The season was upon us. The first match had a buzz of expectation around it that we weren’t sure we’d get with this new football format. I felt ready and our opponents for the first match were The Meteors managed by Englishman, Barry Stone who is more of a fossil than a meteor.

Match one:

We knew what to expect from Barry Stone and The Meteors*, it would be uncompromising, direct football and so we adopted a tactic of possession. Whilst this wasn’t a natural fit for some of our players it was executed well enough to give us the edge in terms of quality chances created. The final score may have flattered us somewhat and we were helped by an injury to The Meteors’ star player Anderson Cruz Da Costa (a.k.a ACDC) and their young goalkeeper having a shocker but a great start and deserved 3 points nonetheless.

Post match Whatsapp message from Vincent: ‘Wwwwwweeeeeeeee ddddiiiiiiddddd iiiiiittttt!!! I’ve had a magnum ice cream to celebrate. I find them overly indulgent because of the price normally but on a day like today yyyiiiippppeeeeeee!!!’ I didn’t like that he repeated consonants and vowels, I prefer repeated vowels only, but I appreciated the sentiment.

Match two:

A wonderful game for the neutral, full of drama and for The Pioneers an impressive battling performance. For us, it was 2 points dropped.

Before the game it had been mentioned that The Pioneers seemed to select their game plan entirely at random without any regard for what their players could play. This did make them unpredictable but in the same way that the UK weather is unpredictable: mostly crap. As mostly crap as their tactics were, you’ve already seen the final score and there were more reasons why we should have been comfortable winners. At 1 – 1  The Pioneers had Jeronimo Rojas sent off and although they responded by immediately scoring a goal we were able to get ahead 3 – 2 going into the final few attacks of the game. When their main scoring threats Lenny McGee and Masonga picked up minor injuries we thought we were home and dry but The Pioneers brought on Lee Joo Won for his debut and with one of the final kicks of the game he scored an equaliser that both he and I would remember for a long time but for very different reasons.

Post match Whatsapp message from Vincent ‘You can’t win them all gaffer’ He had taken to calling me gaffer. I loved it.

Match three:

The Otters were the team with the best manager and they proved to be the hardest opponents so far. After going one nil down and being outdone tactically we were happy to walk away from the game with a draw.

Post match message from Vincent ‘Great work gaffer, even though they were better tactically, you still looked like a proper coach with all the shouting and arm waving’

At the half way point surprise package The Pioneers were on top, with us in second. The pre-season favourites The Otters were struggling with only 2 points leaving us with every chance of pushing on for the title in the second half of the season.

Mid Season standings

*Barry Stone and The Meteors first album Funky Sauce Postman is out now on Atlantic Records