One of the best things about Christmas in England- apart spending time with your family and loved ones etc - is the obscene amount of football that is on around the festive period. Dave and I not wanting to miss out on this important English Tradition therefore organised a game for Boxing day- however unlike the games that were taking place in England we would be expected to play!
Dave's could couldn't wait for the match and put up posters around the school informing people of a Foreigner's team v No.42 Elect. Stretching the truth a little as there was only Dave and I playing for the Foreigner's team. It turned out to be one of Dave's Classes v another of Dave's class + him and I.
We turned up a little hung over and bloated from the day before and walked out onto the glorious mud pitch. We saw the other team all in their matching Portugal kits- what more encouragment did we need to try and win- and went about finding our team mates who had either forgotten or like us eaten too much the day before.
We managed to scramble together 6 players to accompany Dave and I and so we started 1 player down-2 if you include Dave! The game was quite good fun and ended up 5-5. We had gone 1-0 down within about 20 seconds of kick off and I was beggining to wonder what Dave and I had gotten ourselves into. Our team rallied however and I managed to bag 3 goals without reply to give us a 2 goal league. I probably shouldn't have enjoyed scoring against a bunch of 17 year olds quite as much as I did, but after my third goal I was tempted to do some sort of sommersault celebration but resisted.
That wasn't the end of the game however and the other team soon fought back to 3-3 and things were looking tough as they were camped out in our end and our lack of a proper 'keeper was seriously costing us everytime they came forward. However against the run of play we managed to nudge ourselves in front again when one of the our team who played the whole match in a huge puffa jacket, two pairs of trousers, gloves and scarf managed to take the ball around 3 players and finish beautifully. We then somehow found ourselves 5-3 up as Hunter- one of Dave's students that we went for dinner with earlier on in the year- unleashed a pearler of a shot from outside the area.
With what seemed to be a unasailable two goal lead with 5 minutes to go we sat back a bit- mistake I hear you cry and the other team worked their way back into it with a scrappy goal. It was back to the wall's stuff for the last few minutes but we just couldn't hold out and in the dying seconds the pretend portuguese got an equaliser.
THe game was very enjoyable and we have now made it a weekly fixture. Hopefully in the future fixtures all our team will turn up and we can find a proper goal keeper!
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