A Game of Two Halves...
Posted on the 21st December 2009
As a football fan and a player of the game (in an amateurish, wake up dreaming of that goal you scored on some muddy pitch in darkest Somewhereshire sort of way) a chance to fulfil a dream has to be grabbed! Sadly it wasn’t lifting the F.A. Cup at Wembley in front of 80,000 fans. No, this was the chance to play in the Londonlaunch.com 5-a-side tournament at the David Beckham Academy.
Making our way past the huge display of football legends past and present, and peering misty eyed at an alarming number of pairs of David Beckham (cast off) football boots. Thought to self: he couldn’t possibly need that many pairs…Victoria must have done his shopping…. Anyway, I digress. I was excited, Carly looked bored (she was here for the networking bit which I guess was the purpose of the evening) and we split and went our separate ways…me to the changing room,Carly to the bar.
To cut a long story short, our team of ‘Events Allstars’ nearly held out for a goalless draw in the first match only to have victory (well, the draw) snatched away from us at the death (yep…sick as parrots we were). Another defeat against a team containing the legend that is Ray Parlour, then another left us without scoring a single goal. We were firmly rooted to the bottom of the mini league,the strongest of the bunch…yes we were holding up all the others as the saying goes. If we’d only scored some goals, Brian, we’d have won some games!
A little despondent and a touch deflated we regrouped to face the ignominy of the ‘plate’, a competition for fellow losers from the four mini leagues.
And that’s where it all came together. Talk about a game of two halves! We’d found our level. A rousing team talk from Capt Will Broome (‘run around a bit more’) raised our spirits. Supremo Will swivelled and lashed a shot into the top corner from, well, a yard out then doubled our lead with a great header (if that’s what you call a clearance hitting your backside and rebounding into the net!) and we had won a match! Another win and then another followed and suddenly we were in the final. It was our Wembley, we won the match, and we had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat! Would the crowd cheer as the team made its way forward to receive its prize? Sadly not; no cheering, no prize, no mention for the team who was the best of the losers!
The pluses of the night:
We won some games
I played in a match against (my) Arsenal hero Ray Parlour
I won a signed, framed photo of Ray Parlour presented to me by said hero
Teddy Sheringham played and then missed a penalty in the final
Met some great people
Roll on next year!
