THE HUNTER GETS CAPTURED BY THE GAME (*)

It’s not always easy being a referee; as they themselves will tell you. Everyone thinks you should have eyes in the back of your head and rival the Pope for infallibility.

And so it was that last Monday, SHWFC’s esteemed head ref, Jeff Bettye, decided he should take a break from his whistling duties and actually play a bit of walking football. You can guess what’s coming now, can’t you.......

But I’m getting ahead of myself and telling you the plot, darlings. (Although whether it’s all done in the best possible taste I’ll leave you to judge.)

Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, Monday morning, Ruskin. Unfortunately, we have no pictures for you this week, only the somewhat unreliable memory of both your scribe and the aforementioned Mr Birchall.

What I do remember is that we had two games with sides swapping over a half time. In the first game on Pitch A Orange took on Sky with honours finishing even with a 2-2 draw. On pitch B Purple narrowly beat Pinks 2-1 with goals from Barry Whizz and Steve the Honeyman, and Phil getting Pink’s. Pinks did pretty well considering they were 6 against 7 for most of the game until Jeff decided to even things up and play for Pinks.

On to the 2nd game and after their efforts in securing a draw against Sky, Orange wilted in the heat and – there is no other word for it – capitulated 4-1 against Purple. Mike McSpeed scored Orange’s consolation when they were already a few goals down. As for Purple’s scorers err...there were quite a few of them.

And now on to the morning’s main event. With Jeff staying on Pinks team the late appearance of Wor Eileen and Roger Moore from a weekend’s heavy gigging in Leeds led to Eileen volunteering to take on reffing duties. Pink took a two-goal lead with Jeff the ref scoring both goals [I have been unable to independently verify this statement... ] then Sky came back to make it two all. Sky then went ahead with a penalty from Geoff and then went further ahead with a goal from Mike . Mark D (no relation) managed to pull one back for Pink but they couldn’t get the equaliser.

The next comment I have from my on-the-spot reporter Jeff (for it was he) is “many thanks to Eileen for her excellent refereeing”. This was a view echoed by everyone present – including those not in the actual match, when it emerged over a coffee that our player of the year for 2024-5 had further enhanced her reputation by penalising our lead referee for running!! ‘I didn’t think I was,’ said Jeff; echoing a comment he may have heard others make in the past! Much amusement at all this and Jeff took the ribbing in good part.

On to Wednesday at Sutton when it was obvious that masochism must be a preference for many of SHWFC’s Wednesday players; as they chose to stay at home instead and watch ‘El Calamito’ aka the European Final between Man Utd and Spurs. One notable dissenter, despite his allegiance to the Red Devils was that man again, Jeff Bettye; who may not have eyes in the back of his head (see first paragraph above) but who could certainly foretell the future. He turned up with 19 others to give Andy Manager an easy bit of division to do with, 4 sides of 5, again swapping opponents at half time.

Again, apologies, no pictures (we promise to do better this week....)

We kicked off on pitch A with a win for Oranges against Yellow with Andy (2) and Les scoring for the winners; and Simon and Jason for yellows. On pitch B it finished 2-2 between reds and Blues with Peter amongst the scorers for reds and Tom Parr getting a long range shot for 1 of Blues goals. For the 2nd game Phil the Power who was injured was replaced by Phil the cat for Reds but they struggled against Oranges going down to a heavy 5- defeat  whilst Bleus and yellows fought out a tighter game which – I gather Blues just edged although I fear I have no score or even scorers to report.

Hopefully next week as some of our stalwarts return we will be a bit more blog-organised and will provide pictures for you of your favourite SHWFC stars as they optimistically pose with their teammates before an hour’s walking football. But until then I leave you with the words of Smokey Robinson – not from today’s theme tune wot he wrote – but from ‘Ooh Baby Baby’ by the Miracles. And they are appropriate for anyone who wants to challenge a referee in walking football:-

“Mistakes, I know I’ve made a few.

But I’m only human, you’ve made mistakes too”

(* The Marvelettes. But also check out the Grace Jones cover version!)