Tis the season to be merry

Valence turned up at Deal/Dover expecting a hiding from the well-drilled east Kent team. Upon arrival at the ground, it became immediately clear that Captain Fantastic’s instruction that “we are playing in yellow” was total bunkum. Deal play in yellow, in turns out, so yellow was a really bad choice for SV. Any other colour would have been better.

Anyway, at 10.58 we finally had a full team and a keeper. At 11.02 stand-in keeper Adam pulled on the kit and realised there was no keeper’s glove. Wonderful. 11.05 the match got underway, with the village idiots of Valence clad in 6 blue bibs supplied by Deal, and whatever else was not yellow, plus a keeper with no gloves. The stage was set…

With Deal having had an hour long intense warm up, they looked ready to dispatch the rabbits in headlights. But it was not to be. Valence actually scored some goals for the first time this season, and some were absolute crackers. I won’t go into the details, but after a first half with one goal, it all went a little crazy in the second period. El Kapitan even had the chance to miss two sitters between our 5th and 6th goals too. The score went as follows:

0-1 – Eoin with a tap in
1-1
2-1
2-2 – Paddy short corner
2-3 – Tom deflection from a Max exocet
3-3
4-3
4-4 – Paddy, can’t remember how
5-4
5-5 – Tom top left corner bullet from another Max through ball
5-6 – Johnny LBZ after rounding keeper

Some lessons from the game:

1) Lull the opposition into thinking we’re not too bright
2) Tim, Tom & Brett all play far better with hefty hangovers and pale complexions. Tom even chips less. Brett doesn't.
3) Meet times are for amateurs
4) Russ apparently has a time of the month, and it coincided with our game
5) Deal’s keeper is slightly angry and should be careful how he drives his car out of car parks

Merry Christmas all, and hopefully Valence can take this form into 2017.