"Paul Dalglish held my pen!"
(((A short novel by the man at the match........ the one and only , SOFT SOUTHERNER......yeahhhhhhh)))
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Once again there were only enough team-sheets for the early birds, but as you will see, this might have been a good thing. After the arctic battering we received from the elements on the previous outing, it was gratifying to see that nobody had come in less than a jacket, so it was somehow predictable that the overcast sky kept the pressure high and made everyone feel a bit on the warm side (GOD: THERE'S JUST NO PLEASING SOME PEOPLE).
Since it was a bit packed by the stand
we worked our way round to the far side; no childishly scanning the
upper tier for famous faces for us (i.e. No amount of rubber-necking
on the way past gave me even the faintest glimpse of the end of a
dreadlock, or wrinkle on a Scottish frown, so I don't care who was
there). Steph, Gibbo and John settled down in line with the 18yard
box at the Toon end, but your intrepid reporter decided to risk the
avalanche of shots that were sure to be raining down on the
Scarborough goal and set off in that direction, notebook in hand. The
first impression when Scarborough ran out was "Ooh! What a
horrid training-top!", 1 Harper 2 Griffin 3 Serrant 4 Hamilton 5 Elliott (c) - moved from right back to let Griffin show us his moves 6 Howey 7 Julio Geordio (hurrah!) 8 Batty - obviously twice the man in the reserves to when on duty with the first team, hence the number. 9 Robinson 10 Dalglish ("Eeeeeee!" Quiet Gibbo) 11 Brady - left wing again, did I imagine it that he played on the right against Stockport? I won't tell you about Scarborough cos I didn't know them from Adam, and they can write their own match reports......what do you mean biased? What was immediately apparent from the off was that these guys were going to be no push-over. They kept up a constant barrage of shouts to each other and I swear that their continuous cries of "Squeeze! Squeeze!" featured bizzarely in my dreams last night, but we won't go into that. In fact, according to my handy note-pad, the first move of the game resulted in Harper making a fine save on 2 minutes.....
Now I don't know whether they read my last match report, but Robinson and Dags Jnr appeared to have changed roles with Robinson going for a lot of high balls and battling for everything, while Dags seemed to take more of the back seat this time. Robinson is also working out or has just started growing or something, because he had much more presence on the ball last night, and was extremely difficult to dispossess. Howey and Batty were pretty disappointing because they showed a bit less enthusiasm than the rest and also got caught on the ball through expecting a less hectic pace than they wee treated to. Batts still taught a few Scarborough players a few tricks and convinced their Number 4 to keep his distance. This bloke was exactly like James Dalton who plays front row for the Springboks; short, bald, energetic and nasty. Again it was the eerie silence, broken only by "Squeeze! Squeeze!" (you had to be there) that got to you. Elliott was the only one on our side who did much shouting (until Serrant in 2nd half, of which more later) and that soon petered out. The only time you heard much was when Julio was on the ball; he looked very tasty and passed his markers pretty much at will, but was constantly bombarded with calls of "Georgie!" from all the others, regardless of whether they were in a good position or not. He passed back to Batts once, who sent it on to Harper, and you will be pleased to know that he didn't pass it that way again (in defence, I think Batty just wanted to slow the pace down, because for all the enrgy expended, there wasn't much to talk about....bit like a Merseyside Derby). As I say, not much to shout about in the first half, but the cinder path made a satisfying crunching sound when you walked on it, and there were the Metro trains to watch or the planes taking off at the airport and at least it wasn't so bloody cold this time. Second half, I went back and joined the others to see if we might score and to observe Serrant and Brady more closely.....I had seen enough of Julio and Griffin already. I still had my trusty notebook, although I stopped jotting things down because people seemed to think I was with the press and I didn't want them to see that I had mostly been doodling women's wobbly bits in my boredom in the first half. The first thing we noticed was that Batty was off and they had once again excitingly mismatched the names and numbers on the team sheets, so that "Paul Arnison" was gradually revealed to be David Burt (thanks to the bloke next to me) who wasn't even mentioned on the sheet, but seeing as how he was later credited with the goal, it must have been him. Needless to say, the quiestest tannoy in the world continued to keep us wonderfully informed.
Now for the really sad part of the
evening. We went out to the carpark and realised that there would be
a bit of a delay getting out, so we decided to watch the lads leave
the club house. We saw Phileep Albert and Howey heading for the bar
and after about 15 minutes, the curly head of Griffin emerged and was
swamped by squealing autograph hunters.
For more info on the reserves, Visit the Young Magpies Zone |
Yes,
it was off to Kingston Park again last night to watch our 100%ers
continue their reign at the top of the Pontins League Div 2. Since I
had been asked to write another report for you I dressed for the
occasion by wearing a crumpled raincoat over my suit and carrying a
notepad and pen; I didn't have a hip-flask so I had to settle for a
couple of bottles of Budvar before the match and, since I don't
smoke, the cancerous coughing had to be provided by Gibbo, who is
still doing wonderfully in his battle to quit the weed ;-))
since they were wearing vile flourescent limey/yellowy long-sleeved
shirts, but this was replaced by pity when I realised that these were
in fact their match-shirts. They certainly made for an odd
combination with white shorts and red and white striped socks; it was
like playing against bastard mutations created by grafting Borussia
Dortmund players onto Mackems. We were also treated to another faint
and feeble rendition of "Local Hero" on the quietest tannoy
in the world. Our young lions lined up as:
Where
was I? Oh yes, early pressure appeared to be from Scarborough, and I
began to wonder whether I'd chosen the right end to stand. Batty
(Batts, to his teammates) and Hamilton were being overrun a bit, but
Julio was pulling out wide down the right and Brady wide on the left,
so it looked like we would have a repeat of switching play down the
wings and crossing for Dags Jnr and Robinson once we had slowed
things down a bit. Unfortunately, nobody told Scarborough and their
tigerish tactics of closing up every time we got the ball (to shouts
of "Squeeze! Squeeze!") and harrying us out of possession
paid off a treat. Elliott was very accomplished at the heart of our
defence and put in some excellent tackles, including a rather
gruesome one at the halfway point, which was rather reminiscent of
Batty's World Cup bicycle-kick-to-head, so he's obviously been
passing on his expertise to the young'uns ;-))
We
had shots from Dags, Robinson, Brady, Griffin, Elliott and Julio
Geordio in the first half, but all this spoiling play meant that only
Julio's was on target. We claimed a fair few corners which were taken
well by Griffin, but there were so many flourescent jerseys in the
box that nothing came of them. The same was true of the crosses which
Julio and Serrant kept pumping n....nobody on the end of them cos
they got snuffed out by hardworking Scarborough players tackling back.
Things
were a little more lively from the off and Serrant raced down to our
corner before slicing a cross behind the goal; he shouted
"Bastard!" very loudly. Things continued to ebb and flow in
a pretty frenetic fashion, but we were definitley a bit fitter, and
didn't slow nearly so much. Howey was subbed for "Arnison"
again, although my neighbour was sure it was Aaaaaaaaron Hughes, and
Bjarni Gudjonsson came on for Dags Jnr with number 12 on his back
again despite being number 16 on the team-sheet. Things really hotted
up at this point, and the Scarborough keeper was brilliant in keeping
out some fine strikes from Robinson, Burt and Julio. Serrant came
down into our corner again and had another cross blocked;
"Arsehole!" he shouted...some parents tutted and said
"language, there's bairns about". Steph had by this time
noticed a pattern emerge, and so was ready with her camera next time
our silken-tongued England U21 came visiting. Sure enough, he flew in
again, put in a great cross, didn't shout any naughty sailor words
this time, and he dived to send it in a second time when his cross
was headed back our way, but tripped and went arse over tit instead.
How pleased he was that Steph's camera flashed at this point,
catching him in all his glory......he did see the funny side though.
Anyway, our relentless pressure paid off and a player with dark hair
flashed in a shot which squirmed through their keeper's arse and
trickled over the line, which was sad for him, because he had been a
star until then. The dark haired scorer was soon caught in a jumping,
hugging, clutching, back-slapping huddle of other dark haired
players, so we couldn't work out who had actually fired the shot in;
obviusly the quietest tannoy in the world was a great help once
again. However, the paper says it was Burt, and since he has dark
hair and wasn't on the team sheet, they are probably right.
Scarborough tried to nick one back putting everyone at us in the last
5 minutes, but we somehow kept them out with some goalmouth antics
that made all the Keeganites sigh in fond rememberance. They've also
been feeding Bjarni the same porridge as Robinson, cos he appeared a
little less like a toddler and showed a great turn of pace. The
whistle finally blew with the Toon 1-0 and still 100% at the top of
the league....since Scarborough are second, I reckon we can feel
pretty optimistic.
This
was nothing compared to the reaction when Paul Dalglish emerged,
however, he was immediately surrounded by excited kids with autograph
pads and also a 6'3" figure with a crumpled match ticket and a
messianic gleam in his eye; yes, none other than our very own Gibbo
who had purloined my pen in order to fulfill his task. The picture
became even more disquieting when he was joined by Steph with a
camera for the "and this is me with Paul Dalglish before he was
famous" snap. Yes, as the three happy punters wandered off into
the night, a sharp eared listener would have heard the tall figure
exclaim, "I've got his autograph!", to which the one with
the long hair replied,"Well, I've got a picture of him"
while the seedy one in the crumpled raincoat followed up with,
"Paul Dalglish held my pen!"
