Easton Monday 8 - 0 Hill Farm Casuals

[04 Nov : Fry's, Keynsham]

New boy Chris turned up only to find out that there wasn't enough kit and faced the prospect of playing in his underpants. Luckily for him Sheridan was happy to wander around the Fry's dressing rooms begging to borrow some shorts.

GAME ON

The game began in misty fog and ended in bright sunlight - it was like God wanted to see the football we were playing or that he felt the performance deserved highlighting in some way. We can expect the next Arsenal evening game to be played in bright sunlight for the same reasons (although, most of them are French so he might not bother).

There were twenty minutes of The Monday knocking at the door before Felix found Pete 'Retired' Stillman in space on the right (there was a lot of it - space, not right - there was an equal amount of left and right as per usual). Instead of the usual ball down the line to Jonesy, Stilly knocked it into Colonel's feet in the area whose superb first time lay off to Stu was met with a curling, rising drive with the outside of his foot into the top corner - lovely, lovely goal.

It was one way traffic. Jones and Newby were cruising (I think that's what they call it) down the flanks. Charlton jinked into the box and fed Felix, who turned like a Sherman tank and still had time to shank it home from 6 yards. Two-nil.

Matt rampaged down the left wing and spotted Colonel lurking at the back post. The cross was pin-point accurate and Colonel rose like a tin of salmon and nodded the ball down goal-bound with ferocious force. Turning to celebrate the goal, their keeper leapt in a 'Banks World Cup 70 v Brazil' way to claw the ball away. Colonel's razor like reactions saw him lay the ball square to Ben Adams, who with an open goal in front of him couldn't miss... he didn't.

Unlike his second open goal. Jones out-paced the full-back and layed the ball square past the prone keeper. With the goal at his mercy, Adams caressed the ball wide from six yards. We can only assume that the parcel tape holding his knee together wasn't tight enough. Players from both sides found it highly amusing.

Half time

Matty - unable to find fault with anything on the pitch - started having a go at his son for 'opening a bag'. A heinous crime in the No-name household by all accounts.

On the same pitch a couple of years back Easton had a comfortable half-time lead blown away by a hurricane-assisted Re-Union. Keen not to repeat the trick they started the second half brightly.

Soon Charlton broke down the right and pulled the ball back across the edge of the area where Newby hit a hen's teeth right footed curler (right foot!) which came back off the far post. Charlton took a couple of air-shots at the rebound but the chance was gone.

The Casuals were the only team to beat us in the league last year, but didn't seem up for it this time around. Other new boy Nick came on and bagged a hat-trick in 15 minutes which gave rise to the rumour that he was Andy 'Hat-trick in 10 minutes' Robbo's love child. He 'scored' another delightful did-he-really-mean-it chip which was disallowed for something that nobody really understood. At 6-0 up there wasn't much protest. Stand-in Coach Charlton quickly subbed him in order to preserve his (faint) golden boot chance.

More Ben misses, enough chances to win 18-0 but for a heap of great saves by their keeper.

Sir touched the ball 3 times. The defence were magnificent. Not to be outdone by Stu, tactical centreback Sheri strolled upfield to bag a goal from a yard and suggested changing the team name to... "Aston Mondays Harlem Globetrotters - the football was that good". Someone else scored another.

Tom Adams later commented that..."It was a triumph" even though he wasn't there. Rance claimed that he.. "never put a foot wrong and was strangely quiet for the whole game" he also wasn't there. Yarrow..."staggered triumphantly forward taking on one lager after another before bagging his third tequila of the night"...you guessed it he also wasn't there but at least he put in a report for the match compiler (dig).