Game 34

Last Sunday's winning side were on their home patch and patch is not a bad description. It certainly couldn't be described as a field as there was more mud than grass and the markings had obviously suffered from Saturday night's rain and Saturday's game. This being a council owned field it doesn't have a dedicated groundsman so often repair doesn't take place as quickly as it should, so the ground deteriorates quite badly in wet weather.

But I'm getting ahead of myself ... the story starts with Mrs Baldy being away overnight at a party with work and little Ginger Lad staying at his Granny's house, meaning I had the chance of a good night's sleep. I didn't take it and stayed up watching tv and pottering about on various football websites (sad?). Up early and then I realised I couldn't find some of my kit. Now my son sometimes "borrows" things to play at being a referee or a footballer but he's never taken one of my watches before. With one of my spares having a dead battery and the other also gone missing I didn't want to risk going with just one today.

So I set off late and found my changing room occupied by Umar. He's a decent young ref who is at university and comes home at weekends for games. Unfortunately this week he left some of his kit behind at uni and had to borrow a watch (I found two in my search!) and he nearly tried taking it home!!!

I had no time for a warm up and I eased myself into the game, taking care not to lose my footing in the heavy mud as well as warm my muscles slowly. The players for the away team, as with yesterday decided to test my limits and within 35 minutes I had three cautions, one of which I played advantage and came back for him. A spectacular volley from 18 yards saw the home team take the lead by half time and then we settled into the second half.

At that point I realised that my decision to hunt down a spare watch had been a very wise one as my original watch died leaving me with just one timepiece. An early equaliser for the away team was almost immediately over taken by a kick from the penalty mark for the home team. The away team then forced an amazing series of 5 successive corners and this proved too much for the home side who conceded another equaliser.

Another corner a few minutes later saw the away team take the lead and then double it a few minutes after that to take the score to 2-4. The home team streaked up the other end of the park and put in their third and the goalkeeper's protests about the scorer being offside earned him a caution. With 5 minutes to play I made a call for delaying the restart and on cautioning the offender found I already had him in the book, so he was dismissed.

He was soon followed by a team mate who made a very dangerous challenge and his team held out to record another win, which keeps them top of their division. No calories or heart rates today as it was the monitor that "died" at the end of the first half. It has now been repaired and will be back in service on January 3 ... unless I find a game this weekend when I'm visiting my in-laws ...