The Norwich 1

Not since the Birmingham 6 and Guildford 4 has an Irish man felt so hard done by on English soil as this blogger did tonight at left back. From now on I am the Norwich 1.

Sporting an injury and returning from a weeks absence, I had been warned that the wedensday game had become a calamity of players. Tonights game was no exception with the pitch and players looking like that nest of rats under the shed that have just been exposed to the light and scarper in panic.

Despite the density of footballers the game play was not disturbed even when a local coastguard search and rescue helicopter landed on the non-bibs left back position! Watching the helicopter take off the greens decided that there was unexploited space there and promptly sent their talented sorties to do just that. In moments of delerium I almost believed I was watching Harry Potter, Hermione and Ron roaming unnoticed on the left hand side under their wonderous invisibility cloaks...surely those green bibs haven't been enchanted I asked myself. Was I the only one who could see the 5 greens occupying that area all by their lonesomes. Just in case I did have Dumbledore-esque qualities that had lay latent all these years only to be unveiled in this match, I decided to shout as best as I could to inform my non-bib fraternity of the paucity of players on that side and of the imbalance in our structure. I must admit that I was getting pissed off at the sound of my own voice repeating the same shite again and again. (By the way I looked up the FIFA Guide on Football and Alan Hansen's dictionary of Football and learned that the system we were playing was called the 'Cluster-f*ck' formation. It was first used by the Mongolian National team when they played the under-21 national team in small dark Yurt which at the time was also housing their respective families and goats. There was also no ref or lines men at that game either).

Having subtley mentioned the foibles in the non-bib positional play it must be remembered that the greens were incapable of assailling the defence for some time in the first phase of the game. The game was tight; congestion more than talent playing a hand in the low scoring. The non-bibs took and held a lead of 4-1 for some considerable time but quick succession of goals brought the greens on par with some special efforts being put in by Stefan 'overhead kicks off the crossbar' Clifford.

In the end the game ended with victory for the non-bibs. I'm not sure if it was a fair result as the greens seemed to hit the post quite a lot and in part because I didn't enjoy the game that much.

Other things to note were:

1. The sad departure of Rob who was defending brilliantly (on the middle and right hand side!) for the non bibs. Three players coming together resulted in an accidental cut on his chin. I hope the cut is not too bad and doesn't stop him from coming back friday. Locker room gossip has it that Tony is looking for an apology from Rob since the chin incident left him with a bruise!

2. The amazing transfiguration of Dug into several different players every 10 mins!

3. The incosistency of 2 handball decisions...The one for the non-bibs goal was as obvious as and as certain as those drunk boob-tube wearing harlots that look worse than ladies of the night and don't even have the common sense to earn some money from letting anything with a sac and an erection spill his lust in her love glove.

4. Two people didn't pay!

5. My foot is still sore.

Well there's my installment. Laced with personal trauma and bitterness but sure it's good to get it off your chest.

Slan agus beannacht