To be fair. In all fairness. At the end of the day. For some reason, 80% of our conversations began or finished with these phrases on Saturday so it only seems right that I begin the match report in this way. To be fair, I thought it would read funnier that it does.
Back in the AFA Cup and Kings Old Boys made the trip to the Racecourse from somewhere or another. AP had been rocked by injuries, cry-offs and the cardinal sin of the no show. Andy Brown wins the prize for cry-off reason of the season. A sprained finger wouldn’t affect many but Andy’s all action style dictates that defenders would be ‘grabbing his hands to try and pull him back’. There are times one a man has to think of his future and put sport to one side. We wish him a speedy and full recovery #pray4andy………. (only joking mate, we know you had work).
We put together a strong eleven with party boy, Jack Morris the lone substitute. The Racecourse was a right old state and the team who could stand up the better was probably going to win. We started like a rocket with a jet pack, 1-0 up after about a minute. The oppo got caught on the ball at the back, Matt kept his cool and rounded the keeper before tapping home.
The second goal was an absolute horror show, cross came in, a bit of pinball and Marc McVey ‘went solo’ to poke home. At this point disaster struck, I got injured and had to go off. I could see the lads were absolutely devastated, on the verge of mental collapse without their beloved leader. ‘Let’s do this for Al….’ somebody probably said, as they delivered an emotional, applauseless standing ovation.
However, the real benefit of this was that it threw open the door to Egan to take the lead. This usually gives a platform to some brilliant motivation and so it proved. Such gems on Saturday included…..
‘LAWRENCE……YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT THIS FOOTBALL CLUB!’ *a slightly over the top reaction to a nice spin and weighted pass that won a corner. Lawrence has also played 6/7 games at the least.
But my personal favourite sums up it all up. Following a nice move that started with 3 or 4 simple passes out of the back, Kieran decided to enforce the positive
Kieran (upbeat) : ‘Well done guys, simple isn’t it? See what happens when we keep the ball?’
* Slight pause………..
Egan (looks over disgusted): ‘Shut up….’
Absolutely superb. Kieran turned to the sideline bewildered, slightly saddened. This aside, we kicked on with two really nice goals. A flowing team move played Matt in again to lift over the committed keeper. He completed his hat-trick following top work from Ronnie who was an absolute beast on Saturday. The man is first hand evidence that boxercise can and will improve your performance. Ron picked the ball up around half way and rolled the centre half. He drove into the space, reversed it beautifully and Matt ‘lashed’ home.
Game over by half time really, the second half had some good moments. Lawrence almost scoring an outrageous back heel type cruyff shot. I am not sure what the technical term is, the thing that Cristiano Ronaldo does a lot as opposed to crossing on his weaker foot. Either way, Lawrence managed to fizz it just over the bar from about 15 yards. Ronnie also apparently produced a disgraceful bit of skill late on which I didn’t see but everyone insisted that I mention. Egan said after that he wouldn’t have been able to do it with a balloon. We finished the game with about 8 ½ players but it closed out 4-0.
Another win and it’s all ticking along nicely. Kings weren’t a great side but we did what you could describe as a ‘professional job’. I appreciate this doesn’t really work in amateur football but I started the report with overused football language, so I might as well leave it on some. Au revoir.
MOM : Matt Kelly. Top hat-trick, none of which were penalties.
Team : Pennycook, Gunyon, Patterson (J.Morris), Egan, Carlin, Hillier, McVey, O’Leary, Fernee, Kelly, Adjekwei.
