The football diaries.

[Bierzo Baggie]

“Everybody was kung-fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But they fought with expert timing”

More about kung fu later….

The temperatures rose during the week and the rain finally lashed down instead of snow. There may still be the occasional frosty day left on the wintery agenda but I have the feeling that the watershed has been crossed. The snowline will rise higher and higher until it only remains on the most inaccessible peaks or in the murkiest recesses and whizzing down the mountain pass on my bike for me marked the end of winter.

Match Report.
And of course football hostilities resumed on Saturday with “hostilities” being the operative word. We played last week’s postponed game against Valdecañada. And first blood went to the aluminium boys with a well taken goal by Gelo, our bullish but volatile centre forward who has the amusing habit of crossing himself after scoring. The Drovers were soon back in it though with two goals in quick succession, but the flashpoint came just before half time. It was perhaps one of the oddest incidents I’ve witnessed on a football pitch. An innocuous looking challenge between Gelo and one of their centre halves looked like developing into the usual case of handbags- pushy pushy – “hold me back”. However when the centre half thrust his none too pretty face an inch from Gelo’s our ever-unpredictable goalsnatcher promptly gave him… a kiss. On the mouth. All hell let lose. The sexually unenlightened centre half pole axed our Gelo with a punch which was swiftly follwed up with a kung fu kick in the teeth worthy of that Welsh international and full time lump of lard John Hartson. The frothing centre half was then bundled off the pitch by his own team-mates while the ref brandished a straight red, from a safe distance of course. I imagine a 50-game suspension will follow. And as for Gelo I feared the worst, a broken nose or a couple of missing teeth at the very least. But after 10 minutes of theatrical heavy breathing and blood spitting, Rocky 3 was up and fighting again. Somebody commented “his head is very hard”.

With Valdecañada reduced to 10 men I expected us to get straight back into the game. The problem was that we were soon reduced to 9. Mingoya junior was dismissed for a comic Jackie Chan-style two-footed lunge and then our left back followed for attempting to take home one fellow’s shirt as a souvenir. We did eventually equalise thanks to a long range punt from stylish Ginolaesque French geezer Jean Phillipe but a late Valecañada winner left the aluminium boys licking their wounds…yet again.

Final score: Aluminium boys 2 Valdecañada Drovers 3

Next week we’re away from home. No idea where!