C.G.Machine, Crossers, Mr C, Uncle Owen and Rodders
Our annual trip to Duror (a lovely wee village between Fort William and Oban) had its usual bad start with a couple of late call offs. However, we've never taken a full team there before, so why start now !
The Crosshill Goal Machine once again got a weekend pass out of his retirement home and he drove up on a very wet Sunday morning with Crossers and Mr C (the youngest in the car by a distance) as company.
A detour saw Roddy getting picked up in Oban and we arrived late as usual with Uncle Owen (accompanied by Auntie Fran, young Conor and the famous camper van) pacing up and down worrying where his illustrious team mates were.
There were eight teams taking part and we were drawn in the Sensible Group (they obviously didn't know Crossers was coming !) along with Duror, Appin and Tom's Team.
As ever, there are always people willing to make up the numbers and, as we had Drennan and Campbell in the line up, we badly needed someone and that someone was Rab "Geordie Munro" MacDonald, our North of Scotland Youth Development Officer.
The weather was lousy and, apart from the persistent rain, it was blowing a gale up and down the pitches.
Our first game was against Tom's Team who had travelled all the way from Sheffield for the tourney and also had a couple of locals in their ranks.
We shot into the wind and up the hill in the first half and somehow managed a goal when Rab and Roddy combined to scramble the ball over the line with the Machine in close attendance. It was eventually agreed that RODDY had got the last touch.
It was the only goal of the game and gave Crossers a shut out, not that he had much to do in a good spirited game.
A couple of drinks later, for medicinal purposes only, we were on against Rab's Appin team so young Johnny Barclay, a seventeen year old local, took his place. Johnny had also played for us the previous year and also at our Sixes in June.
This was always going to be a harder game and again we shot up the hill to start with.
We turned round a goal down after struggling a bit but the wind was so strong that Appin found it difficult to create much up the hill themselves.
Crossers was getting a bit bored so he decided to go on a mazy run. He ended his run with a low cross into the middle and there was THE CROSSHILL GOAL MACHINE to turn the ball into the net.
No matter how many times he says he's retiring The Machine still has that predatory ability in front of goal.
As modest as ever, Mach said later, "well.........eh, it came off my shin.....eh". I hope the Oban Times reporter made the most of that exclusive !
Two games played, four points and we only needed a draw in our last game to progress to the Semis.
Duror were our last opponents and a win would do them as well and they quickly went two up as we were very slow out of the blocks (more medicine between games).
Yet again we shot into the wind first of all and things didn't look that good at the break.
It also didn't help that Crossers had injured his knee when he collided with an opponent. But you know Crossers, he's not one to make a fuss (!) and soldiered on like the trooper we all know he is !
It was only six minutes a half so we needed an early goal and UNCLE OWEN duly obliged when he hammered the ball home form close range.
Within a minute we were level as RODDY scored witha lob from the touchline. "It's going miles over", shouted Mad Tommy in the Duror goal as the ball went over his head and into the net !
We were in the ascendancy now and RODDY sealed the win for us with another close range shot to put us into the Semis.
The Grotto bar from Glencoe stood in our way of glory and we changed pitches to a more level surface. Not the conditions to suit our silky soccer stars (South Side Section) and we were soon a couple of goals behind.
RODDY brought us back into the game before half time when he shot home from a rebound but unfortunately we ran out of steam in the second half and finished up losing
6-1.
The Grotto Bar went on to win the Final beating another Glencoe team whilst we finished in our highest ever position.
After the presentations and raffle Roddy headed for home whilst the rest of us headed to the Stewart Hotel for the evening's festivities.
We were joined there by Mr C's brother Donald who was providing accommodation for the three old yins from Glasgow.
A good night,including a band playing, finished with a long walk home in the dark and a drink from a bottle of Buckie which Crossers had managed to acquire from the raffle. It's lovely stuff and no wonder so many young people drink it !
All in all a good tourney, good football played by all our team and good socialising at night. The only bad thing was the weather but we're hardy souls and adapted well.
Thanks to Ally and Ian for organising the tournament and hopefully we'll be invited back next year despite actually doing well on the park for a change !
RESULTS
v Tom's Team 1-0 Davidson
v Appin 1-1 Drennan
v Duror 3-2 Grain, Davidson 2
Semi Final
v Grotto Bar, Glencoe 1-6 Davidson