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Friday 20 May 2016

The memories of a working man

A quick report on last weekend.  We had a football tournament in Worthing, starting at 2pm.  We all went.  The weather seemed quite warm when we left, but was just a little cooler at the destination*, though still warm enough when the sun was out, but not so when behind a cloud.

This was a tournament that falls under the category of "least said, soonest forgotten".  We were in a league of five teams, with only the top team going through to the semi-finals.  This meant we played four games.  We lost all four, and did not score a single goal.  We were trying out our new keeper, who is probably "a lovely bloke***", but is not likely to be our keeper next year (so our search goes on).  To be fair, we did not play badly, but neither did we play well, and we lost three of the four games to sucker punch chip and rush goals, which tend to be the modus operandi for such tournaments, not that we ourselves take advantage of the tactic.  This chip and rush tactic makes them dull and frustrating games to watch and play.  It has made me hanker for proper nine-a-side games, thirty minutes each half. i.e. next season.

On the Sunday, we had another tournament, this one more of a fun day, since it was the Barnham Trojans prize giving day, which incorporates a fun tournament, mixing years and players up in to a bunch of teams.

Maggot 2's year mixed in with the Under Nines, and I ended up managing a team, Swansea to be precise.  I had a couple of good players, and plenty of bad players.  We had no keeper, though luckily we had three, count them, one, two, three, players who "regularly play in goal".  Hmm.  Let's just say that they were also "lovely blokes" and also unlikely to be filling our missing keeper position.  We did not do terribly, but did not progress to the semi-finals.  Maggot 2's team did, and won on penalties, only to lose in the final.

It was a good fun day, with fairly good weather.  I had a go on the "how hard can you kick the ball" game, which has a speed camera type device at the end of the inflatable net cage, and I managed to score 64 which was the fastest of the day, until "Darren" (damn him) beat me with a 65.  What was most gratifying was that A and S, our two coaches, were unable to get near my 64.  The old fella still has it.

This weekend, we have a tournament Saturday afternoon (with rain threatened), and nothing Sunday, so we should be having the outlaws over for Sunday lunch, which is always fun.

On that note, I hope you have a great weekend, and speak next week.

P.S.  Good luck to Bad Man on his search for a new role, looks like it is going well.

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* As we all know, Scobi Towers sits in a perfect micro-climate that is, most of the time, similar to the South of France**
** OK, that is a slight exaggeration
*** An old story, for those who do not recall it, that an ex-colleague, also my mentor in my early years in Starfleet, used that phrase to describe people where were lovely, but useless, and it has stuck with me

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