Game 70

When the sun was shining as I set off my wife said that she'd pop along to watch the game with our son. When the rain started in the first half, there was no sign of her or him but when the sun came back out at half time, I saw her car pulling into the car park next to the field and one of my son's favourite playgrounds.

Her first comment at full time was to ask how many goals had been scored in the game as it seemed that the goalkeeper was always picking the ball out of the net every time she looked to the field. Her second comment was that I seemed to do a lot of running in the second half. Personally I thought I was coasting and really only lifted my involvement above minimum level when I issued the two cautions and checked on a player who had been injured.

The game itself perfectly illustrated all that is right and wrong with Sunday morning pub football. The home team were at the end of a season of consolidation in the First Division. They scraped together 11 men and an injured substitute but this left their reserve side with less than 11. The away team had cantered to the Second Division title last season beating all comers and narrowly missed out on a league cup win when beaten by the home team from today's game. They arrived with 11 but one was suspended so they started with 10 men.

They made good use of the strongish breeze blowing towards their opponents goal and in the 13th minute when a high ball was played into the home team's penalty area a centre half climbed all over the smallish attacker to concede a penalty. They added a second goal on 35 minutes when a shot was deflected off the backside of a defending player and reached half time at 2-0. They were comfortable, despite the silly caution earned by their left winger.

The ball went out for a throw in and the player grabbed the ball and a water bottle. He ran back infield just as a team mate took the throw-in, the offending player chested the ball down and played it along the touchline. All happened in a flash and everyone apart from a couple of old heads were surprised at the caution. One of them labelled the player (his own team mate) a disgrace for showing a lack of respect to his opponents - classic!

At half time the away team shuffled all their players around. They had already been relegated to the Second Division and just wanted to have some fun. Their back line certainly had fun as they tried and were sometimes successful, in playing an offside trap. This led to frustration by the home team's left winger who wouldn't accept that he was being caught in an offside position. When he complained for the third time, I asked him to come and talk to me. I explained why he had been adjudged offside, tried to calm him down but he kept on moaning and trying to have the last word.

In the end even his captain lost his patience with him and certainly had no qualms when I cautioned him for dissent. Now I would have been a little more understanding if his team were still trailing 2-0 but they weren't. In fact by the time we had played 15 minutes in the second half, as my wife noted, the goals had started to pour into the away team's goal. They went from leading 2-0 to losing 4-2 in that time.

They seemed to raise their game briefly and scored two more goals. The downside was that in the last half hour they conceded another 4 goals giving the score a lopsided look at 8-4. Calories burned 1111, max hr 84% (yes I was trying) average 69%. The reason for the low average is that I took off the heart monitor strap but left the monitor running when I showered so I had 10 minutes of nil value (poor monitor must have thought I was dead!).

I have a decision to make now concerning a game I've picked up for Thursday. I already have a game booked in on Wednesday and may pick one up on Saturday. I also have a line to run next Sunday in the District Sunday Cup Final, when (s)Andy has the middle. At the moment I have cramps in both quads and hamstrings and really could do with a rest. Also work have been quite prescriptive about the number of midweek games I have fitted in already and with two more open age games to go, I don't want to rock the boat too much, so the U15 game on Thursday might end up being a backward.