| February 4th � Leopards vs Green Park Rangers Saturday was all about loss. Loss of strikers, lost opportunities and another L on the balance sheet. From the start the mood was subdued: losing one striker to New York is careless, losing two the Sunday league equivalent of brain-drain. And when you lose a man so wily and contradictory that he looks like a fox but dances like a chicken, you know moving on is going to be difficult. But this was the Leopard�s big chance to turn their season round � they had drawn Rangers only 2 games previously and had felt unlucky to not come away with an unprecedented 3 points. The game itself started undramatically with the author�s late arrival and a pretty even run of play, but about 20 minutes in the Leopards felt a familiar deflation as GPR went ahead from a well-executed strike from their front man following a corner where the Leopards had followed the ball and not the man. A scrambled goal at the near post from our silky Jewish striker, was then disallowed for no good reason as the referee decided a foul had been committed on the bungling goalie. The half-time talk was typically resolute from the aging player-manager � who, possibly sensing that there can be fewer days of glory ahead of him than behind - put himself up front alongside the cultured leftie Rupert. Within minutes the management decision started to look more like inspiration than Alzheimer�s as a delicious one-two put the sophisticated left boot through and the chance accepted with serious aplomb. Level with 20 minutes to go, the Leopard�s embarked on an exercise in d�j� vu, with a velveteen Jewish defender decided to mark the ball rather than the player from a corner, resulting in a well-executed strike from a greasy annoying waiter called Paulo. 2-1 down but unwilling to give an inch on British soil, the beautifully leggy Fenn-Smith leapt like a salmon in his magnificent shorts to head the ball past a despairing goalie. A defender�s handball blatantly kept the ball out, a penalty resulted, but had the ball crossed the line and should it have been a goal? Either way the erudite boot of Rupert momentarily erred and a fiercely struck crossbar further dented Leopard morale. Post- match the depression was immediate and so pronounced that Big Stevo didn� t even come into the changing room to check out his team mates� underwear. Bleeding kneecaps started to reflect an inner turmoil eating into this institution, but the true significance of the defeat only became apparent on the day following. A barrage of Monday emails tore at the very tenets of New Leopardism. Old stagers mentioned fitness and practise with great seriousness. As the author writes it seems that the whole ethos of amateur incompetence that has served these pseudo-Southwarkers so long hangs finely in the balance. Oh yes, and Ricky B almost had another fight. |