CHA Part 3

Following a gruelling, punishing, exhausting pre-season tour to Estonia, the team turned up on Thursday night looking fatigued and dishevelled. The great leader Sheeno turned up and was dazzled by the bright lights of Pitch 2. With Harvey, Webb, Drake, Stoner and Jerzak unwilling to make any sort of comment about what went on in Tallin it was left to Sheeno to dish the dirt, “someone did something somewhere”. Obviously he was trying to keep a low profile!

Drake appeared to have been Shovel-foot-robotised (can’t believe that’s a real word!) and was unable to look left or right without turning his shoulders and making strange electronic noises. Hoskins’ leprosy had again worsened leaving just 7 players to face the old enemy. Fortunately MVP and Spike had been sensible enough to avoid the 3 drunken days of mayhem and so they would have to carry these drunken reprobates through 30 minutes of football-violence.

The starting 5 consisted of shocked-Sheeno in goal, MVP and Spike at the back, Harvey in the middle and Jerzak up front. Knowing that a game against CHA was always warfare, the Lepers immediately got stuck in. With battles kicking off all over the pitch, the Lepers were often on the wrong end of the refereeing decisions. The Lepers had hoped they’d left this foolish ref (who looks a bit like Statto off Fantasy Football only with short hair) behind on Pitch 3 but the Heppers-hater had followed them. 2 of the CHA players, one with no hair and one with terrible hair, seemed to be their only players. They were as good as they were disgraceful and the Lepers fought hard to contain them.

Suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue, MVP struck a lightning-bolt drive from distance to give the Lepers an early lead. CHA looked as shell-shocked as the Lepers team had looked before the game and decided to take their fouling to new levels, much to the indifference of the ref. The Lepers were left fuming on several occasions but never lost their heads … or marbles!

CHA then pulled a goal back, but instead of slowing down the Lepers took their game to new heights. Sheeno pulled off a few wonder saves including a massive blow to the nose before Spike struck gold. Surging down the left flank he toe-poked the ball across the keeper into the far corner. 2 – 1 and the Lepers were on fire.

Jerzak and Webb then substituted and it took all of 60 seconds for Hot-Shot to make his mark on the game. Following some neat inter-play Will sent a rocket into the bottom corner to give the Lepers a 3 – 1 lead at the break.

Knowing that they gave up a 2 goal half-time lead last time against CHA, the Lepers were determined not to slip up again. This CHA side were undefeated in at least 14 games and would not go out without a fight.

The second half was more vicious than the first and CHA mounted wave after wave of attack. Fortunately MVP was playing one his best games for the Lepers and was resolute at the back. With the Estonian section of the team all red faced and knackered the second half was dominated by Spike and Ames as a 2 man wrecking crew. The ref then produced another chapter in his book of awful officialdom. MVP and a CHA player were both dismissed for a shoulder-barge in the corner. This ‘foul’ was nothing compared to most of CHA’s disgraceful cheating but the ref obviously needed to even things up! The Lepers fought on hard with even hatchet-Harvey, the man with the best engine of the team needing to go off for a couple of short breaks to catch his breath.

CHA finally grabbed a goal back to bring the scores back to 3 – 2. And then suddenly things began to go wrong for the Lepers. First MVP suffered an injury and had to come off and then Spike was sin-binned for a slide tackle – the book of bad refereeing was now into a second edition!

However, the Lepers remained calm and held on for the win with one of CHA’s players eventually losing his head for the 20th time leaving the ref no option but to dismiss him. CHA were heard complaining at full time, “we only fouled so much ‘cos they were so much bigger than us”. Boo hoo!

This must go down as one of the Lepers’ greatest results but most of the team declined a trip to the MG which was an indicator of the extent of the mayhem of Tallin. Of the 3 players who did make the trip to the Master Gunner, the gayest round ever was ordered – a lager shandy, a Coke and a lemonade. Fortunately Webb’s pre-match drinking allows the Beer = Goals mantra to stick.

Last night’s win gave the Lepers their highest league position as they crashed into Division 4 in 3rd place. And these boys really want to win the league so they can change the ‘6’ in the Team Anthem to ‘4’.

“Division 6 Championeee,
With Sheeno, Jerzak, Drake and Stoney,
Hoskins seagulled Spike and Amesy
and Harvey. The Leprosy.”