On one wild, wet and windy whimsical Winter wonderland when WAGs and wannabes would wonder whether we won, we waged war and whitewashed the wooly wazzocks. Without wine and within the weasel‘s wateringhole the Windmill we wouldn‘t worry whether we wenched wet wheatbeer when we won and wrote words on the World Wide Web.
And onto the serious business. Last night the Lepers played Sporting Diablos in the final game of the first half of the season. This may sound a confusing way of describing the half way point of the season but your writer has been subjected to confusing talk of the group stages of the UEFA Cup where nobody knows the rules. Bloody Spurs. With prematch primma donna Drake drinking himself drunk things were not looking positive prior to proceedings.
Especially seeing as the Lepers had been ungraciously denied access to the hallowed bar of the Master Gunner. With super Scot canny-Keith already forgotten by the new MG management, they decided to host a samosa party for the prawn sandwich brigade of the city. “The
Lepers were homeless” stated an exasperated Bear at 6pm while searching for his beautiful beer. Fortunately the fortuitous Lepers’ fortune quickly fortuned just prior to kickoff when new-friend Statto proclaimed not only his love for the Lepers, but also his appreciation for all things Umbro as he stood proudly in an early 90s style Umbro jacket - the unbelievable umbrage caused by ungracious Umberto’s unanimous umlaut was unconcerned by the ubiquitous umpire’s unique Umbro undercoat.
Inspired by the glorious double-diamond logo of the Umbro brand (much like the glorious back-to-back champions Chelsea in ’05 & ’06 before their traitorous transfer to the three stripes of the third reich) the Lepers would surely push for victory. Statto’s style was reminiscent of the glorious Hoddle eras at Swindon and Chelsea before the troublesome times of Eileen Drewery and disabled people. Only one Leper appeared dismayed by the Umbro’d umpire and that was of course his greatest foe, tough-tackler Ames who turned up dribbly and sweaty, reminiscent of Big Nev Southall in his Umbro heydays with the Toffeemen.
Just ahead of kick off the manager turned down the opportunity to give weekly orders to his simple troops instead unveiling his second signing of the season after Mike Aage FJORTOFt who incidentally (as Motson might say) played for Norway in an Umbro strip. The Lepers were astounded by the most beautiful pair of white Umbro shorts ever seen, trimmed with a beautifully-putrid green flash to match the Beautiful Beer shirt.
The game kicked off at a pedestrian pace with the Lepers knocking it around as if they
were the greatest ever 5 a-side team to have played club football in Umbro shirts which would probably look something like: Neville Southall, Tony Adams, Eric Cantona, Gianfranco Zola and Barry Horne. Any reader who questions Horne's inclusion must surely be too young to remember his most famous goal in the blue Umbro shirt which came on the final day of the 1993-94 season against Wimbledon. Everton had to win to survive relegation. Horne's goal, a 30 yard screamer, levelled the scores at 2-2. Graham Stuart would go on to score the winning goal to secure Everton's Premiership status. Soon after Barry Horne won Everton's Footballer of the Year 1995 award.
The Diablos played like a orphaned bunch of Spanish devils without an established national kit maker. Italy have Lotto, France have Le Coq Sportif and Germany have Puma and Adidas, both famously founded by the Dassler brothers - In 1948 Rudolf Dassler split from his brother Adolf Dassler's company, Adidas, to form his own shoe company called Puma. But the lazy Spanish do not appear to have a national kit maker and this clearly showed in the Diablos performance.
With the game ambling along at an un-Umbro pace, the magic shorts made their first decisive play. Harvey found himself in possession in a good position and squared the ball back to the Magic Umbro Shorts which buried the ball beyond the bullfighting Big Chorizo. “Aye”
Less than a minute later the Magic Shorts took full advantage of Diablos’ defensive mistake and dropped the ball into the net like a piece of fruit into a jug of sangria. From this point on the Diablos played like a team who’d missed out on their siestas as the Lepers danced around them like Ricky Martin doing the flamenco. This was clearly Spike’s moment as he salsa’d his way through the Diablos to score the third of the night. Spike then added a 4th goal of making the Diablos defence look as lazy and useless as a Spanish donkey wearing a sombrero walking along a dusty road. “Hola”
With a few seconds to go in the first half Ames blasted the ball from 30 yards and saw it drop into the bottom corner of the goal reminiscent of one of the goals Borja Oubiña scored for Celta Vigo before his transfer to Birmingham to become the only professional Spanish player in the World who plays in an Umbro shirt. “Sí”
Half time came around giving the Diablos time to munch on a few tortillas and the Lepers chance to discuss whether the England Team managed by Mourinho but without Umbro would be more or less humiliating than being managed by that wally with the brolly. An National team without a home grown manager is one thing, but a kit made by a foreigner too would surely be too much to take. “Hablo un poco”
The second half was not a great success as the Lepers continued their domination of the game but without the same killer instinct of the first half. The Diablos naively played dirty and argued with the Umbro’d umpire who consequently awarded the Lepers most 50/50s. And the 6th goal of the night came in good time as Harvey clattered into the back of a hapless Spaniard giving the Magic Shorts the opportunity to smash home for a well-deserved debut hatrick. “Gracias”
However, that was as good as it got for the Lepers, and when Fjortoft opted to try a Cruyff turn as last man back, he felt Sheen’s wrath. Perhaps he had been trying to replicated the Bear’s similar piece of skill while playing for the Hepos against Mike Aage, but it went drastically wrong and Fernando Torres stuck the ball home to deny the Lepers a record-equalling 5th clean sheet of the season. “por favor”
The Lepers played out the last 10 minutes of the game searching for further goals to increase the scoreline but to no avail. Sheen bombarded Diablos with precision throw-outs but for once Drake’s touch was not up to scratch as he failed to fill his boots.
Surprising considering he was wearing Umbro boots. His final touch of the evening summed up his evening – following a great one-touch team play through the middle of the Diablos, Drake played a smart one-two with Spike but somehow managed to blaze over the empty new from 5 yards. Not wanting to give up his greedy tag, his post-match interview said it all. “Tonight was sh!t”.