Old dudes playing Soccer

In the past, the Bay Olympic Clowns on the grass has always been a tough game for us. Away from our natural nest of artificial turf at Seddon where the ball just doesn't roll the same. The Clowns are usually always well up for a physical and psychological battle, the lovable bunch of balding carpet-layers that they are. Despite rumours of new signings, it was the same old BO Clowns from previous seasons that rocked up to Walker Park on a beautiful warm Saturday afternoon. Nudger and Todger were there, straight from work at the carpet factory. Biffa and Boffa bacon too, and a gaggle of supporters guzzling Lion Reds under a tree. The Clowns came up against a Go Feet side stung by two losses in a row, determined to get back to winning ways. We had a good intense warm-up, doing the fifa-11 like a proper team, and we were into it from the kickoff with a goal after a couple of minutes! Great work from Dazza down the left putting it on a plate for Stefan in the box. Excellent start and Go Feet could smell the pungent odour of Clown fear, or it could have been their BO. Anyway, we were all over them and they couldn't live with our intensity. Joe got hacked down in the box for an obvious penalty and Nando stepped up to smash it home. The Clowns had a few forays into our half with Yoji always a danger. His zen-like dribbling skills had me entranced a few times but after winning the after-training sprints on Wednesday night I knew I could keep up with him. Ultimately the Clowns could only muster a couple of long-range shots and corners and the Go Feet defence was determined not to concede. Dazza was tearing them apart down the left and scored a great individual goal to go 3-0 up. Near the end of the half, Bodger got a yellow card for a wild hack then talked himself into a red by questioning the sanity of the ref who happened to be an official official. Silly boy, BO down to 10!

The second half began with Go Feet in a charitable mood. Because we are nice guys, we agreed to let BO keep 11 players on the park. Bodger had already had a few flagons of Lion Red at half time and was not keen, but the Clowns had an entourage of balding chubby carpet layers to choose from. Go Feet maintained control of the game without scoring any more goals. Clowns sat deep trying to limit the damage, pinging long balls up to Yoji when they had the chance. Their interchangeable bench of baldies looked like they would rather have stayed at work laying carpets and their enthusiasm for the game evaporated along with their bottles of Lion Red. It was a scrappy second half which highlighted how hard it is for us to score against a team parking the bus. All very well when there is space in behind, but when you have a ten-man defensive wall in front of you, well you can run out of ideas pretty quick. Something to work on along with general fitness, which seems to be lacking. As I have mentioned several times to anyone listening, if I can win the after-training sprints then we have a serious problem.

Anyway, a satisfying win finally and a clean sheet. I'm sure the Go Feet wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends and pets were all glad not to be on the receiving end of a grumpy old hung-over loser complaining about a stupid game of football all day Sunday.