Noble Nine's Narrow Nemesis



Books etc 2 : 0 Blue Badgers

10.30am Batesea Park. A mackeral sky and mists lies heavy over the somulant Thames. Nine pairs of badgers eyes peer through it in the hope of seeing at least one more of their collegues emerge. Vain hopes alas as news filters through of the absent badgers. It is not good: Salmon, pox ridden in his fetid pit, Whitey larging it up with c grade celebs, and of Davies?( or mud as he has been renamed) Nada.

10.35 kick off. A 4:3:1 formation - the christmas tree, but spindley and sparsly decorated - face the eleven bookworms. Immediately they are under pressure as books pour forward. The Badgers defence bends and sways, but does it break?Do lardy cheating geordies deserve to win FA cup semi finals? No and no again. Asbury in the unfamiliar position of left back is goaded and kicked but lets his boots reposte and lets nothing by. New kid on the block - big John - strides Bourgiose like up theh field and marshalls the defensive line like, er a line marshall. Macdonald wears the captains armband for the first time and leads by example: imperious in the air and on the deck anyone who tries to get past him buys the farm. Ashman's passing and control make a good argument for the formation of a Badgers c team but he is in there harrying. Four hardbacks.

Books are caught repeatedly off side and the cat in a fit of boredom decides to spice things up by passing directly to a Books attacker. An audacious lob and Books start celebrating but it is a celebration a la Rapson verus Rough Guides for even as the first cheers go up so does the cat, arching back, whipping out an arm, and palming the ball over the bar. This was one page the bookworms would not turnover.

But lady luck is a painted strumpet and as books attacked again their forward shaped to shoot right but violently miscued and the ball ended up in the left hand corner of the net. The bookworms had turned.

But lady luck is a painted strumpet and as books attacked again their forward shaped to shoot right but violently miscued and the ball ended up in the left hand corner of the net. The bookworms had turned.

Badgers fight back as plucky Oliver ploughing a lonely furrow up front throws himself into the fray and lobs the keeper with a header. The keeper gets back and he is cruelly denied The badgers trudge in at half time 1 ; 0 down.

Second half and not to flout tradition the badgers spend the next 10 minutes demonstrating that the place for headless chickens is the resturant not the football pitch. They are kept in the game by a savetastic point blank stop by the cat at the end of an unseemly goal mouth struggle.

But rumours of the Badgers demise had it seems been premature and a textbook fight back begins. Duncan Wilkie - a thorwback from an unholy alliance between two of Englands finest swimmers - dives in and repeatedly emerges with the ball leaving a trail of wailing books unbound. Baker - whose resemblence to another black and white striped mid- week mid field Man united tormentor has been well noted - ran with guile and sprayed passes about by the dozen! And where did the passes end up? On the cultured tootsies of Razor Rapson. Shorn of his goalfinding shackles he made merry on the right wing swivelling and nutmegging like it was christmas. In this he was abley supported by the shiny new macrobiotic non smoking Ashman. His new fitness scheme beginning to bear dividends as he marauds up and down the field at will. "If he can learn to do that with a football it could cause real problems" commented one wise pundit.

How would you like your goals sir? Scrambled please. And it was nearly thus as relentless Badgers pressure culiminates in a stinging attack as Baker bursts through passes to Rapson who glides a cross in. The ball richochetts around as if porpelled by Tommy the pinball wizard, arriving at the feet of Wilkie who defty flicks it over the flailing Books keeper. Goalbound? But not a goal as it is headed over the bar by the Books captain.

Could this pressure last?

Nope.

The badgers began to tire, and Books etc - a team whose members seem to share a profound distaste for each other started to gain the upper hand.

Gaps appeared in the Badgers ragged flanks and through one of these a bookworm slithered, progressed into the box and finished clinically.

2:0 to books and that is how it remained but no shame for it was a valiant effort and now we can go forward and beat the team whose name will always be associated with Cuckow clocks and dubious nightime alliances: Swiss Cottage.

Glyn.



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