No Friends Of The Lepers

With CHA “owning the fixture list” this season by playing their games before the Lepers , the boys in mustard-green arrived early for last night’s fixture to watch Ye Old Enemy in battle. What was expected to be a game between the best of the rest turned out to be a catastrophe for CHA as most of their team were unavailable due to injury - how they must regret going to war with the Lepers last week.

In shambolic scenes, only 4 CHA players turned up resulting in a frantic search for a 5th man. Several of the Lepers were willing to have a (sabotaged) run-out for CHA but they were overlooked in favour of a Kenny’s Reds defender, fresh from their first ever Powerleague victory. The Lepers watched on and laughed as CHA crashed to a 6 – 1 defeat. How the mighty fall.

On to the Lepers game and this week’s opponents – Friends of the South. Heppers Lepers must be one of the most hated teams in Powerleague and so the lads had hoped that this might be an opportunity to finally find an ally – could Friends of the South become friends of the Lepers?

With Sheeno absent on a mission to promote beautiful beers other than Tenants Super, aka Tramp Juice, in bonny Scotland; Will Webb wandering the World with his WAG and Hoskins’ still afflicted by leprosy, the Lepers were down to a ‘leprotic’ band of 6.

With Jerzy Dudek slowly beginning to fill the Bear’s giant gloves, MVP and Spike at the back, Harvey in the middle and the Robot up front, the Lepers started the game with a strong side. The first 5 minutes of the game were like a game of chess, except much more aggressive and without the tactics, and both sides had numerous shots on goal.

The Lepers made the first breakthrough with a sharp shot from Harvey who was making his 31st consecutive appearance for the Lepers, just 9 games short of the 40 mark. Drake then added a second as he turned and drilled a long ball into the back of the net.

The Lepers pressed forward searching for more goals and the third of the night came courtesy of a wicked shot by Harvey from the acutest of angles. Unfortunately FOTS grabbed a goal back with a drilled shot into the top corner from the edge of the box.

At 3 – 1 Shovelfoot Stoner entered the arena and made a few tough tackles. The score was quickly increased to 4 – 1 with Harvey grabbing the cheekiest of hatricks. A free kick on the edge of the box gave Hatchet the opportunity to play a sly one-two of a defender stood on the wrong side of the ball before turning to bury the ball in the net.

Harvey then added some extra gloss to the scoreline with his fourth of the night leaving the scores at a respectable 5 – 1 at half time.

Unlike the teams of Divisions 6 and 5, FOTS did not keel over and came out fighting in the 2nd half. Dudek was jumping around like a crazy ginger monkey in a cage and managed to pull off a few saves. But due to some absent defending and the monkey calming down, FOTS pulled 2 quick goals back to bring the scores to 5 – 3.

With the Lepers playing with their backs to the wall, MVP stepped forward and managed to maintain possession through a number of mazy runs. Much to the annoyance of FOTS, Amesy twisted and turned and stepped on the ball and dribbled around them. One particular player in red decided to make enemies with the Lepers and starting trying to kick lumps out of MVP. Fortunately Ames and the Lepers showed their class and increased the scores to 6 – 3 following an Ames one-two off the backboards and into the net.

With pockets of trouble breaking out all over the pitch, Shovelfoot pounced on an opportunity to take his first Lepers goal with a fierce strike from distance. The keeper wisely dived out of the way only to see the rocket-ball smash into the crossbar. Every Lepers player just stood and watched the rattling crossbar in disbelief as FOTS counter-attacked. Fortunately the scores remained at 6 – 3 and the Lepers recorded their second win of the season.

Following that disastrous attempt at making Friends, the Lepers decided that a “friendly” game was in order. Needless to say the lads won the game which started friendly but ended in tears! Both teams committed several cynical fouls, but the opposition whinged while the Lepers just got on with it. Spike managed to dodge, dip, dive, duck and dodge countless reckless challenges as he scored goal after goal for the Lepers.

Back to the MG, the lads were rewarded with 2 free buckets of sausages from the bar manager to celebrate another hard-earned victory. With a potentially lucrative MG / Heppers Lepers sponsorship deal on the cards, Division 3 may already be in sight.