Lord of the Rings?*

St Helens Beacon Walking FC members may be asking Secretary Mike F to review the way he picks teams after he cunningly picked himself onto an unbeaten (unbeatable?) Sky Blue team on Wednesday night at Sutton.

To be fair to Mike he did make some good saves in his goalkeeping stint although much of the talk was over the cracker from Ian B that our guest referee Steve Pitt controversially disallowed for the Dark Blues. It did seem a mite harsh and raised debate for much of the early part of the evening, to his credit Ian shrugged it off and kept his thoughts largely to himself. Sky might not have got a 100% record but for an uncharacteristically accurate shot from Deggsy for the Oranges. Unfortunately, it was aimed at his own keeper and John H was so surprised at its precision he could only help it into the net!

Deggsy redeemed himself with goals against the Dark Blues whilst John made a smart save from another Ian B blockbuster. Ian ensured he hadn’t a completely luckless night when he made it on to the scoresheet with a well-deserved goal against Sky.

But the invincible Sky was the night’s definite winner with Chris the inevitable leading goal scorer. Predators rarely seem to be happy unless they are scoring goals. He later capped a moody performance with some anti-ref mutterings which nearly got it him into the history books as our first ever official blue card for dissent. Some people are never happy!

There were a number of excellent games played in good spirit and we might have had at least 1 more but for a prolonged stoppage, which saw all those present on their hands and knees looking for Steve’s wedding ring which was eventually discovered by Chairman Pete a good five yards outside Steve’s penalty box. Whether this was all a subconscious comment on the state of his marriage we chose note to ask! There was a comedy moment too with Mick Makin failing from the penalty spot despite the Referee’s mentoring minute. If only he’d adopted the Martin Briggs style for last week, now that’s how to take a penalty!

A highly enjoyable night and we all learnt something about how refereeing might look in actual competitions. Referee Steve gave clear decisions (more on that aspect in a separate news article) and complemented us all on both our play and sporting spirit; so well done all.

Teams

Sky Blues - Mike F, Andy, Martin B, Chris, Mick Makin, and Colin

Dark Blues – Tony, Ian B, Martin W, Steve, Joe and Jeff

Orange – Deggsy, Alan, Lee, Phil, John H and Ian H.

(* credit to Deggsy for an inspired title suggestion!)