Game three Celtic 4 Melrose 2

 

OK people, lets review the numbers. Right after our game Donald Trump revealed that he paid no federal income taxes in 11 of 18 years and in 2017 his federal tax bill was $750. He says that this is fake news. Here is part of a conversation between me and Donald that I completely made up.

Me : You're an idiot.

Trump: No, you're an idiot.

Me: Douchebag says what?

Trump: What?

The league does not keep track of the standings but the Gilf does. He has a team of actuaries in his basement. They wear dark suits and ties but the Gilf lets them take off their jackets when it gets hot because he has been having trouble with his boiler which runs a bit high down there. Most of the time the egg heads are working on a bitcoin put option strategy but this week the Gilf got them to work on our league standings. According to the basement boffins we are three points clear in first place although the North Shore International Men of Mystery do have a game in hand. Donald tweeted that this is all fake news and has threatened to launch a nuclear weapon aimed at a wind turbine, to save the birds. The scoring went like this ... 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, 3-1, 3-2, 4-2 but Donald said that it was 9-3, 7-4, 6-1, 0-0, 1-0, 3.14-3.14. He does not accept our score and is taking the case to small claims court. Cain scored a hat trick in front of his future father in law. This is a cover story because further investigation revealed that the gentleman was actually his parole officer. Note that Cain appears to have one oddly shaped shin pad ... it's an ankle bracelet people!!!! Pat scored the other goal and it was a first timer into the far corner. I was going to follow up with a silly comment but could not think of anything but I should have something by next week.

In the first half we were all over the The Melrose Good Guys like a cheap suit. We possessed the ball well, knocked it about confidently and scored three goals. Their keeper threw a wobbler right before the half time break and nobody knows what set him off ... I heard talk that someone gave him the stink eye. At half time the message from Captain Flicky was to keep doing what we were doing and as a team we proceeded to the exact opposite. For the first twenty minutes we let them control the ball and they put two in our net and one of them was a cracker! However we got the wake up call and got back on track, reasserted ourselves and scored a fourth goal which settled things.

 Here is a picture from Rob and Jan's recent apple picking trip. This one is a close up of Rob deliberately bruising an apple that he put in someone else's basket. I don't know why he does these things ... apparently he's a habitual fruit bruiser.

Game two - Celtic 2 Andover 1

Before I get sidetracked I would like to draw your attention to this great old chestnut. It is one of my favorite jokes from "Not the nine o'clock news" in the old country.

It was bloody freezing at kick off on account of a cold Canadian high pressure air mass making it's way down the eastern Seabord and straight into my shreddies. Dougie Vee made his season debut. He had been up all night, broken into all of our houses and had taken everyone's meds before kick off. My dogs canine distemper pills included. I know this because he was at least five times louder than he usually is. Doug does not have covid but is considered a super spreader for loudness. We followed the covid protocol and wore masks. Doug mentioned to me that Andy Henderson told him that wearing a mask whilst playing footy is like being waterboarded .... I think he's right. Despite the waterboarding not one of our players revealed where Bin Laden was holed up! This is the very definition of  team cohesion. We had to self ref the game which essentially meant that we would follow the honor system. Both teams were full of reprobates so the system was not on solid ground. They scored first with a goal from a clearly offside position but we were playing well despite only having one sub. Why did we only have one sub? I can't explain all of the reasons but I was told that Rob and Jan went apple picking this morning. I think that they may have been picking "Doug's Snout" or "Razor Russets" .... how do you like them apples? Andover had a whole gaggle of subs who were forming human pyramids on the sidelines. We went into the half down by one but we were fairly evenly matched up and Captain Flicky did his fireside chat.

We were better in the second half because we had the Canadian wind with us. We scored two and had a hat full of chances. The first was a cross by Taso from an acute angle that found its way into the back of the net. I can tell you this ... if a cross goes in the net ... it was a shot! The second goal was scrambled affair with Oscar finally bundling it in with his left testicle. We continued to press and could have had more goals. They tried to equalized but we kept it tight at the back. 

Back to back wins. Nice new kit. Comfortable socks. It's all good.  

The season of covid - Celtic 2 DEA 1

Our first game was away at the Drug Enforcement Agency in Bedford NH. The field was incorrectly lined but freshly mowed .... by a herd of goats, and judging by the cutting job, the goats need some dental work. Captain Flicky announced that we should have started with plenty of subs but that a number of blokes had jumped ship at the last moment leaving us with no subs. The Captain was not happy. The nameless miscreants are Johnny G, JB, Andy, Moorman and Blanchy who all promised to play and then came up with a bunch of lame excuses as to why they could not make it. There was some discussion that they all feared the DEA because they all traffic in controlled substances. On the plus side we got our nice new kits which included incredibly comfortable socks. I plan to sleep in mine all week. Captain Flicky changed his pre-match speech from "we're gonna kill 'em" to "we have no subs, the season is a shit show so lets just have a bit of fun". Weirdly this change of plan may have worked and now that I think about it I would not be surprised if this is exactly what the captain intended ... the cunning old fox! 

New Mike gave it his best but lasted ten minutes and had to abandon the battle with an injury so the ten of us had our work cut out ... it was knackering in the heat on the heavy pasture. Early in the first half I took a throw in to Caino who dribbled to the end line and cut one back for Pat who slotted it into the bottom corner. We were one up. Our second goal was scored not long after the first by Commodore Gilf of the Topsfield Yacht Club who pounced on loose ball in a goalmouth scramble. The DEA came at us pretty hard for the whole game ... sniffer dogs, cavity searches, probing questions ... the works! As you may have deduced I am planning to have a little fun with the team name but it's perfectly fine to do this because I am Mr Earnest Scribbler. Tom made some astonishing saves that would have beaten the standard keeper ... I think he was off his meds on the day and it was working. I'm talking full stretch athletic stuff with a difficult dismount and landing ... no, I'm serious ... some really impressive goalkeeping. At one point deep in the first half Bedford caused havoc in our area and got behind Tom but Rob leapt in to save the day and cleared the ball off the line. It was Roy of the Rovers stuff! They pulled one back in the second half but we held it together with a "you shall not pass" attitude. We tried to go forward but played for eighty minutes with only one up front. Nevertheless Caino hit the post in the second half. He did not score on the day but I'm guessing that he rippled the back of the old onion bag later that evening! 

I seem to have meandered off course here ... where was I?

After the game Rob gave me a really shitty beer which was cold but so shitty as to be almost undrinkable. The can said it was beer but it definitely wasn't. It was more like very watery goat pee. But I only mention this because it was very kind of Rob to bring a few beers to the game. Rob the king of all piss takers is actually a very nice chap who is happy and willing to share really crap beer with his teammates.

Taso the carnival barker did a fine motivational job and managed to keep his shirt on for the entire game. It was hot and sweaty day and ninety minutes felt like an eternity but we got it done with a gritty performance. We possessed and moved the ball quite well and deserved the win. The players who got it done were Tom, new Mike, Rob, Gilf, Walter, Taso, Pat, Oscar, me, Captain Flicky and Caino.

Keep it tight at the back lads!