We schlepped to the Outer Hebrides for the early kick off of the final match of the season. Everything was on the line .... three points and we were safe, one point or a loss and we were at the mercy of other results which meant that it really was squeaky bum time. The risk of the drop was looming large. The ref was on the scene very early and was impeccably turned out with matching everything. He checked us in and I spotted a somewhat alarming incident ... the ref asked Rob to remove his white ankle strap because it did not match his black socks ... evidently FIFA were cracking down on these details.
Peep, peep, we were off and the Celtic were playing well with some foraging runs into the Nashua box. Nashua weren't rolling over and played like a team that needed to secure points to avoid the drop. It was neck and neck for the first half but they did manage to put one into our onion bag despite Frank Paddles Clear parrying away an initial stinger of a shot. In the second half we battled back and Cain scored a stunner. I determined that this was his best goal of the season ... incidentally it was also his only goal of the season .... I thank you.
Then things turned sour as cards were brandished for seemingly innocuous offences. Our card point tally grew from 10 to 13 and then Sweeney got a straight red for hurling some naughty words at one of theirs. This meant that we were on 15 points and this was a catastrophe because of the corresponding two point deduction. We were going down .... or so we thought!
The next step in Celtic folklore was written by Yiannis Moorhen who crafted an epistle to the divisional director on the heels of some intense lobbying by Captain Flicky. The epistle was about fourteen pages long and dotted with case law references that supported the argument that the ref was in legal-speak ... a wanker. The long and short of the compelling arguments is that the straight red was changed to a yellow and 15 points became 14 points and hey presto ... Peabody were relegated! Justice was done.
The crime in question was not a red card offence and an overly officious ref came to his senses. The planets realigned and the universe was back in order. Interestingly every member of the Celtic squad put in a transfer request at the final whistle but went on to retract when the verdict came in ... that's what I call team chemistry.
The Fall 2017 season is over. We came in fifth out of six which is pretty bad but not as bad as Peabody. Next season New England Evolution are coming up and this should mean fireworks aplenty!
