We've turned the corner - ha
Reporter – Dave Varrall
Team – Reynolds, Varrall, Cunningham, Ellison, Tremant, Hyde, Gallagher H, Brown, McGrath, Rasberry, Maybrey
Subs – Knott, Donnelly, Mazurkiewicz
MOM – Dave Varrall
We’ve turned the corner – ha !
When you get really old, like over 50, your grasp on reality starts to slip. Our changing room last week before the game against Azur was just such an example of the parallel fantasy world that some of us Vets 2 people occasionally inhabit. All the talk (at least that from JD) was of how we had the turned the corner after the dire performance at La Lorraine and we were on the way up again. The Deep Heat fumes were having an effect – get real ! One look at John McGrath, more hung-over than Gazza after a real bender, showed that our optimism was dangerously misplaced. And so it proved …
On paper we had a strong team; although still lacking the cultured pied gauche of Stevie G. we welcomed back our rampaging centre-forward Barry R. after a period of recuperating with his highly-strung hamstrings. The opening exchanges were fairly even but our misplaced optimism got firmly put back in its correct place (ie. up our backsides) after 15 minutes when from a long throw-in Azur’s captain rose like the proverbial salmon to head in over the flailing arms of our skipper (not quite a “Des flap” but very reminiscent of one). The rest of the half was pretty even – even pretty in fact as we played some pleasing football with Pete and John doing well in the middle and the defence looking surprisingly assured. Having said that we didn’t create (m)any good chances in open play. Our most potent weapon was Ian’s well-hit corners. However as usual we were completely devoid of even Plan A when it came to dealing with them – a real waste !
The second half started much the same as the first – a good opening spell by us then a goal by Azur. Like many of our conceded goals in recent weeks this was a combination of farce and bad luck. We gave the ball away easily and then a shot took a wicked deflection off Ade’s wedding tackle before spinning into the net – didn’t know whether to laugh or cry ! This knocked the stuffing out of us metaphorically (and literally in the case of Adrian) and we were essentially finished at this point. Unfortunately Azur weren’t. The moon-like Everberg playing surface undid our trusty left/right back and their defender plonked the resultant free-kick over the wall and into the net. At 0-3 we were only playing for pride, some of which we salvaged when Barry made it a brace of salmons by heading majestically in after yet another good corner from the Welsh wizard.
So a 1-3 home defeat. I suppose some might call this a corner turned after some of the cuffings we have suffered recently. We certainly put in a much better footballing performance, which is something. However at this rate by the time we actually get round the corner we will be running straight into the likes of New Inn, Vets Ecusson and Mireille Wemmel again !
One last footnote – congratulations to Hughie G. on reaching the 400 milestone. He has taken a lot of well-intentioned stick over this time (in about 395 of those games as I recollect), but I can say from long experience that over all this time he has shown remarkable good humour and exceptional commitment to the cause.
Thanks Hughie.
