Writing match reports can be hard at the best of times.  Let’s be honest, a large portion of most games are actually made up of bad first touches, wayward passes, speculative efforts and bad decision making.  Obviously, this only applies to the opposition – Tiffs football is just highlight after highlight after highlight.  Still, it can be difficult to remember which of these highlights is the highest light, and often the match report is just a brief, rambling introduction followed by an even briefer, mostly inaccurate recollection of a goal or two.

However, this match report is going to be different, as I actually missed a fair bit of the game.  You won’t find any faded memories of a scrappy equaliser in this report; you’ll simply get a new, better version of the game, which, seeing as it will be the only record of what happened, will essentially become the truth.

Tiffs started the day well by not having any cash on them to pay a £20 deposit for a changing room.  Luckily the opposition kindly allowed us to use their changing room, although one might suggest that they should have paid two deposits as the home team, but we won’t open that can of worms.  The team was in high spirits, with the usual pre-match colour theory chat being supplemented by bad impressions and hoping that everyone brought both boots this week.

Once the game finally got started it quickly settled into a familiar rhythm that would continue for the rest of the match (probably).  Wandsworth dominated the possession but a hard working Tiffs midfield and back four kept them mostly at arms length.  The only real chances came from a few rare Tiffs errors, but wayward finishing kept the score to nil.  Despite not seeing a huge amount of the ball, Tiffs were still more than capable of missing a few good chances themselves, one from an improvised freekick routine and another from a sweeping counter attack.

The 2nd half continued much as the first had left off, with Wandsworth dominating possession and Tiffs trying to keep their shape and counter when they could.  Some dogged defending gave Tiffs hope that they could cling on to a clean sheet, but sadly their resistance was broken midway through the half.  A whiff of offside was in the air for the goal, as a short penalty area scramble ended with the ball falling to the feet of a player standing on his own in front of the keeper, but alas the ref saw nothing wrong and waived away any protest.  Twice this season Tiffs have been on the wrong end of a tight offside call against wandsworth.

The second goal quickly followed.  This was even more fortuitous than the first, as Tiffs were simply unable to clear a corner, despite numerous attempts.  Three times they hammered a clearance straight at a Wandsworth player, and three times the deflection hit the woodwork; left post, right post and then crossbar.  On the 3rd rebound, the ball fell to a Wandsworth player who’s shot was also fired into one of his team mates, but this time it wrong footed the keeper and went in.  Unbelievable.

Tiffs mounted a valiant attempt at a comeback, spending the next 20 minutes or so besieging the Wandsworth goal, only to be thwarted by a string of quite magnificent saves from their keeper.  A true player of the match performance for the ages, something that he will no doubt be telling his children, and grandchildren, about for years to come.

Sadly, all this pressure didn’t pay off and Wandsworth were able to steal a third, even more fortuitous, goal.  A long goal kick punted downfield was headed on by the Wandsworth midfield, then headed back to midfield by a striker, then back again by another midfielder, and on and on for about 2 minutes.  Each time more and more players were sucked into the melee underneath the airborne ball, until almost 20 men were all clambering to win the decisive header.  Sadly, a Wandsworth head prevailed, climbing highest to flick the ball into a now abandoned Tiffs half, allowing their striker to race away and score past a stranded keeper.  The kind of goal that you really have to see to believe.

Although beaten, Tiffs were able to hold their heads high, losing out to a somewhat dubious opener and then two freak goals.  Fingers crossed their bad luck is finished for now, and no doubt they’ll be back to conceding much more run of the mill goals for the rest of the season.