17th May
At 08:25 Hathi arrived to find two people waiting for the grounds man to arrive and open the gates so that they could get in and set up the goalposts. The road got quite crowded with people waiting but eventually at 08:30 we were in.
While the Goalposts were put up, Hathi, Akela and ADC(Cubs) Simon put up the mess tent or we would have if the poles in the bag matched the tent. A little ingenuity soon had things put to rights. Burgers and hot dogs were soon to be available.
Ryan, both of them turned up as did Shaun and Ross, Georgina turned up but did not want to play as she was to go dancing later. We asked around for a surplus Cub and Tuesday Cubs came up trumps and as they had a full team and reserves they leant us Ryan, who had been a Wednesday Cub before going over to the 'dark side'.
Two pitches were set up and we were on in the third round but found after a couple of minutes that we were on the wrong pitch and it should have been Tuesday Cubs not us. Finally on the right pitch and the first game was a nil - nil warm up for both teams.
After a break we were back on, with Ollie being the loan player from Tuesday Cubs. Shaun showed great spirit and looked like following his brother's attitude and getting a "Norman-bites-yer-legs-Hunter" award. Ryan caused some amusement among the spectators when he tried to change ends half way through the first half, he had mistakenly taken the whistle from the other pitch to be for him. This may have confused him as with his defenders distracted the other team sneaked three goals in while he was not looking.
Back to a 0 - 0 draw in the next game .
In the next game one of the many Ryans handled the ball in the penalty area and put another Ryan, goalie in an awkward position. The penalty was taken and SAVED!!! As Ryan had been playing a blinder in the other games this maybe should not have been a surprise. After the turn round Ryan (Tuesday Cub) received an accidental kick to his ankle and had to be carried off. Down to four Cubs we were easy prey and lost 0 - 2.
Only two more games to go and we could go home, The next was a disaster as we lost 0 - 6 with Shaun coming closest to scoring by hitting the upright and nearly hitting Hathi as well.
Our last game was against some of the biggest Cubs we had seen since last year, one of them needed a shave!!! Despite their intimidating size our plucky Cubs managed to go another game without scoring, but then neither did they so another 0 - 0 draw. We were finished and could go home. So with the sun god leaving the heavens opened and it rained, boy did it rain.
We were asked by several people why we did not have a team strip, and we answered that if we did people might think we were taking it seriously.
Thanks to the usual people the superstars that did the refereeing, the organisers, Tuesday Cubs for lending us another Cub when we broke the first one they lent to us. And to the people that barracked, some examples follow;
"Turn and face"
"Tight marking"
"Push it up"
"Heads up"
"Come on Lads look for work"
It's a buttock clenching moment"
"big boots
"We've broken this one can we have another, please?""