Inspired by Neil's account of his daily life, I've decided to blog my football season. I usually like to post somewhere about my exploits whenever I have a match, so may aswell make an appropriate place to do so (sorry if you think this should be in the Playground like Neil's Mark, move if required).

14/04/2007 - First Game Of The Season
Opposition: University Mt Wellington
Venue: Home
Kickoff: 2.45pm
Weather: Absolutely Atrocious

Arrived at the ground at about 1.45, an hour before kickoff, expecting to be first there as usual, and was suprised to see everyone was already there.
Very windy and cold, and the skies looked like they were about to open. Put on my nice new Adidas Predator boots that were picked up for $2, yes $2 (less than a pound) in a mass sports warehouse clearance sale in Adelaide (couple more pairs in stock at home ). Then the dilemma was, do I use my nice new goalkeeper gloves and risk ruining them in awful conditions, or do I stick with the training pair. Decided on debuting the new ones. Brilliant pair of gloves, Adidas Fingersaves picked up for 17 pounds in Selfridges in London last year. Absolute bargain given I'll usually pay at least double that for a good match pair. Wish I'd bought another in stock. It was a suprise to stumble upon them in Selfridges, and a suprise to find some in my size. My Dad and I had exactly the 17 pounds in cash between us and not a penny more, so we bought them then ran out the store to find a bank
Anyway, began a bit of a warmup and within about 30 seconds I could tell they were possibly the best pair of gloves I'd ever used. Have had Fingersaves before, but these are by far the best. Had a good and lengthy warmup, with plenty of time for a break before kickoff. Shortly before kickoff the skies opened and we were then faced with playing the first half against the most awesome wind and rain. I told my mate (our captain) that playing with the advantage of those conditions was worth at least 2 goals, and if we get to half time level, we'll win.

Suprisingly we started the better of the 2 sides, created the first few openings and even found ourselves 1-0 up after about 15 minutes. Shortly after that they made their first advantage of the conditions, playing a long ball over the top for the right winger to run onto, cross, and finshed off by the striker after a hashed clearance by our captain. No chance for me to stop the good finish. Game was pretty even, and then they struck again. Another long ball over the defence for their striker to run onto, he's past our defender so I rush out to narrow the angle, but he knocks it past me and another runs in and taps in for 1-2. Defender argued that he had him, although he was never going to catch him. Still, we could have communicated better with each other. They start to get on top now, another poor clearance in the box from our captain leads to me making a fine full stretch save in the air, and they create another few opportunites from through balls which I slide out to claim (and the striker left in a foot to give me a little kick each time I might add), and another couple of shots wide while we were struggling to get the ball up the other end. Then on the stroke of half time, our scorer finds his way through again and equalises for 2-2 at half time.
As I expected, a 2 goal wind, and to be level at half time was a pretty good effort.

Typically, the rain stops and wind dies down for the beginning of the 2nd half, so conditions make it more of a level playing field. This was where our superiority starting showing however. Without the advantage of the wind, their long ball tactic wasn't paying off, and we started carving out chances, and put 1 away early on for 3-2. They started to get forward a bit and had a few efforts, although I was never that greatly threatened. Few basic saves and through balls collected etc. Then the rain and wind came back, to our advantage as it now became easier to keep them in their half. I then made a rare assist of my own, much like in last week's pre season match I posted about somewhere. Punt over the top of their defence for someone to run onto and finish off for a 2 goal cushion. Think it was a length of the field 3 touch goal - my kick, 1 touch to control and 1 more to finish it. Another length of the field effort came not long after. We cleared a corner, and found ourselves in a 2 on 1 defender situation which was finished off by our worst player who rather enjoyed scoring
There was still time for one more, brilliant 30 yard shot in off the post to round off a great start to the season.

Result: 6-2 Win
Personal Performance: Pleasing. No chance with the first goal, perhaps communication could have been better on the 2nd, although it was more the defence's fault for pushing too far up playing into that wind. 1 excellent save. Safe hands when called upon.


Hope that was a decent read and a couple of people are actually interested. If noone's bothered then let me know I don't need to continue with it.

Goalie's are known to be the ones who are not bothered therefore useless at our school... nice one, Alex!  Keep the entries rolling in, mate!

Forgot to add, the guy who liked to give me kick every time I got the ball also slid in with his studs up on me once. I wasn't too pleased, but managed to regather the ball ok so no harm done.
He was an arseh**e, tried to start a fight at one point when he got tackled by an awesome tackle and knocked to the floor by a guy half his height Moron.

Well played mate... hopefully this blog can last longer than Neil's has.

The first spin off.

I shall attempt to post shortly after each game, and perhaps whenever anything of any note might happen at training or whatever, rather than have to do mass catch ups like certain other blogs


I'm ready. Sign me up!

10 teams in our division and 4 of the 5 results from Saturday are now in.
Pretty high scoring day!
As well as our 6-2, there were also two 4-2 results and a 5-4!
1 more result from our next opposition is still pending.

There's 1 team in our league from Waiheke Island, which is a small island about 35 minutes by ferry from Auckland, and counts as being part of Auckland City.


I've never been there, but my Dad has once for something to do with work and my brother has had a football game there once. It involves having to pay out for the ferry, getting picked up at the wharf there by the opposition (if they can be arsed), and then hopefully being given some food afterwards and then taken back to the wharf. Except when my brother went they were not given anything, and had to get taxis back to the wharf as awell as paying out for the ferry trip. Should be an interesting away trip then.

I am now inspired to catch up and continue my daily blog. Tonight. I look forward to reading yours too.

Another thought is that given it was the away Waiheke Island trip, the other team may well have only had 8 players turn up or something. So can't read too much into that result until we've seen the teams.

21/04/2007 - Game 2
Opposition: Three Kings
Venue: Away (approx 45 minute drive West)
Kickoff: 2.45pm
Weather: Bright and Sunny and Dry

Much better weather conditions this week. Glorious sunshine. Weren't sure what to expect as we don't know any of the teams in this league, but we knew this opposition lost 7-1 last week.
Got underway and I noticed there were no bloody lines painted on the pitch! Only some very faint marks that perhaps had been mowed at 1 point but had grown back. You couldn't tell where the penalty area ended etc, so I lost my bearings for a little while. Had 1 dodgy moment in the first couple of minutes where a routine ball came through to me towards the right side of the area, however I had no idea where the edge of the area was, and I took my eyes off the ball trying to figure out whether I could pick it up or not. So as I was not concentrating on the ball, and more on where the hell I was, it was fumbled, but fortunately no disaster resulted. After that it was mostly simple stuff for me, apart from having to rush out to clear the danger before the striker latched onto a ball over the top at one point. Main trouble was when I had the ball, I of course didn't know where the edge of the area was, so was probably punting it out from a couple of metres or so further back than I could go.

We started to string the moves together and took an early lead like last week inside 15 mins. Nice play on the left, ball was pulled back from the by line and finished off by the Japanese guy with the afro Many more misses followed, including at least 3 sitters where players went for power rather than placement. And like last week, disaster struck. After about 30 minutes, centre back tries to dribble the ball out of defence, gets into trouble on the left and despite my screams of "Kick it out!" he tries to play it up the line with his left foot, straight to their winger who crossed, a scramble ensued and it was eventually finished off, like last week giving me no chance. He argued that "it was on my left foot, what could I do?" Told him to next time just pass it over the sideline. Throw in would have been better than what resulted this time. We continued to be on top, missing a few more until 1 nice move brought last week's opening scorer through on goal to make it 2-1. Another through ball right on half time resulted in a poor challenge from behind giving us a penalty, and a 3-1 half time lead. From the amount of chances we had, it could and perhaps should have been at least 7-1 and game over by now.

So the 2nd half began and our half time sub striker, had 2 goals in quick succession to kill the game off. It was one way traffic from then on. Their keeper made a few saves, we missed plenty more chances, but finished off 4 more, that sub clinching his hatrick and Japanese afro guy grabbing a 2nd. They created a few openings too. Had me beaten from 1 shot that hit the bar, and towards the end I was forced into a good low full stretch save, pushing the ball around the post 1 handed, and a couple of crosses to claim to at least feel like I'd done something in a pretty quiet game for me
Things almost got ugly right on full time when someone had a go at our centre back for no apparent reason. "I'll break your f**king legs" were the words I heard from where I was, and unfortunately this was our 1 guy who reacts to these things so he retaliated with something and someone else ran in from behind and pushed him, but that was fortunately about the extent of it as players calmed down realising the pointlessness of it all.

So 2 wins and 15 goals in 2 games. Looks like we are going to be way too good for this league, and we'll probably win most games. We were initially put in a lower division, but the coach complained to club as we would have been way to good for it so they got us moved up a couple, but still looks like we should be a couple further higher. But these guys did lose 7-1 last week too so I guess they must be the worst team and perhaps Waiheke who beat them last week are quite reasonable.

Having no markings on the pitch was very annoying though. I could never tell where I was standing without having to turn around and check where the goal was etc. Usually I'm near the edge of the box if we are attacking or standing somewhere to narrow the angle etc if defending, and I usually use the edge of the penalty area and the D to judge how far from the goal I am and whereabouts I am. Couldn't do that today, and the couple of times they got a break, I was having to frantically check where the goal was behind me and then get into a good position etc.

Result: 9-1 Win
Personal Peformance: Sufficient. Did all I had to despite the 1 dodgy moment at the start where I didn't quite have my bearings in terms of where the penalty area was, and 1 other hairy moment with the ball at feet (well, I am a goalkeeper! ). 1 pretty good save.


Report on the same day as the event. Take note Neil