy for the keeper was because of my own horror show in goal. At halftime we were leading 2 - 1 at which point I did my stint between the sticks. Two minu...