MIA

It all started with Bee's pic of an empty pitch at 4.30pm and for a moment I thought for the once he was 1st to arrive. He went to the wrong school.....again!

Then it was the ref's turn, he arrived at 5.45pm, 5mins after we kicked off with Kee as the stand-in ref. Manager and Capt wasn't around and so AM took over with a weird formation. Sherman in goal, Oct-LB, Daryl-RB, SK and Dave in the centre. DM was Max, RM-Jerome and LM-Stuart. CM trio of Harold, Pat and Jenny thripling up as CM, AM and CF. Opponents are not really veterans.... Only 3 to be exact. One angmo in goal, one Malay in CM and another one who decided to sideline himself. Rest of their team is made up of Chinese 20 somethings. They were fast and hard but we were coping fine. 10mins gone Jenny suffered a dead leg and Andy came on. pat was switched to CF officially and at the 20th min he planted a header into the top right corner after a brilliant run and cross from Jerome. Max then went on a driving run, beat 2 players and let fly a shot from about 20m out....but he was caught with a sliding tackle just when he released the shot. The ref blew the whistle for a foul but his shot was curling past the diving keeper into the top left hand corner. We protested but to no avail. The lead didn't last long, 5 mins later a seemingly harmless cross into the box slipped through the hands of Sherman and they promptly tap into the empty goal. Right about half time a free kick lobbed into our box with Ron shouting "ki" in Hokkien which Dave don't understand and left the opponent striker with all the time in the world to head it in. 2nd half was more or less the same but we matched their tenacity with determination. Max was getting most of the tackles and was taken out after 20mins. A lucky break came 25mins into the 2nd half when a through ball by Stuart into the box was put into the goal by their defender after he beat pat for pace. The game ended almost immediately after that though cos it was already 7pm and the pitch warden refused to allow the ref to play on. Best player of the day was Harold in CM..... Duplicating what the Capt usually will do ....what a rare occasion! David didn't turn up for the game.... As he later explained he didn't get the mail and presumed he didn't get in