Men's 3rd XI: Don't Know Much About History

They may not know much about history, or much about biology, they may not know much about a science book or the French they took, but I am fully confident that the Longson family do know that one and one is two. And if only their sums were true, what a wonderful world this could be.

Indeed it could, but unfortunately in our real world this game involved counting up to 7 and there we were found wanting. Mike Jnr was convinced that Kettering scored only 2 in the second half, and Mike Snr was convinced that they scored only 3 overall. Either would have given us a point, but the correct answers were 3 and 4 respectively and so we took none. To be fair to Mike Jnr he got the right result because he also thought they scored 2 in the first half, demonstrating how closely he listens to the skipper's half time team talk. Opening sentence: "Well, I am not quite sure how we are 3-1 up but here we are".

Mike Snr by contrast, was in a class of his own. End of the second half, the two minute signal has been given, a Kettering forward is trying to keep the ball in the corner, Sean is trying to take it off him, and Mike is yelling "no foul Sean, he is no danger out there, he can stay there all day long". From halfway I am thinking "yes, and then we lose". So eventually Sean does foul him, he has to move the ball somewhere else, we regain possession, take it up the other end and nearly equalise. Back in the changing rooms though, all is revealed during the skipper's end of match talk. I forget my exact words, but it was along the lines of "well played lads, we were unlucky not to take anything out of that". Mike asked, "but didn't we draw?" No Mike, we lost 4-3. "But I don't understand, I asked Sean and he told me it was 3-3". Yes Mike, and then they scored again. Sean does not have the capacity to freeze the space-time continuum and subsequent events can render his statement of 5 minutes ago null and void. "Oh, bugger".

It would have been quite poetic if Mike had followed that up with "well I don't claim to be an A student, though I'm trying to be", but you can't have everything.

So how did we get to this display of mental arithmetic? Short on forwards this week, I decided to maintain the average age of the forward line by playing up alongside Garth. I got the game underway with my first touch, and two minutes later I got my second touch, restarting the game after Kettering's opening score. Fifteen minutes after that I got my third, which turned out to be a quite brilliant deflection for an equaliser. Look, no-one else offers to write a match report so I get to supply the adjectives, OK?

Those two goals really set the scene for the first two quarters. Kettering started out at a top end of the table tempo, almost like they wanted to play and wanted to win the league. We meanwhile started out at a tempo which was more "can't be arsed if I'm honest". A series of comically inept mis-traps and mis-timed tackles led to an early short corner, which gave rise to at least two further Nomads fouls in the D during its execution. In the first of several excellent decisions from the two umpires they declined to blow for either offence, allowed the advantage to flow, and a Kettering forward was duly left with a tap in at the post. Which was a pretty clear advantage all things considered.

So often the early goal can prove the kick-start that the conceding team need, but not today. The goal kick-started only the home team, and they were all over us for the first quarter, and frankly up front I was getting cold. I amused myself with a few runs into space, trying to open up a few angles, and was rewarded with some excellent unobstructed views of Nomads players treading on the ball, falling over for no good reason, or simply giving the ball back to the opposition. Then suddenly, out of nothing, whisper it gently, we got a break on. We ended up with a free hit somewhere near the 23, Mike Jnr on the ball, and the skipper suddenly remembering our last training session based around creating space in the D. Just like Mutu taught us, a quick 5m lead round the blind side of a defender found me in quite unexpected acres of space, with stick poised close to the ground as per Lloydy's advice, and a clear path to Mike. He may not know much about geography or much about trigonometry, he may not know much about algebra or what a slide rule is for, but Mike did know how to find a perfect angle for a slide rule pass straight at me. Deflection. Goal. If Moots had been stood on the freezing cold sideline in the rain like a proper coach I am sure he would have nodded in approval.

I am not sure what it is about deflected goals. Maybe it is because they are the sorts of goals that you see good players score on the telly, maybe it's because they just look cool, or maybe it's because they are actually a lot more difficult than they look. But man, that felt good. Garth thought there was a bit of Mick Channon about the celebration: I cannot really comment on that, but anyone under the age of 50 may need to view this in order to understand what he meant. I was aware of waving my arm about somewhat, but not convinced I went for the full Channon windmill effect.

That completely undeserved equaliser did however initiate a much better second quarter for us. We suddenly stepped up and started taking the game to Kettering, and critically our finishing was the most clinical it has been all season. First up, Rob (yes, that Rob, him) scored from a short corner. His second for the 2010's, but I have remembered that his first was in a friendly so this is his first and only league goal for the decade and the universe therefore remains in balance. Also it was absolutely identical to the Newmarket goal with a crap injection, a leap up, an open side trap and buried in the bottom left corner, so I guess that is all OK. Those of you at the Club Dinner last season may remember that I gave a shout out to the Newmarket defence for failing to close down a 60 year old who started on his knees. Kettering now join that roll of honour, but it may be that we now have to conclude that beneath that wizened and craggy exterior lurks an agility which would put younger men to shame. And a heart of gold, obviously. Either way, a superb finish and somehow we found ourselves in the lead.

But there was more! Julian brilliantly controlled a waist high cross from a trademark Bertie reverse stick chop, brought it down and produced a very neat finish in off the keeper. Kettering were looking across at the umpire, but in my completely objective view the ball did not go close enough to any defenders to be dangerous and that was a perfectly good goal. More importantly the umpire agreed with me. You do see plenty of those blown for "lifting it across the D", but that is not actually an offence and for my money another excellent call from the umpires to give us a frankly undeserved 3-1 lead at half time. But we're not proud, we'll take that all day long.

The third quarter was pretty even, with Dave making some great saves and Kettering missing some very presentable chances. Down the other end, their central defender got frustrated with the stick tackle he made on me and followed it up with a two handed push into my chest. Yellow card, and maybe this is going to be our day. Garth was so confident this would be the case that he decided he could pop off early and beat the traffic. Before he was out of the gate however, Kettering scored a second from a short corner to set up a nervous final quarter. In what turned out to be the final and decisive shift in the game, they started to believe, we seemed to deflate, run out of puff and ideas, and they scored another couple to run out 4-3 winners.

Not sure what to make of that on the whole: they were clearly the better team over 70 minutes but we still managed to get ourselves into a position where we might, and possibly should, have won. Big positive for me is that this week we were on top for only one quarter of the game but we scored three times. I have banged on about this before, but it is so important that we make it count when we are on top, and this week we did that bigly. The negative is that having conceded a second we did start to wilt, and it felt a bit inevitable when they scored the winner. But credit to them, they are a very decent team and when they got an opening with their second they stormed through the breach to take the win that on balance they deserved.

We only had 12 this week, so big thanks to Garth for travelling and playing as long as he could, to Dan for risking being late back for George's birthday party, to Steve for playing through an injury once Garth had left and after spending half an hour on a very cold and wet sideline, and to Sean for doing likewise after getting hit in the first half. Not sure what it is about Sean's ankles that attract the ball so magnetically, I am just glad mine don't have the same property.

And so the brief title dream from last week fades, and we can look forward to another season in Division 6. The Longson family have shown us the way out of it though, via the new team anthem:

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book
Don't know much about the French I took
But I do know two and two is three
And if the score was only kept by me
What a wonderful world this could be