Match Report
On the day after Murf’s 64th birthday, the Vets began the day with a musical tribute to their long serving striker. With Kendall recently 60, Johnny Morris just 61 and the President about to be 60 this week, those four sexagenarians lined up against a Shrewsbury School side whose combined age was probably only a little over a hundred. Based on yesterday’s full 90 minutes, Murf will probably still be playing when he gets to that milestone. Whether he will have scored in the meantime is less easy to predict, given the combination of fine chances missed and those stolen by greedy teammates.
The young men forming Shrewsbury’s back four will not have had much experience of playing against the likes of Stephen Lewis, who blew them away with a swift hat-trick in the early part of the game. In an early audition for the walking-football only match in Pollenca next week, McNay played a skilful pass into Shrewsbury’s centre-forward, but so surprised was he by the chance that he fluffed his lines.
Perhaps fooled by the rugby posts directly behind the goal, Murf completed a number of conversions but still the net evaded him. Jim Byrne provided perhaps the best of the first half goals and the Vets were comfortably ahead by half-time. Much of the second half was goalless as the schoolboys made the game much more competitive. Having scored one, they then missed the easiest chance of the game after the Skipper came out much the worse of a collision with Lewis, by now playing at centre-half. He then took over in goal, letting two in, one of which was a comedy own-goal from Eddie Jones.
The scoreline doesn’t really reflect the competitive nature of the game, which was played in the usual good spirit. Harthan’s split lip from President’s Day kept him out of the team but he more than made up for that in the fashion stakes post-match. A good warm-up for the Big One next week.