Seasons In The Sun*

Apologies to musical connoisseurs for this week’s Blog title the dirge that propelled Terry Jacks from Canadian obscurity back to morbid obscurity in 1974 The words and tempo were dull and depressing just perfect for Pans People to transform into 3 minutes of prancing about So it proves just about anything can have some redeeming value

This week’s excessive heat had a similar effect on each session’s games In mitigation it’s very difficult to exert huge energy when your body is resisting the effort involved in everything

The temperature meant enforced rehydration breaks (frantically looking for Powerade - whilst other cooling drinks are available for less commercially minded consumers) Play needed to be short passes to feet (rather than in the general direction of team mates) Moving gradually about the field in waves rather long balls looking for the ‘speedy’ lone wolf It would a challenge to adapt but one that was embraced albeit at arms length

The Monday morning Ruskin Sports Village session was odd from the get go A posse of teachers arranging impromptu cricket games for their charges had partially invaded the Pavilion steps but were soon dispatched after Meldrew had asked to see their membership cards and enquired if thru had paid their subs

Eventually the following teams were selected and dispatched to the outer reaches to enjoy the bright start

Green - Cornelius, Haggis, Mike Thomo, Phil the Cat, Steve Harding & Kerry

Black - Enoch, Girvo, Trish, Andy Man, Mark NR and Roger

This combination would play out a decent contest producing some excellent performances, spectacular goals, moments of controversy but no notes of deeds of derring do or goals due to the absence of a Referee We do know that Roger suffered in the stifling heat and wisely retired from the action to prevent full heat exhaustion

Blue - Phil Moss, Les Meldrew, Cockney Rebel, Chris K, Sheila and Little John

Purple - Dave Robbo, Ashy, Ian Lefty Bridge, Eileen, Roy and Steve Jones

Red - Mike Thomo, Snakehips, Colin, Beach Boy, El Presidente and McSpeed

Old Gold - Gonzalo, Phil the Power, Kirsty, Citeh Geoff, Rick and Ian Connor

Charlie took charge of a very tight game between Old Gold and Blue as the opener on Pitch 1 In the end just a solitary goal by Gonzalo sealed the narrowest of victory’s Lots of energy expended but just that one vital goal

Blue faced a very useful Red outfit in their second match Blue all energy and action, Red content to probe for goals whilst hoping to deter their opponents multiple attacking options It was almost inevitable that numerical odds would favour Blue and goals by Phil Moss, Cockney Rebel and Little John took the game away from the one-dimensional Red Chances were wasted to keep Red in contention Blue the more clinical when it counted That Red did find the net through Snakehips a surprise with all their other firepower but Blue worked harder, tracked back and were good value for their 3-1 win

Ref Jeff Betty takes up the story from Pitch 2

Purple 2 v 5 Red

Red goals by Mike Mc Speed with all 5

Purple goals were 2 by Steve Jones

Reds played some great football as did Purple but unfortunately the Purple team were all out attack and forgot that football (even the walking game) needs players to defend as well as attack Too many times it was two or three Red against one  Purple defender so Mike had a bit of a field day getting six goals (what would have been a double hat trick ) unfortunately one had to be disallowed due to a slight lean against the defender in order to get a better shot at goal  A tough decision but it had to be made (get your excuses in early Jeff)

The second game pitted Purple and Old Gold and against a very strong OldGold team Purple again struggled to keep the score down having just the one consolation goal to show against the four Golden moments

       Final score Old Gold 4 - Purple 1

Scorers Old Gold Gonzalo 3 with Phil adding to the total

Purple’s lone goal was scored by Steve Jones

After a testing morning with a few finding the oppressive heat too much The Teachers declared with the kids scratching their heads wondering why they couldn’t just play Walking Football now that seems like fun

Wednesday evening threatened higher temperatures still with humidity akin to some of the Worls Cup venues (Turks Head Boot Room & Cowley Arms beer garden)

Two games were possible despite the conditions The teams selected were;

Pink - Phil the Power, Little John, Chris 4G, Jason, Haggis and Deggs

Neon - Cockney Rebel, Les Meldrew, Eamon, Joe the Birthday Ghost, debutant Rob Brown and Andy Man

This was a superb advert for adapting your game to suit your team resources and the weather

Neon suffered from not really establishing a strong shape from their available players and had to constantly chase back to stem the tide of Pink attacks Pink played a canny containing game holding a deeper line and then finding their more advanced players to devastating affect

Haggis claimed an excellent opening goal placing the ball calmly into the far corner Neon flitted briefly into the match with a decent move that was finished in style by the Cockney Rebel

Haggis repeated his earlier work to restore the lead Chris 4G found the net with some ease before Deggs rounded off the night with a cool finish 4-1 One moment of madness when a birthday celebrant picked off the worse pass imaginable before turning his back on his stranded team mates Anyone can make a mistake, but it’s unforgivable to not even try to win the ball back Makes everything twice as difficult Rob Brown found the conditions especially difficult and one or two others were clearly flagging by the end 4-1 Neon blown away by more determined Pink team

Jeff Betty reports on the night’s other match

White 6 v 3 Orange

It looked at one stage that White team were going to run (walk?) away with the game and I may have to switch a couple of players round to even things up, but after going four nil down Orange managed to pull a goal back through PJ then with White loosing a player through injury Orange started to get more into their stride and make a game of it. White were not phased by this and kept working really hard playing neat passes for which they were rewarded with more goals from Sully and Ian. The game finished with a well deserved 7-3 win for White

White scorers were Gonzalo 3, Sully 2 and Ian Harding 2

Orange scorers were PJ, Chris 10 P and Deano

So more of the same but if we could knock the temperature down a few degrees it would be much appreciated

Seasons In The Sun* - Terry Jack (sorry yet again)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tPcc1ftj8E