The old boys welcomed back "Mr Maroon" James McCormick Esquire to the fold yesterday. Jimmy had flown back following the death of his father James on August 20th.
On behalf of all the good folk at Pukekohe AFC, our thoughts are with you and your family at this time mate.
Cox's Reserve is an attractive venue...sea views to the left, the Sky Tower dominating to the right....in between patches of sand and slops of clinging mud at the corner flags. Mouldies or sprigs...get it wrong and suffer the consequences.
This was a game we expected to win comfortably....we had 16 players, they had 12. They had a keeper who looked decidely dodgy, we had the man mountain called Andre between the posts. Should be a doddle then.....
The first 40 minutes was the biggest shower you will ever see....lowpoints include:
Steve Fabs putting a header over from 2 foot out....as Tom Jones once sang "It's not Unusual"
Andy Davey clear through on goal and putting his shot out for a throw in
Jimmy Mc putting me through with a fabulous angled ball, only for my control to resemble that of an octopuss on a trampoline and much, much more
Passes went astray, shots were scuffed, communication was as frequent as All Blacks World Cup victories.....in short we were shocking.
In fairness, the opposition stuck to their task and challenged for everything making life genuinely difficult....not that we helped ourselves. Our salvation did however come from the most unlikely source.
42 minutes into the 1st half....Jimmy Mc down the right, cuts the ball into the area, the Springs defender (David Ginola with a twisted nose) half cleared to the edge of the box, straight into the path of Daryl Wilson, who smashed a little beauty into the bottom right hand corner. Relief all round, into the break with a slender lead.
Fin proceeds to do his nut.....good job I can't hear, as I change my boots on the sidelines. Words like "Useless, abysmal, talk to each other" peppered with lots of sweary words provide a fitting sub text to what has preceeded. 45 minutes to put it right.
We kick off the 2nd half with Dolly on the sideline following a knock to the knee in the first half (this was quickly added to when Fin hurt his neck in a slow motion incident, Pete Clark knacked his knee after falling at Bechers Brook and Mark Harvey lost a tooth after an incident that wouldn't have looked out of place in a WWE tag team match). The numerical advantage was being eroded rapidly.
The game then took a bizarre twist on the hour mark. The Harveymeister played a gem down the line, I got wee fick to it, George Milloy sped clear and finished adroitly. Woulfy points to the centre circle, high fives all round......but wait....the Springs lino has his flag up. He's calling offside against George....Woulfy overrules and still gives the goal.....a couple of our guys advise Woulfy to disallow and go with the lino's decision, which to his credit, he does. Now that's what I call sportsmanship.
What followed would get a million hits on You Tube. The resulting free kick was knocked short to no-one in particular, Fabs charges onto it and lashes in a swerving screamer from 25 yards out......JUSTICE. 2-0 up....now let the goals pour forth.
They did......at the wrong end! Springs knocked a lovely ball over the top, their livewire forward making no mistake from 18 yards out. 2-1....and within 5 minutes they had a couple of identical opportunities which were both smothered superbly by Andre.
We managed to weather this period and moved further ahead with 70 minutes gone. Steve Fabrello making no mistake with a header from 1 foot out...3-1 up and now we took charge. Gavin McKenzie went close from 63 yards out, Andy Davey went close on numerous occasions, whilst JK, Russell Whiter and Dave Benard were constantly looking to have a pop.
The game was finally buried in the final 3 minutes....
Andy Davey picked up a loose ball midway inside our half and set off on the sort of mazy dazy run that won Alberto Tomba back to back slalom Gold medals....he weaved here and there, crashed through players and still had the ball at his feet.....surely he wouldn't score? Your right he didn't........................his effort from the angle of the 18 yard box smacked firmly off the crossbar and landed straight at the feet of Jimmy McCormick. His finish resembled that of a croquet player gently pulling his mallet back and following through smoothly. 4-1 and great to see the big man on the scoresheet.
With the final play of the day, Andy Davey finally got the goal his efforts deserved, when he headed home a delightful Liam Moorhouse cross.
5-1 was how it ended and to be fair, if we had fired on all cylinders it would have been a massacre. But that would be doing our opposition an injustice...they played it in great spirit and by their own admission, played by far their best game of the season.
A big thanks to Woulfy for reffing and the support of the ever present Vicky Keen.
Ah well off to the chemist for more Deep Heat for todays game.