| Sunday 8th March - 2009 Midlife Caledonian 4 - 3 Bookham Old Boys The two teams were treated to a variety of weather at F.P. Sports Ground as they played a friendly but well contested match. Neither team had the services of a 'proper' goalie and we both had the luxury of only one sub. The Midlife Caledonian bench was supplemented by 4 players from Midlife Italiano who were elgible for tranfer from Epsom once visas had been sorted out. Not only did they take my squad numbers from 8 to 12 players but they could play a bit too which is always nice to watch. Midlife started wih Ali K in goal for a while who was then followed by Fausto and although they are perhaps not everybody's first choice of goalie nobody else stepped forward to don the No 1 jersey. Nevertheless, Midlife took the lead early on and seemed to be in the driving seat with the score 3 -1 in their favour by the time there was 60 minutes on the clock. Keith S and John D were stalwarts in defence and Tony and John from Epsom were linking well in midfield with Nick Ranaldo and our Alex who, despite us kicking of 15 mins late, still managed to turn up 10 minutes after we started. Bobby S. and Simon I. ran their socks off and got 'stuck in' supporting the defence and the forwards. As John D. establishes himself in the role of right-back he is bringing a new dimension to the Midlife Caledonian game by playing the ball out of defence in the style of Alan Hansen but with the tenacity of Martin Buchan. We look forward to his future career as a TV pundit. A lack of available personnel meant that it wasn't possible to have a 'flurry of substitutions' at half-time but that didn't mean the players couldn't be switched around despite the manager wanting to leave the line up the way it was. These changes affected the way Midlife Caledonian were playing and as the weather turned from sun to rain to hail, and then back to sun again, Bookham Old Boys managed to get back into the game and the score was 3 -3 when, with one minute on the clock, Midlife Caledonian snatched the winner. Much needed hot showers were followed by cost effective post match drinks & nibbles, in- depth post-match analysis and footie on the wall-to-wall TV sets or nipping off home sharpish for the Sunday dinner, depending on the individual's circumstances.. Man of the Match: Simon I. |
| Match report Ali K. |
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