Weather conditions were truly appalling on the morning of Saturday the 25th November 2006. Gale force winds, torrential rain and thunderstorms. Not since at least the day before had Britain suffered such terrible weather. Virtually all sporting fixture in the South East of England (including the indoor ones) were cancelled due to the adverse conditions and numerous waterlogged pitches. Not so the Vets fixture against Temple Bar. The Vets matches go on regardless of fire, flood, tempest, plaque, pestilence etc. It was a good thing that this particular fixture was not cancelled as we had about 15 additional players due to arrive from locations as far flung as Sheffield^*1 in answer to one of Jim’s "we’re short of players, can anyone help" pleas.

Jim’s "we’re short of players, can anyone help" pleas work like this:

1. Jim suddenly realises on about Thursday that there is a chance that we might be short of players for a game,
2. Jim sends out a Club wide broadcast for assistance.
3. Jim’s plea is responded to and, with his approval, guest players are recruited.
4. At the same time as giving the ok to others, Jim himself recruits more than enough players.
5. Unfortunately, Jim then fails to tell anyone else that he has himself secured sufficient players, so we end up with a surplus of players sufficient to ensure a full team plus full compliment of subs.

On this occasion, one of these recruited guest players was a reasonably youthful Vet (not a young animal doctor but a young mature player) who happened also to be an avid reader of The Norm’s highly regarded and famed match reports (well, who wouldn’t be  an avid reader given the quality reading material emanating from that source).  Nick Wall, for that was his name, lived in the said village of  Sheffield but had always dreamed of being invited to play football for a southern team.  Coming from Sheffield, he had had to endure years of second and third rate football and the south was where the pitches were seeded with golden grass and a young mature man could make his footballing fortune.  In fact, Nick had actually become obsessed with a desire to play for the very team which The Norm’s match reports very occasionally and, usually very obliquely, refer to.  Duly invited, "Stainless Nick" (a nickname selected by reference both to his personal reputation and to the reputation of his village of residence) travelled south and was brought to the Temple Bar home ground in Kingswood (c/o of Legal & General) by The Norm.   Also there as a guest player was James Greenhouse, an apparent football junkie who just cannot get through a whole 2 day weekend without a game of football, requiring  him  to play for the Vets to feed his habit when his 4s match had been cancelled (see opening paragraph for reason occasioning cancellation).  James had brought his carer with him, Dave Robins, also of the 4s, a man of few words but keen observation and footballing ability.   Two of Jim’s additional recruits then arrived, Alan Jaye and Steve Giddings.  By the time the regular crew had arrived and we were ready to go out to the pitch, our numbers had swelled to the extent that we required the use of two changing rooms.

Happily it had stopped raining by the start time but the pitches were very soggy and heavy.  It was obvious that by the start of the second half the reasonably green grass pitch was going to have become more like a brown mud ploughed field.  "Stainless Nick" was warming up with a series of stretches that suggested a degree of elasticity that most of the vague Vets could only vaguely remember as being a vague possibility in their vaguely remembered younger days.  Because of a form of organisational blindness which puts him into a state of complete confusion in matches where we have a number of subs available, Jim had in his hand a piece of paper on which he had allegedly written down a scheme for substitutions.  Jim read from the list and for once everyone (the writer included) understood where and when they were intended to play.  Suddenly, however, it dawned on Jim that there was no goalkeeper amongst our hordes and for a moment the carefully crafted game plan was in disarray and confusion reigned once more.  However, this did not last long as Jim instantly drew on his decades of experience and asked someone else what we should do.  In true Club spirit, Dave Robins volunteered to wear the brightly coloured jersey and hang around between the posts. 

The match started with The Norm and Stainless Nick as subs, but no doubt Jim had a good reason for this (suggestions of Jim’s good reasons are not to be sent in on postcard by readers or in any other format thank you).  For the first 5 minutes things seemed ok, the normal settling down period in which both sides race about a bit making poor, or ridiculously optimistic, passes gave neither side any clear advantage. However, it started to become clear that Temple Bar were intent on matching their score from the same fixture last year^*2.  Five minutes later the Temple Bar intention had started to become reality, they were 2 goals up.  Their Number 9 and his strike partner were proving themselves to be a couple of lively lads.  

Hugh Constant picked up a hamstring injury and Stainless Nick was summoned from the sideline where he had been pretending to be an assistant ref by wandering up and down sporadically waving a flag and trying to decide which side should get the throw ins. So what could this northern lad do to help in this deteriorating situation?  From the off it looked hopeful.  It was obvious that he had reasonable ball control, reasonable pace, an understanding of the game, a lot of energy, drive, ambition, and competitiveness, a willingness to put his body on the line for the glory of the team, unnecessarily long and wavy hair, a sun tan … (ok, ok, that’s enough now) and he set about his task with enthusiasm.  Within moments, Stainless Nick was able to claim an assist in the third goal of the game.  Unfortunately, it was Temple Bar’s third goal!  The signs were not looking good for Carshalton and Jim’s long-planned pay back for the previous year was beginning to unravel both at the edges and at the seams.

There then followed a period of sustained pressure from Carshalton in which a number of chances came and went.  Stainless had a shot which missed by inches, James Greenhouse put one (or two) over the bar.  All the time, Chris Hithersay was distributing from the centre with the calmness and precision which you would expect from one who can count David Beckham amongst his "shop til you drop" pals^*3; Tony van Elvis aka Chairman Tone of Orange, the Dutchman, Von Elvis etc., etc. (see various previous match reports for the vast array of permutations on Tony’s name) was busy working away on the left midfield; Derek ‘The Body’ Cadman was busy doing what he does best on the left (suggestions as to what Derek does best on the left can be sent in to Jim on a postcard).  James Greenhouse was continuing to dart about on the right, and he and Gavin "Go on Gavin, pass the ball; Gavin, why didn’t you pass the ball" Dykes were combining well to cause problems for the Temple Bar defence.  At the same time the Temple Bar strikers were quick and there were a few more scares for Jim, leading to a couple of excellent saves from Dave Robins.  Eventually, however, the pressure resulted in a goal for Carshalton, Stainless Nick had another shot which was saved but our Elvis was waiting to pounce and he scored from the follow up.  Suddenly, from the despondency of 3-0 down, we were back in the game and with Jim’s half-time talk still to come things could only get better (or worse, depending on whether Jim’s team talk was worth listening to or not).

As predicted (see: second sentence, third paragraph above), the pitch was more like a muddy ploughed field for the second half.  However, unexpectedly, we started to dominate the play and Gavin, Stainless, and our Chairman were combining well, forcing corners and a few saves from the Temple Bar goalie.  The back four (always a solid crew, and now being all the more solidly controlled by Peter ‘Cool Feet’ Street in substitution for the Finnster), were just about managing to contain the Lively Lads, and James Greenhouse was leaping about in goal like an East German gymnast of the steroid enhancement era, and stopping anything that managed to get through the so solid crew.

The breakthrough came when Steve Giddings scored our second.  Shortly after the second, we were back on level terms when Stainless Nick managed to weave his way through the Temple defence and push a shot past the goalie.  Temple Bar came back at us with renewed vigour in an attempt to reclaim the match that had seemed destined to end in their glory. Notwithstanding this onslaught it still looked as though we were going to be able to hold on for the draw. 

However, a draw was clearly not enough for the man from  Sheffield who is nothing if not ultra competitive^*4.  He had not travelled all the way from the north midlands to secure a mere draw.  Northern pride^*5 was at stake here and the people back in his village would require nothing less than a win.   A fourth goal was added by Alan Jaye.  Whilst the back four repelled the Temple Bar attacks (aided magnificently by Hugh Constant’s timely offside decisions) the Carshalton attacking midfield and strikers tested the Temple Bar goalie.  On most occasions he passed the test with high grades, even occasionally standing with the rest of us watching the ball fly over and wide to the side of his goal.  However, the laws of probability are a wonderful thing and this is where the goalie failed the test, he simply hadn’t got all of his probability calculations right.  Any GCSE student could have told him that the probability of Carshalton scoring 2 further goals from our further 198 attempts was reasonably high and that he would need to be on his guard against such an event.  Being fair to the goalie though, what probably threw him was the immense complexity (A- level standard at least) of correctly calculating the probability of a Carshalton player, Steve Giddings, running with the ball from our half, going around 3 or 4 Temple Bar players, making it to a shooting position (despite the repeated cries of “bring him down” emanating from the panicking Temple Bar midfielders), and then actually scoring – which he did.

Temple Bar had by now become a little dispirited, perhaps, partly because every time they made an attack Hugh raised his flag for offside and, partly because it had become clear in the last 10 minutes that we had a little bit more left in the tank than most of their players which had resulted in them being a little slower in the chase.  In the event we held on to our surprising 2 goal lead until the final whistle. 

Wayne’s nightmare from 2005 was now exorcised, and the scoreline from last year’s corresponding fixture can finally be laid to rest.  Once he has read this report, and inevitably reacted in his usual fashion with the use of the word “Bo_ll_cks”, Wayne will be able to start afresh, freed from the guilt of letting in 5 goals in a single match which had quite possibly been the final factor in his decision to accept conscription and depart to become a latter day Magwitch.

n.b. I leave you all with one thought: Of our 5 goals, 4 were scored by guest vets and only one by a regular team player (well, when I say ‘regular’ I mean he turns up regularly, I make no assumptions about his mental status!)

yours,

Belatedly [ 21st December 2006 ] but with appropriately seasonal GREETINGS,

[The Norm typing the match report at christmas]

Merry Christmas  & A Happy New Year

the norm