2009-10 Season

What a blowout – ‘Chels whither in bad weather

The last time I saw weather like this, I was in a cinema watching The Day After Tomorrow: howling gale, a torrential downpour and a tidal wave of goals that put the poor old ‘Chels to shame.

The temperature seemed to drop dramatically from the moment we kicked off, leaving us frozen to the spot for much of the game. If a stranded oil tanker had floated up the nearby River Brent, I would not have been surprised.

Of course, the only weather that mattered to the boss was whether we were going to score or not. There was little likelihood of that, despite limited signs of a thaw in the second half and the sunshine breaking through.

A sterling performance from Dave G between the sticks saved us from total humiliation, however. Actually, not true. Six-nil is pretty much total humiliation isn’t it?

In difficult conditions, the ‘Chels’ passing fell to bits. Balls that bounced were either skidding crazily and spinning out of reach or dying completely as they hit water. Of course, the Brenthamites had the same problem but they seemed better able to cope.

We held it level for about 20 minutes, at which point the Brenthams scored two in quick succession after a lot of pressure on the ‘Chels goal. Number two was gifted by a Tommy Wobble moment, although they took another seven or eight seconds to put it away.

Wayne did his best to bring their goal tally to three by nutting their centre forward and giving a penalty away. His logic was irresistible: ‘Had to let him know I was there, boss!’ he explained later.

Fortunately, the aforesaid forward took the penalty himself and completely missed the goal. That was our first let-off.

At half-time, the boss had hard words for all. ‘If we don’t score, I can see them getting six,’ he said. How prophetic was that!

So to the half-time substitutions. With everyone having a mare, there should be a couple of bods putting their hands up to come off, right? Wrong, that’s not the way teamwork works in the ‘Chels. I’m having a mare and I’ll stay on until I really screw up. Yep. Right on.

I won’t bore you too much with the changes except to say the Boss pulled himself off again, in the absence of sufficient volunteers. Myself, Tom B and Newbod came on (although Newbod came off not long after injured and was replaced by Stevie B).

We struggled for the first 15 minutes and a third was inevitable. It came soon enough and – despite a modest but short-lived ‘Chels resurgence and several corners – they scored three more. Alex dizzle-dazzled his way round their fullbacks an infinite number of times but got scarcely a shot on goal.

There were some dreadful gifts in midfield, dreadful passing, clearances that spun off the edge of boots and went backwards. Euan danced his way out of our box – only to lose it for them to score their fifth.

Brentham might have had another when Wayne conceded yet another penalty at five-nil (or was it four-nil?). In the 75th minute, he’d decided to let another Brentham bloke ‘know he was there’. Faultless logic, the sort of logic that got the Neanderthals where they are today. But this time their centre forward – he of the earlier miss – was thwarted by a great stop from Dave G, our very own Iceman, who was MoM by a country mile.

So that’s that. With temperatures dropping and the trees looking very bare, let’s hope this is not the start of a new Ice Age…

PS: Along with Stevie Peevie’s Anger Management Course, we need to get Wayne on an Elementary Logic refresher, boss!

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