Easton Monday 1 - 4 Easton Cowboys

[04 Dec : Axa Sun Life]

Colonel turned up fresh from photographing oranges in Spain ("a bit obvious" said Pete Sheridan) - presumably the oranges then went on to Hollywood as they made no appearance at half time.

We had new socks - they were very comfortable and the arrows point to our feet which is very handy for some of us.

Marcus, Tom and Stilly were all commemorating the funeral of George Best in the only way they knew how - by turning up with dreadful hangovers. Felix went one better and stayed drunk (and away). He's been fined a week's wages and sent to Tony Adams' clinic.

Many of the Easton Cowboys team thought they were playing for us as they clearly had never met their 'veterans' team before...

They scored direct from a corner by a player whose La Liga match had been called off the day before.

Knoxy made a fantastic save with his thumb, turning a shot onto the bar and over.

Stilly came off at half time to have a lie down, Nick Hand went on and soon wished he hadn't.

Sherry managed to miss two great chances early in the second half when we looked to be getting on top - one of them he took across the whole goal line before falling over it and prodding it wide of the net. Exactly how I'll never know.

Great work from Steve Jones down the right went past three or four of their Serie A stars and crossed for Sherry to head bravely in. Their substitute was trying to convince Stilly and Marcus that most of their team were 'well over forty' while cries of "Si Ronaldo!" and "Raul, over here!" were heard coming from the pitch.

They regained control with 'Terry' their man-of-the-match (a suspicious dead-ringer for Ronaldinho) playing a blinder up front. They regained the lead before Owen put in the worst foul I've ever seen in the Casual League - it was like a proper league foul and earned a ticking off from the ref ("another one like that and you'll be off, young man").

Marcus came on and Owen went up front but they nicked another couple on the break. Running the line I overheard one of their squad telling a 'fan' who all their new players were: "That's Thierry, he plays for the Super A Team; that's Manuel, he's from Barcelona" etc.

Still, at least we can now concentrate on the league - and have a couple more Sunday mornings off! Ha! They fell right into our trap!

Rance recalls a few poignant moments

As you can imagine, both centre around Pete 'Blazer' Sheridan. Both go something along the lines of "He must score, he has scored, oh my gosh how did he miss that".

If you times that by two you've summed it up. In his defence, his diving header was very good.

His cut over the eye was also impressive, as was the Easton Monday first aid kit again.

He was obviously upset that he didn't have me partnering him up front in the end!

With regard to their goals, they all went like this......

Quick bloke up front passed to quick bloke on the right wing who passed it back to the quick bloke up front who scored. I think one of them was the other way round but you get the jist.

All round poor performance from the 'Mondays'. Nice warm feet though.

They had more ringers that the British Association of Campanologists!