10.07pm: Soundtrack: Thank You Friends by Big Star. Well that IS apt. Thank you friends for playing a blinder! Thank you friends for keeping me informed! Thank you friends 10 years ago for making this happen! Thank you friends ever since for keeping it going! And thank you friends for doing it all again next week! My work here is done. Enjoy the post-match pints fellas!
10.04pm "Come on Accies, let's keep nibbling at 'em!" So says Bazza as the game draws to a close. Well put my man. And the lights are out - what a win! 4-2 and No Lizou Required!
10.01pm: Game continues. String of great saves from the Coach, who sounds like a candidate for MOTM to me, although clearly Le Taxi and Lex will be in with a shout too, having, as they say, bagged a brace each. A pair of braces, if you will. Soundtrack: Mind Control by Stephen Marley... my mind control to attempt to persuade the ref to blow the final whistle has failed.
9.56pm: Still 4-2 with less than 5 mins to go (unless Miami has smashed his phone up in anger because Riders have scored 3 times?) Ah, The Hut calls to inform me that a Dolphin shot hits the bar and rebound down, but - crucially - didn't go in. "Negative. It didn't go in. It just impacted on the surface." Now Elbows is being spoken to by the ref for his involvement in some kind of fisticuffs - !!! - in the area as Dolphin prepared to take a corner. Crikey. Surely to goodness the next call will be to tell me the final whistle has been blown/lights have gone off, whichever signals the end of the game first...
9.50pm: RAUCHENBERG! broke down left, Dangermouse (on for Shaky) made a good run but strayed offside, so RAUCHENBERG! had to shoot and that strike was punched away by the Dolphin keeper. I'd really be much happier if the match scrappily petered out to a conclusion now... every time the phone rings I panic! Am now listening to Dark Days by DJ Shadow on th'iPod - luckily the Accies are experiencing anything but Dark Days right now - hey, how's that for a cheesy DJ link?! Wonder how much longer I can type stress-free gibberish before Miami calls back to worry me once more? Now listening to Uncloudy Days by The Staple Singers - that's more like it, these are indeed Uncloudy Days for Effra! The metaphorical sun is shining brightly, reflecting off mine, Dixon and Lex's heads...
9.45pm: Dolphin shot, brilliant save by the Coach. The shot was from wide right, on target but Neill leapt and tipped it over the crossbar. Then Spuds headed off the line from the resulting corner. We then broke and had a chance of our own cut out, but they then broke back and Ian Henderson scored from fully 25 yards. So now it is indeed 4-2. 12 mins or so to go... squeaky bum time if they make it 4-3. Which they nearly did, Miami just called back to say Coach just made another brilliant save.
9.43pm: Blimey, what an action-packed match. Lex is now outright 3rd in the All-Time 11-a-side scorers list with 26, while Joe has moved up that list from 11th= to 8th=. Honestly, I'm shattered here. It's Tremayne who's the real winner because all this typing by me is surely saving him the bother of doing a third successive match report. Oh, and The Hut is videoing the match!
9.38pm: I mean to say 4-1, clearly! So the view from the touchline, if you can't translate my so-called touch-typing below, was that Simon had taken the ball too wide after beating the offside trap. But he hadn't - he crossed brilliantly (as he did a couple of weeks ago for Mickael - hey, where's Mickael tonight? - to score). Lex met the cross and laid the ball off to Joe who was central in the area and he scored! You wait more than 2 years for a Joe goal and then two come along at once!
9.37pm: 4-2!!!!! Si mes broke thru offside trap taken it too wide hadnt crossed it, Throny laid it off to Joe centrally who sv=cored!
9.36pm: Below is the best I can type while Miami explains how Dolphin missed a golden opportunity to reduce the deficit to 3-2.
9.35pm: bout min ago Dolh good chance score broke thru pen area all had do side foot with right foot into goal but it curled away past righgthand post
9.33pm: Miami calls to tell me that about a minute ago RAUCHENBERG! was through on the right and Shaky was screaming for the ball on the left but RAUCHENBERG! shot, leaving Shaky frustrated.
9.28pm: There's no such thing as a two-goal buffer, but our two-goal lead has been restored! Free-kick to Effra just inside the oppo's half; Dixon took it beautifully and the ball sailed to the far post where, you guessed it, Lex was there to head the ball back across and into the net. Double figures for 2009, the boy is simply unstoppable. And all this against a team that thrashed us 8-0 during our dodgy patch earlier in the year. Still a long way to go, but it's been a while since we suffered one of our trademark collapses and hopefully we won't endure that fate this evening. It doesn't take a football genius (which is jolly handy, as I'm not one) to work out that if we're putting Dolphin under pressure, we're going to be under less pressure ourselves.
9.27pm: 3-1!!!!!!!!!!
9.25pm: More meaningless stats while I wait for The Hut to call again... We didn't score a single solitary goal in the whole of May this year, and only 1 goal from 14 May to 11 June inclusive, but lately we've been banging them in for fun!
9.20pm: Links on for Spuds at half-time. In the first half, TBALT came on for Elbows.
9.18pm: Must be half-time by now? That Lex penalty was his 25th 11-a-side goal for Effra Academicals, taking him level with Shaky at 3rd in the All-Time 11-a-side scorers league. His 9th of 2009, now 2 ahead of RAUCHENBERG! in the race for this year's Golden Boot.
9.14pm: That was three goals in 10 mad minutes. I'm exhausted. Mind you, I am operating iTunes on the laptop while doing this caper on the Mac Mini. I'm like Rick Wakeman on the keyboards in some amphitheatre.
9.09pm: 2-1. Graeme headed off the line following a Dolphin corner, but we failed to clear the ball and the oppo promptly scored. Tarnished the first half, but we're still in the box seat.
9.08pm: Well, how much fun is this?! Shaky through on goal, scythed down by a hapless Dolphin defender. Lex Luthor, who banged in a terrific penalty for us last week, picked up the ball and, as they say, made no mistake from the spot. 2-0.
9.07pm: 2-0!!!!!!
9.02pm: The last time Joe scored for Effra was 19 July 2007. More than two years ago! That's his 15th 11-a-side goal for us and takes him above Elbows in the All-Time list. Proof that I'm no Derren Brown: I was convinced LAST week that Joe would score, but I was a week out. So, a long way to go in the match but the signs are that our recent run of good form is alive and kicking... No complacency though, even from the safety of a dining room in Tonbridge.
9pm: Through ball, their CBs a shambles, Joe wins the ball and takes it past them, clean through and blasts an unstoppable shot into the top left-hand corner of the goal. Get! In! Sene's goal drought is Ovah!
8.59pm: 1-0!!!!!!!!!!!!! Joe Sene!!!!!!!!
8.56pm: Miami Dade has joined Rushy and The Hut on the touchline. Gutted that the three of them are still unable to play due to injury, but delighted to see this marvellous commitment, turning out to cheer on the boys. Tremayne in particular is providing excellent support for the Coach – great to see. Still 0-0.
8.50pm: In the other Match Of The Day (Math Of The Day?), The Wife has passed her preliminary tests and been accepted to do GCSE maffs. Good work The Wife. Meanwhile, so far as I know, it's still 0-0 in Crystal Palace, and you don't have to have A level Further Maffs to add up how many goals have been scored so far. What's zero goals divided by zero? What's 40 per cent of zero? Ask The Wife this time next year when she's passed GCSE maffs. Between now and then I shall obviously be cutting out coupons from the back of cereal packs to help her get that magic qualification.
8.47pm: I seem to remember that the last time I did this young Edward Christy Andrew Dade kept waking up and disturbing my live updates. But tonight he's definitely out for the count, so full respect to The Wife for wearing him out.
8.46pm: Fans of the Accies not conceding hatfuls of goals will be pleased to learn that John "scored about 3 goals against us and then 5 goals for us" Lizou is NOT playing for Dolphin Riders this evening.
8.42pm: "Unlucky Joe! Unlucky... Well won Joe!" So says The Hut on the touchline, in between telling me that we could/should have scored in the first 5 mins when Elbows had an attempt of some kind and RAUCHENBERG! blazed over the bar from 6 yards out.
1 comment:
Great effort Stu!
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