Saturday 28th September 2024

Petrol Drinking Rats!

Temple Bar Vets 5 v Old Tiffinians Vets IIs 2

(HT 2 – 1)

 

Meeting at Quirke’s place on Friday night to drink the fuel from his car was not a good idea. Turned out we played like petrol drinking rats. The Temple Bar pitch is like a ploughed field so this was never going to be pretty. Tiffs started well and went ahead when Crozier’s long range effort was thrown into the goal by their keeper. Bennett in goal was in control with the ever-reliable Phelps, energetic Bhalla and solid Sniffer in defence. Midfield of Orsmond, Crozier and Garfield with wing backs Baile and Pilbrow. Banoub and Smith up top. Caged tiger Allen prowling the touchline with Barras and new Matt waiting to get on.

In a strange first half that saw Barras hit the cross bar from a corner, Temple Bar scored 2 goals, when maybe we could have cleared the ball. Pilbrow clashed heads with one of their players that saw their player return like Terry Butcher.

Trailing at half time Baile identified the problem. We need another WhatsApp group, and we were rushing! He suggested we all counted to 10 before making a pass. Confusion reigned, like Ross Geller getting a spray tan, do we count fast or Mississippilessly! Maybe not kicking the ball away in defence quickly enough was the actual problem.

Tiffs equalised at the start of the second half, Smith converting a penalty he won. We thought we had taken the lead when the ball ended up in the back of their net, only to be eventually called back for a throw-in as the ball may or may not have gone out back in 1983!

That may have been the turning point as we lost our heads, and found us behind by 2 quick goals. A soft penalty, Bennett only counted to 6 before he kicked their bloke, and a lucky long-range effort. Despite lots of effort there was more chance of Pilbrow turning up at the pub and getting his wallet out than us scoring again! They added a break away fifth to rub salt into our wounds.

A small number of us enjoyed the best after match food of home-made pizza and chips, sadly the highlight of the day. Phelps was your scribes POTM as he played a solid full 90 minutes and never gave up.

Assists: Justin Smith

Goal Scorers: Paul Crozier; Dave Smith

PotM: Toby Phelps

Starting XI:

Clinton Bennett

Viv Bhalla

Toby Phelps

Justin Smith

Simon Baile

John Garfield

Mark Orsmond

Paul Crozier

Jason Pilbrow

Paul Banoub

Dave Smith

 

Subs:

Jayson Allen

Nick Barras

Matt Williams