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Dawning of the age of ...

The season proper kicks off next weekend and our pre-season training wrapped up with Sundays pickup games. The final phase of our preparations started on Friday night with drinks around at Martins followed by a few hours of intensive footy watching on the telly on Saturday. Suitably fortified in mind and body we were more than prepared to usher in the new season with an hour or so of hoofing around the hallowed turf.

As mentioned in the previous post the new season brings big Ron to the fore. Martin and I had assisted in getting him ready for the game by totally ignoring him ever since we pressed ganged him into the team. With the advice of 'pace yourself' and 'take it easy in the beginning mate' etc still fresh in his head, the game started and Ron took off like a startled rabbit. Obviously we need to work on that coaching technique. I imagine there was less sprinting in the Oklahoma land grabs.

He started off at left back with instructions just to walk up with the line. Left back? - nope not a chance. After 30 seconds he was spotted haring up the line overtaking the left half. About a minute later he had shot across the field towards the right wing. James and I parked ourselves in central defence and let him get on with it. Martin and Phil were being rock stars at the glory end of the field occasionally trekking back to help out the increasingly overrun defence but generally contributing nothing to our attacking cause.

One nil down after some shoddy defending quickly became two nil. Jim and 'First time' Phil missed some great chances but we got back into the game with a Rosicky like curler from some bloke I don't know. 'First time' Phil so named because he wants three touches to tee up the perfect shot. One shot, hit first time, just went past the far post and thus justifies Phil's insistence on taking a touch before hitting anything towards the goal.

'Miles wide' Martin fared little better but insists he laid on some perfect passes for me that I duly squandered. To be fair he did say I put in a Parlour-esque tackle to win the ball which lead to our second goal.

They scored another, which George tucked away, meaning the score was 3 - 2 when we bailed. Great to see George in form since he's our captain when the season starts proper next weekend. Phil and James are again on a different team for this season and the 'big one' goes down on March 25th.

Comments

Phil Newton said…
I can't believe that, after spending an hour on the same pitch as Martin Kinkladze, I'm the one being accused of taking too many touches on the ball.........

It was good to see your captain getting into some goalscoring form. It was good to see ours getting a goal or two as well. Roll on March 25th! Plastic picth, no excuses!

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