Camden FC 0 - 3 Harchester United
24 September 2006 - Report by Paul O'Brien
“PAUL, I'VE NEVER SEEN YOU WITH YOUR CLOTHES ON” - TOM BALASHEV, 2006
Starting Lineup: Goalkeeper Paul, Ashley, Catty, Macca, Ginge, Paul, Kirk, Kaan, Burge, Chris, Searley. Subs: Mike Harvey, Loul, Tom, Dan Ahern, Little Kev
Unusually, I know an opposition scorer's name as opposed to referring to them as ‘xxx-man’. The reason for this is a chance meeting in Lloyds last year, where I kept calling him Dave thinking he was a bloke I went to school with, and I drunkenly wouldn’t accept “no, my name is Scott Squires” for a reason to think he wasn’t my old mate Dave. And it just so happened he played and scored in this game. Well done, Dave.
The first half started very brightly with our first attack seeing Chris round the keeper but unfortunately hit the side netting from a very tight angle. Unfortunately Camden didn’t carry on in the same manner as nobody really played that well. There was little composure from anyone on the pitch, which was one of the reasons why they managed to get their first goal.
The attacking ball in the box wasn’t cleared initially, then came back in, another mis-hit attempt at a clearance, followed up with another failed attempt to clear that one, and they got the ball back in the box which was eventually volleyed in from the edge of our area. All the Camden could muster was a good chance from a corner, with the attacking header cleared when it could have gone in on another day.
In true Trojan style, I took one for the team in this match. Having checked my run to try and cut out the through-ball, I was in the right place to intercept it, and did so using my plums. The right one was the worse off of the two, preventing running for a good few minutes afterwards. I also picked up a lump on my ankle, and I’m not sure where this came from.
At half time there were changes. Ginge and myself made way for Dan ‘Greased lightening’ Ahern and ‘man of many names’ Loul. In the second half the Camden were again under the kosh more often than carrying out the Koshing, and a free header at the back post from a left wing cross made it 2-0 Harchester.
Upon seeing this goal, Ginge kicked the ball he was holding on the sidelines up in the air as high as he could, and on its landing it took out two pre-teen girls who were watching, and Kev Wright’s ford escort felt the landing as well.While on the sidelines, being a hot day I decided to take off the shirt and socks, leaving me with just shorts on. The ref actually requested that we took our shirts off as he reckoned it might make it difficult to distinguish those on the line from those on the pitch, but we wonder otherwise.
My disrobing prompted an unexpected reaction from the bench; the following is a genuine quote from Tom, who is half Bulgarian don’t you know:
“Paul, I’ve never seen you with your clothes on”
Tom Balashev, 2006
Aside from hearing of Tom’s telescope trained on my bathroom/bedroom (I have since had the windows frosted and lock all doors and latches), I took on the role of waterboy, running on when they had a player down so I could dispatch fluids to the players.
This was never converted to goals though, instead another left wing cross was met by Scott “Pauls mate Dave from school” Squires, another free header at the near post which he dispatched into the net for 3-0.
I don’t think we done ourselves justice in this game. We know we are better, and harchester aren’t as good a side as riverside who only put 2-0 past us, and even that flattered them. According to man of the match, Dave Lee said “just give it to one of their lot”.