Just back from an evening out with the team. One guy's family owns Independent Liquor in NZ and this is where the Carlsberg affiliation comes from. He hired out a bar just for us this evening and paid for everything. Was good to get to know some of the team a bit more having only had 2 trainings with them before today's game, and a couple of them I only met before kickoff as they hadn't been at training.

News on the injured guy is not good. Broken ankle in 2 places and he was having surgery this evening at Auckland Hospital so it's a really bad one. Season certainly over for him just 40 minutes into the first game.

12/04/2008 - Game 2
Opposition: Western Springs Choppers
Venue: Home
Kickoff: 1.00pm
Weather: Calm

So I arrived at about 12.15 thinking I was late but there was no sign of anyone else from either team. I had missed training in the week due to Uni work so was starting to wonder if perhaps the time or location had changed and noone had thought to tell me. Finally a team-mate turned up at 12.30 and had no idea where everyone else was either. Eventually players started to turn up and then opposition arrived and we started about 15 minutes late.

Unfortunately we did not manage to get an official ref so allowed their guy to ref the first half to set the standard for how we would ref then 2nd. And amazingly he was ok. Perhaps due to all the complaints last season theyare not going to cheat as much anymore. They were still pretty scrappy and fouled a bit but it was nowhere near as bad as last season.

First half was a very scrappy affair. There were no real chances at either end aside from a couple of reasonable set pieces from us that troubled the keeper and while I was busy claiming long balls and through balls I wasn't forced into anything too difficult. It seemed the late turn up was a sign of things to come as we were far superior to them as expected but we were playing terribly.

It came to life more in the 2nd half. Chances started coming at both ends and I made a couple of good blocks before one of their strikers found himself free in our area. He beat me but fortunately our left back had got back to clear off the line. We created chances ourselves but never really tested the keeper. Then with about 20 minutes to go they got a breakway from one of our corners and it was 3 on 1 defender in our half. Their left winger played a good ball to the edge of the box and I managed to get there and deflect the finish out for a corner. Cracks were starting to appear in the defence and again they played a defence splitting pass through the middle which forced me to run out the box and clear the danger just before the striker got there. I was busy but I admit I was loving it. Last season my team won easily most weeks and although I usually played well, a good save at 4 or 5-0 never really meant anything apart from goal difference. Been a couple of years since I've been involved in a tight game like this that goes to the wire and it was good to make saves at 0-0 to keep the team in it.

So with 10 minutes to go finally we broke the deadlock. Free kick curled in from the right found our striker whose finish went straight at the keeper who parried it and someone else finished off the rebound. Defence got tighter and we held on right till the end. Then in the final minute they forced a corner and after a bit of head tennis in the box the ball found the top corner.

There was still time for them to have another chance and I did well to palm a good shot away.

Absolutely gutted. Deserved that clean sheet and was very annoyed at the end. If I'm honest we didn't really deserve to win as we didn't play particularly well. But 'deserving to win' is not always the same as winning as I very well know being an Arsenal fan!

Result: 1-1 Draw
Personal Performance: Good. Kept us in it in the 2nd half and would have deserved a clean sheet. A busy 2nd half but I really enjoyed it. Been a while since I've had the chance to really contribute to a result having had a couple of seasons of winning comfortably each week and making saves at 0-0, 1-0 and 1-1 always feel better than a good save at 5-0. Team said I was 'player of the day' afterwards so it's been pleasing to make a good start with a new team.

Well that's hardly a priority but it would be great to have good tight games like this all season.

Next week should be a tough game. The opposition have won both their games and won 6-2 today against the side who beat the Choppers 3-2 last week.

Why is there 2 teams with the name 'Three Kings' at the start?

Surely just 2 clubs from the same place/uni etc named Three Kings

Why no stick with 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc etc.

19/04/2008 - Game 3
Opposition: Three Kings Elk Hider
Venue: Away
Kickoff: 1.00pm
Weather: Dry but very windy

I mentioned in the first game report that the worst conditions I had ever played in was a time where we played the first half against hurricane type wind and cyclone type rain which then changed direction at half time so we played against it for 90 minutes and hence could not really get the ball out of our penalty area.
This was the same venue, although on the pitch adjacent to that one.

So I arrive at about 12.10 and again am the first from my team to arrive. A few minutes later a couple of others and their girfriends turn up. One of the girls quickly says "where's your f**king team?!" For some reason I found this outburst quite hilarious. She's obviously all class.

Anyway onto game time there didn't appear to be anyone in the opposition who looked like their name might be Elk Hider, so as I suspected, someone thought they were being funny when entering the team. Fortunately there was no rain and conditions were not quite as bad as that game a few years ago. It's always a very windy venue but luckily this time it was a cross-field wind rather than one direction down the pitch so there wasn't really any advantage or disadvantage either way.

We began well and quickly took control in midfield, restricting them to long balls. So the early action for me was mostly gathering long balls and clearing a couple of back-passes. Their keeper was having a busy time making 2 or 3 decent saves to force corners. However about 20 minutes in they get the best chance to score. Inswinging ball in from our right should have been an easy take for me on the penalty spot, so I come and the ball gets held up in the wind which was blowing from left to right and I have to come to the edge of the box and get a good punch on it above the striker. But the ball quickly gets fired back in and I end up making a good stop to my left and our left back clears the danger.

On about half an hour they get a free kick about 25 yards out for an apparent handball. It was hotly disputed and while I certainly saw a hand go up from their striker I didn't see anything wrong from our left back. It was slightly to the left of centre so I set a 4 man wall. The free kick was hit perfectly for the conditions. It looks high and wide to the left all the way, but the wind brings it back in and I thought I did brilliantly to get a top hand to it, but it wasn't enough to keep it out of the top corner. Would probably have been my best save ever had I got more on it.

This helped us raise a gear though and more chances came. 5 minutes before half time the deserved equaliser came. One of our players tries a shot from about 30 yards which gets blocked but he gets the ball back, beats a couple of players and tries again, this time curling it into the top corner to rival our 3rd from the first game for goal of the season contender. 1-1 at half time, but apart from their free kick and the other chance it was all us and I don't know how we were not 3 up. A very Arsenal-like half.

And in typical Arsenal fashion, for all our dominance we hit self destruct in the 2nd half. Fatigue started to set in, probably due to having no training for the last 2 weeks due to the weather and other things and due to having just 1 sub today. You are allowed rolling subs at this level so you can have as many subs as you want. In the first game we had about 17 turn up so people were rotating every 10 minutes and that's possibly why we didn't get fatigued and finished off a tired opposition in the last 10 minutes. Passing turned to crap and the whole game just turned to hoofing the ball in the air. It was only a matter of time until they scored. I had a couple of shots straight at me and made a good one-on-one block on the edge of the box when the defence had been carved open.

Then with 10 minutes to go they get a penalty for handball. Definitely handball this time. Ball played into the box and flicked up against defenders arm, similar to Gallas at Old Trafford. Bizarrely, their keeper comes forward to take it! Now, I have taken a couple before but deep into the 2nd half at 4-0 and 3-0 up, and have also had keepers take them against me in similar situations. But not at 1-1 with the game on the line! Pretty risky. Say I saved it or it hit the post, we could get it up the other end with an empty goal. I guess he must be the assigned penalty taker like Chilavert used to be for Paraguay. I assumed that as a keeper he would assume I will go which way his eyes were looking which I usually do, so he would attempt to look one way to deceive me and go the other way. I did this when I took a penalty last year and fortunately it did deceive the keeper and he went the way I looked. Unfortunately however, there's good reason I've never been a striker as I wasn't quite skilled enough to put the ball in one place while looking at another and it went a foot wide of the post. He was focussed to my right so I decided to go left assuming he would try this trick. I was correct in this assumption, however clearly he was a much better penalty take than me as it was right in the bottom corner and unsaveable.

This knocked the stuffing out us really as we should never have been in this position. In injury time they added a third through a goal mouth scramble.


Result: 3-1 Loss
Personal Performance: Solid. Couple of good saves although disappointed with the 3rd goal.

Very disappointing result because they really were not that great. We were a much better team but in Arsenal fashion couldn't make the opportunities count. 5 points behind them now after just 3 games. Looking at the early results, they seem to be the best this league can throw at us. If that is the case then I'm still confident we can win the thing. No way will they go through the season unbeaten and I'm confident we'll beat them at home later in the season.

Next week's opposition lost 6-2 to this lot so a first clean sheet is the target. We also get our club's number 1 pitch next week which will be nice. It's a different ground to the main home ground. The main ground where most teams play has about 4 or 5 pitches but the number 1 pitch where the club rooms are based is just 1 pitch on its own, 5 minutes round the corner with a stand on 1 side for people to sit (they used to have National League games there). I've played there once, a few years ago in under 19s and it's probably the nicest pitch I've ever been on so it will be nice to have a game there. We actually get 2 games in a row there the next 2 weeks which is pretty good.

Well our player/manager has arranged with the opposing coach to postpone next weekend's game until the evening of Wednesday 14th March. It's a bank holiday weekend here next weekend (ANZAC weekend) so people are going away etc. I think we were going to struggle to have a full team so he mentioned on Saturday that he might try and postpone it and the opposition have agreed to this so I guess it was a similar situation for them, as it will be for many teams this week. Disappointing to not have a game in the weekend and have to wait 2 weeks for the next one. But I have never played a proper match in the evening under floodlights so it will be a good experience.

We were supposed to have the number 1 ground tomorrow but annoyingly it's been changed to some other place down the road. Presumabl due to the awful weather this week the club want to limit the number of games on the number 1 pitch as it seems like there's only 1game there now when there would usually be a couple of morning kids games, a 1pm mens game and a 2.45pm mens game. Although our next home game in 2 weeks has been changed to the number 1 ground from the usual one so we'll still get get a couple of games there.

Also worryingly injured my left arm at training last night making a diving save. Ball hit just below my hand and jolted my whole arm back and it's been a bit painful today when I extend the arm fully. Should be OK by tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully there are no similar saves to make.