Kenny’s Reds Part 2 - Another Messi night

Through a leprotic mix of injuries, suspensions, holidays and work commitments, an extremely depleted band of Lepers marched out against Kenny’s Reds last night. A pre-match protest over the 2 game ban handed out to Drunk Drake delayed kickoff by enough time for the team to arrive. With their masterminded manager missing on a Magners mashup the giant gloves were handed back to Dudek who demanded a defensive display. Dudek had this time brought along a pair of inner gloves to fill some of the space inside the gloves which are of a similar size to those foam hands people used to wave in the crowd at Gladiators. Shovelfoot was also absent due to work commitments – Shovelfoot holds the record for the most different companies worked for which stands at a mighty 478 corporations.
The starting lineup was made up from Dudek in goal, Ames and Spike at the back, Harvey in midfield and Hoskins up front having arrived on time after being sent to Coventry by his work. Kenny’s Reds appeared to feature a number of new faces which could explain their recent run of form. Within 10 seconds ever-present Harvey had started the scoring with a sweetly taken strike. Unfortunately the goal will not go down in the record books as the Quickest Goal Ever as the official timekeeper had not had time to start his watch! Fortunately Harvey had increased his record of consecutive appearances to 27 games, just 3 games short of the dirty 30 landmark. (as a family website we have obscured any offensive obscenities).

Ames then added to the scoresheet with his first of many before Spike sent a piledriver home from distance. At 3 – 0 the Lepers were cruising and looking for more goals. This allowed Kenny’s lanky striker to be unmarked on the edge of the box to pull a goal back. With Hoskins still struggling to get his 1st goal of the season, it was time to bring on supersub Webb. Hotshot made an immediate impact with a cracking turn and strike to bury the ball in the bottom corner. And his second was even better – a new club record was set too as this was the first time that Ames and Spike both passed the ball in the same move! Harvey found himself on the receiving end and slipped the ball into Webb’s path. Hotshot held off the defender on the edge of the box and planted the ball past the helpless keeper.

Kenny’s Reds then mounted a few attacks before a mix-up between Harvey and Dudek caused the keeper to handle outside the box and give away a “leperous penalty”. The lanky striker added his second of the night as he sent the keeper the wrong way.

The Reds then scored a 3rd of the night with an extremely fortunate piece of play, a wayward strike rebounded back of the boards, over Dudek’s diving body and straight to the striker’s feet. Fortunately MVP showed his worth and banged another strike in just before the break to keep things comfortable at 6 – 3.

Kenny’s Reds came out of the blocks firing on all cylinders in the second half having several shots on goal, one of which came to fruition bringing the score to 6 – 4. With Drunk Drake suspended, the goal-scoring duties had fallen to Shovelfoot Stoner who turned up at halftime. He was harrying and harassing up front but still couldn’t get his elusive first goal. After an extremely Messi 5 minutes, the Lepers began to take control again as MVP completed his hatrick before adding a fourth to bring the Lepers’ scoring tally for the season to 100 goals. This record smashed the previous season’s total of 84 and couldn’t have fallen to a more suitable hero – and to think, we all thought the Cottager had scored the 100th!!

With practically the last kick of the game, Harvey notched again to add some shine to an otherwise chaotic game.

The win was enough to secure promotion to Division 4 next season which would mean leaving the hallowed rubber turf of Pitch 3 and moving up to Pitch 2. With this in mind, the ever-prepared Lepers had decided to stage an exhibition match on Pitch 2 against a Spanish opposition featuring the much-hyped Lionel Messi.

The Messi Tribute Game

There were 2 rumours doing the rounds regarding this game. Either
a) Messi had come to London to be ‘tapped-up’ by the Lepers. To test his mettle, the Lepers had decided to play against him and give him a proper going over.
b) Messi had snubbed the Lepers and signed for El Bastardo, aka Sporting Diablos of Division 3.

Either way, Messi would be in for a tough time.

The Jerzak jersey was handed to Spike as he took his place between the sticks. Spike opted to wear the ‘Free Drake’ inner gloves as Sheen’s giant foam fingers were starting to smell like a small animal had crawled inside them and died! Stoner somehow managed to miss kick off again as he was reportedly involved in some sort of solo seagulling shower session. Webb allegedly scored the first goal, apparently! Harvey then added a second before the moccasined Rasta and Messi started playing. Unfortunately every time either of them beat a man they were knocked off the ball by some tough tackling / fouling! El Bastardo were naively under the impression that The Messi Tribute Game was some sort of ‘friendly’.

Messi’s moment arrived late in the second half when Jerzak himself arrived late into a challenge. A 50 / 50 bouncing ball gave Jerzak the opportunity to welcome Messi to Powerleague. The poor Leper from Rosario didn’t know what had hit him and he was sent flying across the pitch as the noise of his shinpads breaking reverberated around the Liverpool Street area. The referee showed Jerzak a yellow card leaving Drake to remonstrate on the sidelines, “that was just as bad as my ‘tackle’ last week and I got a red”. The ref warned Drake that any more of his lip would see his suspension extended into next season. Unlucky, Drake!

The Lepers were warming to Pitch 2 with it’s white boards and laser nets. Messi and the rasta grabbed 3 goals between them to take the score to 2 – 3 before Jerzak struck a fierce goal much to the pleasure of Spike who shouted, “it’s just like I’m out on the pitch”. Clearly the lad loves a piledriver!

The second half saw every pass going to ‘Makelele’ Stoner to help him bag a goal. Shovelfoot was on fine form, even being tackled by the hoarding at one point. MVP was in goal declaring, “I’m only staying in for one goal”. He immediately Hans Segered the wrong way letting a goal in and handed the gloves to Hoskins. Spike then levelled the game with a typical driller – he really was out on pitch now.
Over the course of the next 10 minutes El Bastardo definitely scored 1 (a Hoskins howler as he chatted to the fans on the sidelines) but probably scored more; however all eyes were on Shovelfoot and his quest for glory. Even the ref was joining in with the shouts of “SHOOT!” every time Stoner touched the ball. And he came within a whisker of scoring as a strike from distance crashed off the inside of the post.

With seconds remaining, Harvey saved face for the Lepers by grabbing a consolation goal, only for the referee to announce that the final score was 5 – 5. Clearly he was taking the decimalisation scheme too far with this blatant piece of match-fixing.

The Lepers signed up for Division 4 before heading down to the Gunner to meet their Magners-loving manager. The lads toasted their promotion before going through the losing entries for the Club logo competition. Hoskins had claimed first prize with a quite remarkable piece of artwork, although there is suspicion that he may have had some help!

The beer flowed and the conversation quickly turned to debate as the Lepers tried to work out answers to some of the more complex problems in the world, such as ‘How many different meanings are there to Seagulling?’ and ‘What happened to ‘O’ when Czechoslovakia split up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia?’. What happened, indeed.