Match of the Day: The Next Instalment

Thursday night last week saw the latest fixture for our work football team. This time out we played our now annual fixture against the guys from upstairs in the business support team under the floodlights at the local non-league clubs stadium.

We won the corresponding fixture last season by 3 goals to 2 although we went into this game with a general acceptance that we've taken half a step backwards in the past year - two or three of our better players have moved on and, to compound the problem, a couple of them have moved over and joined our business support colleagues.

To compensate for this we went into the match with a somewhat conservative game-plan: playing with a flat back four with a three-man defensive midfield just in front of them, two wide attacking midfielders and just the one forward.

Things went pretty well to plan I think it's fair to say. Having fallen behind to an early goal - a penalty - we equalised shortly before half time when the opposition keeper misjudged a shot/cross from out wide. One one at half time.

We switched things around a bit at half time reverting to a 4-4-2 formation and I think this actually suited us a bit better. We exchanged goals - 2:2 including a superb goal from our strker from the narrowest of angles.

With around 15 minutes remaining we took the lead - another goal from Matt our striker, the youngest and probably best player on our team - before conceeding the last goal of the game following a speculative shot from distance that beat our keeper who was still feeling the effects of an earlier sliding challenge.

So, 3:3 the final score and all in all a good performance and a good evening. Again I played the full 90 minutes and felt I did ok - playing on grass was certainly physically more demanding than our usual surface of astroturf.

We can still improve of course - clearly not everyone in the side believes in playing for the team! - and we'll take a lot of confidence from this perfromance and result into our next fixture in around a month.

Thanks are due to those people that came out on a cold and wet evening to offer support (and half-time oranges!), to the three match officials for giving up their evening, of course, to the volunteer staff from the football club for their hospitality.

Football Thoughts

Friday night was the first time I have played the full 90 minutes of a football match since ... 1984.

25 years! By my reckoning at least half our team on Friday were younger than 25!

Back in 1984 I was appearing for my school football team in an attacking midfield role. I remember it like it was yesterday: it was the first game of the season, I scored early in the game to put us in the lead. We went on to lose the game 17-1. That goal meant I was our top scorer for 6 weeks.

We were more of a rugby school.

Match of the Day: Rearranged

On Friday night last week we had the rearranged football fixture against our company field engineers. The original game you will remember had to be abandoned after one of our players unfortunately broke his leg.

Fortunately, this time around there were no injuries as the engineers came out on top by two goals to nil, bringing to an end our 7 or 8 game unbeaten run.

The game was pretty even for 70 minutes or so - in fact we hit the woodwork twice during this time - before the opposition scored what was, to be fair, a fine goal. At that point, we went in search of an equaliser without really worrying their keeper. With just a few minutes left we got caught light in defence and they scored a second.

All in all, a good game of football, played in the right spirit.

We'll have them next time.

Match of the Day - Update

So, Friday night was the night of the big inter-departmental football match and I think it's fair to say that I was a little disappointed with both the result and the performance. The game finished 1-1 when, with around 15 minutes of the match left the referee abandoned the game after an unfortunate injury to one of our players.

Ironically we led at half time despite, in my opinion, playing poorly. It seemed a case of what the Spanish call a pequeña manta (small blanket) performance from our team - you pull the blanket up to your head and expose your feet, pull it down to cover your feet and expose your head! In other words, when we played to our plan we gave their defence men too much time on the ball and when we tried to press the defence we became short of numbers at the back.

In the second half we were much more disciplined but didn't really create enough chances and paid then penalty when we failed to defend properly - as a team that is - one of the oppositions rare attacks.

I played for about an hour of the game and then took a turn running the line allowing others a chance for an appearance. I felt my time at the gym starting to pay off as I felt pretty comfortable and, when the match is replayed in a few weeks I'd be keen to play the full 90 minutes.

Match of the Day

Today marks the start of big match week. I'm not talking about the forthcoming Champions League second leg ties, or this weekends Manchester United v Liverpool class from Old Trafford.

No, I am talking about our works football team versus our field engineers football team. At 8pm this Friday the two teams will go head-to-head on the atroturf pitch of the local sports centre.

We've talked about little else at work for about the last three weeks. We've played a team from the local Tesco's twice in the last few months and beaten them comfortably both times but the field engineers are a bit of an unknown quantity. We've heard they are top of the table in their 5-a-side league: our team are bottom of the table in our league. We've heard that they have called in guys from the neighbouring region to boost their team whereas we can choose from a squad of about 15 at most.

It's too close to call but that won't stop us trying and for the rest of this week working ourselves up with nervous excitement. We're pretty confident, I just hope our confidence isn't misplaced.

I can't wait.

Fortune's Always Hiding

“I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.”
Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch

Within the space of 5 hours yesterday afternoon/evening I was reminded why I love and hate football in equal measures.

I play a bit of football a couple of times a week - last night saw an appearance in goal for a team made up from friends from work who compete in a local 5-a-side league. Our results so far this season haven't truly reflected our performances (copyright just about any football player who's team gets regularly beaten) but despite that I was looking forward to the competition and the exercise. After taking the lead courtesy of a goal from the team captain after just 30 seconds I felt exilerated: finally we were going to dominate a game I thought.

Twenty minutes later, having conceeded 16 goals with just one more scored in our favour I felt really low - even my best save of the night went unrewarded as the referee gave a goal saying that the ball had crossed the line. The 20 minute drive home was once again spent blaming the referee for the result (again, copyright just about any football player who's team gets regularly beaten!).

Home - and after a cup of tea, a bath and a roast dinner, in that order - I felt better and settled down to watch my team (FC Barcelona) in action on TV. After 25 minutes they were winning by 2 goals to nil and the world seemed a better place.

With 5 minutes of the game left it was 3-3 and I somehow knew worse was to come ... in the 89th minute an uncharacteristic mistake from the Barcelona captain led to a winner for the opposition. Sixty seconds later the referee blew for full time and a defeat.

Thankfully, after 8 years of marriage my lovely wife has learnt not to even try to offer words of consolation and after a period of silence I got up, left the room and went to bed - only to lie there for about 2 hours trying to come to terms with my Sunday afternoon and evening.

I'm playing again tonight, a different venue with a different bunch of lads and it'll be different this time.

Won't it?

Super Sunday?

The weekend is all about football in our house - watching football and occasionally playing football (more of this later). That said, I'm becoming increasingly disappointed with Sky Sports selection of matches for the Super Sunday marathon.

Todays programme includes another uninspiring choice of fixtures - Fulham v West Brom followed by Newcastle v Everton.

Tell me why, as a neutral football supporter, I would set aside 4 hours of my day to watch these games. The Fulham v West Brom game will, I predict, be a very cagey game with no more than a couple of goals at most. If pushed for a prediction I'd say 1-0 to Fulham. Next up will be what I predict will be an equally tight game at Newcastle where again I suspect we'll see a low scoring game with probably just one goal seperating the two teams: this time I predict a 1-0 win to Everton. In terms of impact on the league table I think it's fair to say Fulham and Newcastle will finish mid-table, West Brom will get relegated and Everton will finish sixth.

Having watched football now for 30+ years I know that you don't need a bag full of goals for a good game but the standard of football played by teams outside of the top 4 or 5 just isn't of a very high standard. To add insult to my apathy both games will be hyped up in advance by Richard Keys, Andy Gray et al and afterwards they'll try to convince me that both of the games were great examples of why the Premier League is 'the best league in the world' (sic).

I know thanks to online streaming I've got access to pretty much any game from any country around Europe (and beyond) for free but I don't want to go down that route. My solution would be to follow the Spanish television model - every weekend the top four games are shown on terrestrial and subscription channels (so we might see the games across BBC and Sky or Setanta) with all of the other games shown on Pay per View for around £8 per match. This way, the neutral gets to see the matches that matter - from the top of the table - whilst the club supporter who can't get to a game can see their team in the comfort of their own home.

Will it ever happen - who knows? A few years ago who would have thought that we'd have the choice of 8 Champions League matches on a single evening but thanks to Sky Sports (see, credit where it's due) I can choose to watch any game that I want and I just hope that in the next few years coverage of our domestic game will follow suit.