UFC (March 2006)

    On the day Reading FC took another step towards a first appearance in England’s top flight and after a week in which the Bank of Japan scrapped a 5-year experiment in super-loose monetary policy – so-called quantitative easing – the BC Veterans at first huffed and puffed but ultimately strolled to a 5-1 win over UFC in the Challenge Trophy under a burning sun and on a scorched dustbowl of a pitch.

     It probably began like any other Saturday in the A household. C, a little tired and stiff after Friday night, relaxes over a breakfast of pan-seared salmon, drizzled with virgin olive oil and with a neat heap of scrambled egg on lightly buttered toast. A glass of freshly squeezed ruby grapefruit juice and then coffee -- the good sort in silver packets that you have to grind yourself. Then the weekend newspaper, a couple of business calls and a light jog to limber up for the late-afternoon game. Re-read that tantalizing job offer from Lenovo and catch up on the sports scores from around the world. Yep, life feels good. Then, an hour in the bathroom, clipping nose and ear hair, checking the new haircut shows just the right shade of grey, snip the eyebrows, clean the pearly whites and, Fonz-like, give up trying to look any better.

     Time to set off … must always be first to show at Turf City … sets a good impression. Son J drags his feet, muttering something about rather chasing skirt. “Come on son,” says C. “You know the Saturday routine, you come and watch your dad show them all how it’s done. The shuffle, the sweet lay-offs, holding up the ball, twisting and running, creating space, darting past defenders, it’s all about assists, goals, looking the part.” 

     The two of them set off with Norah Jones blaring on the 6-speaker in-car Hi-Fi system and C’s mind wanders to the approach to Turf City. He can already hear the growing roar as he powers the Lexus up the renamed CA Drive, rising to a crescendo minutes later when he takes to the field for the obligatory 30-minute kickabout/warm-up, looking the part in pristine shirt, the crease on the shorts just-so and newly dubbined boots. “The least you can do is always look your best,” he says to J, passing on parental wisdom.

    Stand-in skipper TC rallies the troops, but then drops the bombshell that today’s opponents lost 5-0 to a team that we beat 5-0. Inevitably, the first-half was piss poor. Like a slurring drunk, the BC couldn’t string two passes together. The front-line and the referee were on different planets over the offside rule and the game was going nowhere. C, though was having a blinder. A deft flick with his left put in JR for a run that was blocked; a neat one-two with SM again brought no joy. A sweet lay-off to PL wide-left promised more. P slapped the ball, then smacked it, punched it and finally kicked it. Goal kick. But he’d shown who was boss.

    The one bright spot after about 15 minutes of the worst kind of tedium – an opening goal.

    C cut in from wide on the right, nutmegged one defender, swerved past two more, tricked a third into praying for a merciful release and bore down on the keeper, woke up and poked home a cross from The Kaiser from about one metre. The rest of the half meandered from poor to awful and back again – a comedy of errors, a litany of misplaced passes, mis-timed runs and misjudged tackles.

     At the half-time pep-talk, the hereto little-troubled DR got very cross and JR said more in a 30-second tirade than anyone could remember him ever saying in a glorious career spanning 75 years of near-professional quality football.

     With the opposition wilting under the heat and a routinely physical assault by the BC, a second goal looked likely and a second goal, we all know, means five or six. And so it happened.
     C, near the halfway line with his back to goal, badmouthing BM and remonstrating with the referee about yet another offside decision against him, collects a through ball, swivels, jinks past four defenders and sweeps a ball out to the right where C pirouettes between two more defenders and puts over an inviting centre for C … who wakes up and prods home another U cross from a couple of metres.

     MJ, nominally a full-back but given free rein (by himself) to attack at will, then scored the game’s best goal. Taking the ball on the half-way line, he threaded it through two defenders, ran around them and beat the keeper with a low angled drive from outside the box, single-handedly beating any offside trap or dodgy decision that had so bamboozled our attack in the preceding 50 minutes or so. 3-0.

     The next bit of entertainment came from PL. Having conceded a free-kick, play ran on for a couple of minutes before players’ attention was drawn to two figures near the halfway line involved in some passionate below-midriff humping. P was clearly the Man on a Missionary but was also raining blows to the face of his erstwhile slut/partner who had apparently attacked him earlier. The referee, who admitted to not having seen anything, sent them both off, with P directing some very impressive Chinese slang at his local toyboy. 

     JL then claimed a fourth with a tap-in after good work by SM. During the build-up, CA cleverly got out of the way, thereby claiming an assist. 

    C, who’d spurned a couple of half chances to grab his hat-trick, then made the game safe with a classy third.

     Taking the ball short from the ever-dependable DR, C played a neat one-two with himself and outpaced two defenders to cross into the opposition half. He then cut out towards the left, beat seven defenders and thundered a left-foot shot past the hapless keeper, the referee, four teammates and two BC groupie wives standing on the goal-line … woke up and smashed a blistering left-foot volley past the keeper. 5-0, but still time for us to concede as their promising striker --  who it transpired later is on Real Madrid’s books – ghosted past one of our more statuesque centre halves and rolled the ball across D to make it 5-1 and herald the final whistle.

     TC took his captain role so seriously that he was penalized for a foul throw, AP’s new “aged” boots stood the test and JR and BM ran the middle of the park like Hinge & Bracket minus the wigs. Another strong turnout by the Groupies, and special mention to CP, who was poached by the BC Cricket team on the promise of  a free post-match curry. We should now have qualified for the final of whatever tournament this is as we’ve Played 3; Won 3 and have a goal difference of +14.

     Spare a thought for young JL, though, whose missus spent most of the match buying knocked-off skin-whitening creams from Sue P and so missed his goal. When she found out later he’d scored, she said, rather too loudly, “Ohh!, all the times I’ve come to watch you over the years and you’ve never scored, and now I miss your goal.” Ah, bless.

     And so to CA. Undisputed Man of the Match. Sadly, he couldn’t collect the match ball as they’re all lost over the bushes. Last seen on his mobile to one of the senior editors at Harper Collins.