2011-12 Season

Village People give ‘Chels a proper seeing to…

New opposition for the ‘Chels today was uncovered by an EP-Newbod attack on the FA’s Observer’s Book of Aged Football Teams.

Today’s offering was the Village Vets – although the village in question was unspecified, judging by the look of one or two of them it might have been Royston Vasey where they apparently have a local team for local people.

A reduced squad mean that EP’s options were limited and he went with a 4-4-2 consisting of a back four of El Tel, Wayne, Santa B. and Cliff; in midfield the welcome return of wandering Tom B with EP, Slo-Mo, and Wiki; the striking duo was Mrs M and Alex (the old Phil).

Our custodian this week was England’s number one – Craig, and EP held in reserve Corrie, who refereed, Tom T and new signing Darren.

We kicked off and for two minutes we looked good – but Christmas is a coming and the geese are getting fat – and not only the geese by the look of some of the players gracing the pitch today. Was Selfridges holding Father Christmas auditions somewhere?

So the festive season began early as we began to shower the villagers with gifts. We gave them too much respect, too much possession, too many wayward passes, a three-goal half-time lead and ultimately our new unbeaten run.

All three goals came from their midfielders getting forward, finding themselves unmarked on the edge of the box and rifling in shots that Craig had no chance with. Despite pushing Stevie B forward into midfield and trying a 3-5-2 formation we seemed to be clueless how to prevent Village from doing just as they pleased.

Individually and collectively we were simply not at the races. Half time came and EP made changes. Wayne came off and took up the referee’s baton, Tom T came on for Tel – who was quickly back on when Tom B strained his thigh, and Darren went up front for Alex.

However the Village People took one look at him, one look at their own player limping off, one look at their empty subs’ bench and said to Darren, “We want you, we want you, we want you as the new recruit.”

So he pulled on a Village Purple shirt and played for them – some Kenchels debut eh? The changes and the shame of a poor quality first-half seemed to galvanise the ‘Chels and for the first 20 minutes of the second we played our best football of the game. It did help that the villagers went a man down when another one limped off about ten minutes in.

We pulled one back when Cliff hit a quickly-taken free kick into their half-built wall and them smashed the rebound past the keeper. Sadly he later lost possession in our half and their bloke ran through to knock in a fourth.

As Sven would have said: “First half bad, second half not so bad.” We lost the first half 0-3 but drew the second half 1-1. And on that bombshell, I’m off to put the tree up – oh! and stop sending Christmas cards – the postmen have enough to do already!

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