Match Report

A change of venue form Acacia halls in Dartford to Westminster Playing fields in Horton Kirby maybe wasn’t greeted by many of our squad ahead of our fixture with Tiger Vets but luckily enough yours truly was literally about 5 miles up the road as I had attended a wedding the day before. It was a very emotional day; even the cake was in tiers!!

We lined up as follows:

Gary Rosslee – GK
Brett Cheesman – RB
Tony Simpson – CB
Andy Cobham – CB
Danny Saines – LB
Ian Shoebridge – LM
Rich Davies – CM
Daragh knot – CM
Robin Lipscomb – Scrum Half
George K – CF
Paul Tanton CF

Our solitary sub (at time of kick off) was Sinisa.

The weather was always going to be the key factor and the deciding player in this match today and as we were playing in the middle of a (cabbage) field which had no shelter whatsoever from the elements it was going to be difficult for both sets of players. The wind was picking up by the minute as the Tiger outfield players attempted to put up the goal nets without being actually being blown over!

We kicked off assisted by the wind but smartly played the ball around on the floor as any a lofted pass would have been unreachable to get on the end of and end up in the cabbage patch behind the Tiger goal.

We took the lead through Robin “Alex Reid, Jean Claude Van Damme, Brian Moore” Lipscomb after about 10 minutes after some neat passes and a cool finish. 0-1 FOBG.

We were rarely troubled at the back due to the cohesive unit known as the back 4 as well as the wind that Tiger were kicking into which made every cross and shot very easy to cope with as each attempt didn’t have “The Dougies” as they say!

One hair-raising moment however came from a Tiger corner from the right hand side that appeared to go out of play and come back in and go off again and then somehow hit the upright / stanchion although the FOBG GK had originally called "it's gone lads", "all day long" and "I’ll go" luckily enough we survived this moment as the resulting header went a good foot wide of the left post that was covered by Danny Saines.

We soon doubled our lead with an excellent goal from George K who made an angled shot from the right hand side of the box over an oncoming goalkeeper look easy. 0-2 FOBG.

By now the weather was getting a lot worse and the wind was blowing stronger than before, and the rain…. you know “the one that soaks you through” was coming down relentlessly.

Half time came and the weather deteriorated even more and Paul Tanton dished out the second half tactics. He then unselfishly opted to substitute both co assistant Danny Saines and himself to “let others have a run out”. Now they tried to put on brave faces but we could see from their demeanour that this was not an easy decision for them to make as they climbed into their dry warm water proof tops to escape the 70 mile an hour winds blowing in from the Bay of Biscay and the east to west rain.

Tiger were now kicking downhill and had the wind with them which was starting to cause us no end of trouble. The FOBG GK did well to even get the ball out of the 18 yard box from goal kicks and did even better to see the ball without a wind break or ski goggles in place.

Somehow Daragh managed to hit the Tiger bar with a ferocious shot into the wind which some say was unlucky not to have bounced out and ended up down the other end into our goal!!

Then things turned from bad to worse. But before you assume, no we did NOT start moaning at each other as per every week, and no Tony Simpson did NOT concede a penalty as per every OTHER week! No it turned out that the driving range next door to the pitch had lost its safety nettings in the strong winds and we were now being pelted by golf balls from all different directions but all at the same driving speed as Jenson Button! It then was pointed out that this was in fact a hail stone storm and the ref very smartly decided to call an end to the match after spending 5 minutes in the life of Scott of the Antarctic!

Nobody was more disappointed with the ref's decision than the Tiger captain who wasn’t shy in letting him know what he thought, you could see he really had the bit between his teeth but at a second glance it turned out to be his breakfast!

MOM was the REF for blowing up early.

Next week we play St Joseph's Vets at home who are an unknown quantity to many of us, so fingers crossed the weather improves this week and we get to play a full 90 minutes of the very impressive football we have been playing this season so far.