Match Report
The important statistics to start with: First half sitters missed by Mornington: 3; Bar hit by King: 2; failed nutmeg attempts by the Chairman: 1; Assists by Lewis:1; Goals scored per shot by the school: 2 out of 3; Eddie Jones turnout cup stats: -1.
Whilst on the far pitch Kingy was beginning his 50th season for the Ramblers (see here), these 12 Johnny-come-latelies mustered up a pretty good performance to begin the Ordinary Vets’ season.
With Byrne proving to be a right back of some flair, Lewis coming for his customary hat-trick and Gendall knowing his place on the bench, what could go wrong? Not much for the first ten minutes, after which Mornington opened the scoring at the third attempt. That, though, brought about some barely warranted complacency, a very good through ball splitting the defence and allowing an easy equaliser.
Mornington, though, took the game to task and provided an excellent through ball of his own to allow Lewis to open his account. King was racing down the wing, Gendall injected some much needed pace down the middle and Harthan and Rogers linked up better than one might have expected down the left flank. Bodey scored the third with a weak left foot shot that crawled its way into the net; by half-time it was 4-1.
M&S Family oranges were very well received, a trip to Formby being well worth the effort. Some comedy positional changes in the second half made things interesting, a number of players proving that “it’s never too late to change” is rather better expressed as “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. Lewis scored a neat header to complete his hat trick and the Chairman scored with the last kick of the game to give a slightly flattering feel to the scoreline.
But overall, this was a good warm up for the big one next week. McGuckin got through without apparent injury, the goals conceded per game average is running at less than 4 and Clay and Crutchley returning to start telling tales of playing golf with “Stephen” (mark my words, that’s how they will refer to him) is still a little while away, this is as good a start as we might have hoped for.