The night before this game Jen and I had been at the Georgian for a Glen Matlock gig. I’d seen him before as a support act at one of the 2009 Mott the Hoople Hammersmith gigs and wasn’t overly impressed on that occasion. However I quite liked the album he put out a couple of years ago, the one with Head on a Stick on it and so we thought we’d go along.
It was fine. He and his band rattled though about fifteen songs in an hour to a crowd of a hundred and fifty or so, most of them older than me and a lot of them sporting mohawks impaired by receding hairlines.
The game I’d selected for the following morning was the final remaining fixture in the Peterlee and District Sunday League. Presumably it had been carried over into mid-May because of a previous postponement. It was between Horden JDB Wanderers and Roseberry Park in the second-tier Division One of the league. Horden is just twenty minutes or so up the A19 and full of football fields with this game taking place at the Crossroads pitch.
I arrived and parked up just before kick-off to be greeted by a small staffy that liked having his ears rubbed. Presumably he was with someone, but he spent the whole game making his way around the crowd soliciting scritches, even wandering onto the pitch at one point for some attention.
Due to the dog distraction, the game had been going on for five minutes before I realised that neither side had a full complement of players. JDB were one man short, with Roseberry only managing to field nine players. Perhaps people had holidays booked, or maybe they had just lost interest. The result didn’t matter too much as the home side couldn’t finish anywhere other than their current second place in the league, whilst the visitors were stuck in fourth position.
You’d think that it wouldn’t have been too difficult to field a full eleven, particularly as each side had a few coaches on the touchline. There were some young lads supporting each side too, although as they had already started on the cans before kick-off, perhaps they wouldn’t have been in peak condition. Maybe it’s a registration thing, although when I played Sunday League, it was quite common for non-registered players to use a false name.
JDB’s numerical advantage was tempered when one of their outfield players was injured early on, he swapped positions with his goalie and then limped around in the goalmouth for the rest of the game. At half time it took him so long to make his way to the touchline that by the time he got there, his teammates were just about ready to head back onto the pitch for the second half.
For all the extra space that the missing players created, it was a cagey game. Both sides had opportunities but invariably the shot would be screwed wide or blazed over the bar. As we approached half-time JDB opened the scoring with a impressive shot that was accurately placed right into the top corner. They added a second after the break to take the points and bring their season to a close.
Tags: Horden, small staffy, Sunday League
Trail of the Lion King 
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