Titans (September 2008)

                In 1844, a German immigrant in the United States set up a trading firm acting as middleman between local cotton farmers and the financial markets. Sixteen decades later, as that once proud company heads into liquidation and a fall from grace for overreaching itself in the murky world of collateralized debt and toxic real estate assets, another German émigré, in Singapore, begins trading bagels to the city state’s unsuspecting hoteliers and expat watering holes.

                But that’s surely where the similarities fade.

               Neither Henry Lehman, nor his brothers Emanuel and Mayer, could hit a barn door with a football from 10 paces. NG, however, is a talismanic marksman, a Teutonic sharpshooter with a keen eye for goal and a deep hunger to finally, after five seasons, win the BC’s coveted Golden Boot Award.

                And, with skipper AL misfiring in recent games and missing this game as, greasy spanner in hand, he made some final modifications to the Trent 900 engine that will power the A380s in and out of Changi Airport, NG’s recent goal-touch puts him in pole position mid-way through September, with 14 First XI goals against Big Ant’s 12. NG has also scored four times for the flourishing 2^nd XI.

                This was ultimately a very good game and a very good result against one of the better footballing sides in the EFL. Titans came into this fixture on the back of two big wins, but they are a side that tends to self-destruct when the going gets tough. Not so, the BC.   

                The first half-hour was pretty torrid for the BC as Titans moved the ball about with ease and pace and left the home side floundering, failing to keep possession and looking far from composed. JL got better as the game progressed, while full-backs BP and AR coped well against marauding Titan wingers. At the heart of the BC defence, CG, CP, PD and HP – a real name, not an alias for Budgie, who spent the weekend learning to spell Banc of America – blocked, tackled and chased to keep the Titan strike force at bay, while in the midfield, BM, JR, DB, guest John, BB, IG and the willowy UN took turns in battling to staunch the flow.

                Against the run of play after around a half hour, IG fed DB midway in the Titans half, the ball was worked left to BB, whose shot was only half parried by the Titans keeper, allowing NG to bundle the ball over the line for a messy opening goal.

                The second half was much better fare, with a tigerish BM prompting, cajoling and harrying. A long punt from JL was headed left by DB to the new white-booted MC. His tap back to BM was returned with a sublime dink through two defenders, allowing MC to hit the byline and waft over a left footed cross for the towering UN to nod in at the far post.  

                The Titans, to their credit, hit back and halved the deficit shortly afterwards, with a decent strike from the edge of a crowded box. The next goal would prove crucial – and it went to a resurgent BC. IG, pushing forward, fed NG in space, wide left. The German bagel salesman took on his lone defender, cut inside on to his right foot and curled a long-range effort past the keeper and inside the right upright, to make it 3-1.

                Titans then turned hissy, with a string of niggly late fouls, haranguing the referee and taking out JR well after the ball had moved on, leaving him with a bleeding mouth, dazed vision and a hankering after an early Victoria Beer. The BC, keeping a focus, provided the best response.

                 A long cross from the right was headed against the post by MC and the rebound fell kindly for NG, and, as time wound down, the home side ensured an ultimately emphatic 5-1 victory as NG swept home another right-wing cross from UN – the first time in living memory that German Club Members have provided all the goals in a single BC fixture.

                Nine points from nine in the EFL and, while other teams have been in free-scoring mode, the BC has plugged away, overcoming player absences and a constantly changing side to keep apace of old rivals St Andrews and South Buona Vista Saints at the top of the league with maximum points from three games.

MoM: seems churlish to ignore the claims of four-goal NG, but my vote goes to BM, who worked tirelessly in the heat of the midfield battle and was a constant source of, sometimes barbed, encouragement to all. At one point he was even heard moaning about himself.