Friday 23 February 2007

Friday Fun

23rd February 2007

Today being the last day of half term, and with Robert being in, me and Stu were determined to make the most of it. Firstly I rolled in at about 9:20am (again) and then at about 11:30 went for a dinner "hour" until 1:10pm! We probably only left then as Rob came and fetched us so he could go home for his dinner! To be fair, we were just about to go when he came as we were on our last 50p on the pool table.

The challenge of the dinner break was firstly to beat Stu as often as possible, which I probably managed 80% of the time (as expected :P), whilst also trying to finish at least 1 frame with the white and black ball remaining (obviously before the balck is sunk as the winner). This is due to the white ball being too big for the table so when it gets potted it doesnt return until we pay again! When this happens we then use the black as the white and often we potted this too and then just used random colours to finish the game! We managed to not pot the white once! This is due to both me and Stu having the reflexes as a deaf, blind and dumb mule.

The last frame was fun as we both played with our weak hands and unsurprisingly I suck with my left! I'm pretty sure both my left arm and left leg are there purely for show...

The afternoon mainly consisted of clockwatching as we counted down the hours and finally the minutes until we went to play 5 a-side. We'd been looking forward to this for 2 damn weeks after last weeks power cut caused us to miss it. There was another fun element to the day, which was pretty much the highlight of the week for me!

There is a student named Ricky, who unfortunately is in a wheelchair. He's a good lad and an avid football fan who loves Blackburn, poor misled fella. He uses the centre a lot and always comes to have a chat with us. Even with it being half term he has been in 4 out of the 5 days this week. He can be a little tedious as he does request a lot of things he could do for himself but I guess he is used to people waiting more on him around the home. Its never too much to do the odd job for him.

Now this week, I noticed there were 2 poles with small wheels on the back of his wheelchair. Note the diagram below:



Now, if you look at the green line on the image, this is where the wheels should have been. The red line is where they were, and had been all week. I asked Ricky about these wheels and he said they were for helping him lean back to go up and down stairs and curbs etc. I was still puzzled by this and said that he would surely be lying almost horizontal for the wheels to be put to use but he assured me that he only needed to tilt backwards a little bit before the wheels were on the floor.

I was still not convinced of this so Ricky said he would show me by leaning back, putting the wheels to use. We were in the IT Centre, in between 2 banks of PC's (on solid pine desktops) so probably not the most ideal place for this demonstration. I suggested he maybe do it in a more open space as if he leaned too far, he was likely to catch his head on the desk. I was reassured this would not be the case as the wheels would prevent this. Thus the demonstration went ahead and Stuart - for education purposes only ;) - decided to record it on his mobile.

Warning: Anyone of a nervous disposition should not click the play icon on the following video. Also note, nobody was overly harmed in the making of this video. Had there been any more serious injuries, we wouldn't be taking this incident so lightly. We have the full permission of the said wheelchaired person to publish this moment of absolute hilarity to the world!



It was an absolute classic. Clearly, Ricky was convinced that his wheels were in the appropriate position. They were not. The extremely loud crash is not just the noise of him and his wheelchair hitting the floor, but if you listen carefully, you ick up the thickening thud of his cranium smashing the desktop on his way down. Yes, it looked as painful as it sounds!!

After this, we went for the ritual game of football, only to be dissapointed by the lack of attendance, It was half expected with it being half term but we were assured it would be worth it by the number of attendees supposedly coming. In the end we had just 6 and tried to make the most of it by going 3v3. Its never a good game 3v3 as theres too much room and we play rush keepers so it seamt the main target of the match was to score as many open goals as possible. Boooooring!! I hate that. Every time I got the ball with an open goal gaping, I waited for someone to attempt to take the ball off me before sticking it in after.

We won the first game before teams were changed a couple of times and I lost the next 2. I kinda lost interest - which is so not like me, just due to the lack of numbers. I did manage a couple of tricks but nothing worth remembering. I think I'll use this game as experience and the final time I attempt an indoor bicycle kick. I've been doing them every week for the past few months and although I've come close a few times, I've always come off fairly injured too! This week I have what looks like an extra elbow and a very painful hip!

After the football, me and Stu went for a couple of pints (of Pepsi - or what I now found out is Syrup from a box + Carbonated water - yummy....). Then I got home and had my tea which consisted of 6 pancakes with chocolate spread and 2 pancakes with mint ice cream followed by a bowl of cereal!!

Sunday 18 February 2007

Some people are on the pitch, they think it's all over!!

18th February 2007

Well, today is judgement day! Set off for Kirkby Bentinct football pitches at 12pm picking James and Ben up on the way. We got there just as Ripley and Ladywood kicked off the match that was to determine if we would win the league today, or have to wait yet another week and play a playoff to determine the champions.

The game was quite scruffy and it was hard to imagine that these two teams put us under so much pressure for the duration of the season. Ripley for a while looked solid at the back yet posed no threat going forward, whilst Ladywood looked like they could be weak at the back yet offer something in attack. I guess we would have to hope it would be 0-0.

Ripley finally created a few chances but didn't seem to have anyone who knew how to finish whilst Ladywood tried to counter at every opportunity. Suddenly, a shot from nowhere broke the deadlock. Ripley, who had only conceded 8 goals in 17 before today had been beaten again but this was a special goal. From all of 20 yards out it arrowed into the top corner.

Even with another half to go our hopes of winning the league today crumbled as I would bet my house that Ripley wouldn't score today. At half time, I reassured myself that this weekend would be a very good weekend after the dramatic win yesterday. The second half got underway and again Ladywood put Ripley under pressure. Ripley began to see more of the ball in Midfield and a young lad who hung about on the left of midfield beat his marker on several occasions but had no cross in him so posed little threat.

A couple of up and unders were the closest Ripley came to scoring but both hard and high hit balls were collected safely by the Ladywood keeper who was put under very little pressure each time. With 5 minutes to go a Ladywood player hit a beauty that looked to make it 2-0 and would have had it not been for a fantastic save from young Flynn in the Ripley goal.

After a few more scrappy minutes of play the referee indicated that there were just 30 seconds of play left. I felt drained as I had banked on Ripley getting some sort of result here today. The ball was at the feet of the Ripley keeper who hoofed the ball forward. It seamt like the first time this season, more than 2 Ripley players had ventured forward in search of a goal. The ball was played down the left wing and the young lad without a cross suddenly produced a superb one which was met at the back post by a superb - although slightly sliced - volley. It all looked slow motion, I remember watching the referee thinking 'don't blow that whistle!!' The volley had it been met sweeter would have probably gone across the goal towards the back post, either being stopped by the keeper or the mass of bodies in front but due to the slight slice, it swung into the top corner!! 1-1!!! The refereee blew his whistle and we all went crazy!!

Championees, championess, ole, ole, ole!!

Coming off the back of last seasons cup win, this was special. We still have a league and cup to play for this year so we could be in for more drama but for now we'll savour every moment of this!! I was a little dissapointed in the fact we had to wait on other results to know if we had won and the fact we had only 5 or 6 of our lads there watching as I know the atmosphere and celebrations would have been a lot better had we won the league on the back of our own match.

We went for a traditional celebratory drink in the Ashfield pub down the road from the pitch and had a good chat amongst ourselves of the lads' progress this season. Maybe this will install some self-belief into the team and we can resurrect our Saturday season.

During the few hours we stayed at the pub, I beat one of the regular members of our fanbase 7-1 at pool :) Somebody stop me! :P

Saturday 17 February 2007

One nil down, two one up...!

17th February 2007

Absolutely awesome game I have just returned from. Up against local rivals Shitbrook..oops I mean Shirebrook ;). There a funny team. They seem to have some sort of hold on us having beaten us twice out of three last season, both on our home ground and have beaten us this year too, also on our pitch. This was the second time we have played at there place, we won 1-0 last year in a dramatic game where the referee was in fact the parent of Shirebrooks manager and he did everything to give them the game.

I had done my research on them and found that even though they are in form and up near the top of the table, they don't score very many goals at all. I think there position in the league flatters them a lot. I was a little worried at the start when the manager asked for the ID cards as one of my new guys cards was at our club secretarys waiting to be picked up.

The other guy was ok about him playing as I assured him he was legit. I bet he wished he hadn't allowed him to play now! We started with defence in mind inviting Shirebrook to attack us and tire themselves out. The pitch was really large, in fact almost twice the size of ours so there was a lot of space. We hoped to ride their attack for the first half and hit them on the break in the second half so I saved 3 fast attacking players for then.

We didn't start too great and had already conceded a corner in the second minute but we rode it well. We looked a bit sloppy and unaware of what to do with all the space whereas Shirebrook where making the most of it, running into the space and playing long passes to each other and more or less tearing our defense apart. They grabbed a goal half way through the first half and how they didn't get any more is beyond me as there were many times my last defender found himself outnumbered but between him and our keeper we went in at half time 1-0 down.

I made 4 changes, using all my guys waiting on the bench. It sometimes feels unfair that I do it but I know if I don't bring them on soon enough I tend to forget about them and they end up having only a 10 minute match. We weren't playing too great anyway so things definately needed changing.

The second half went a lot better and we dominated it, using the space well and had a good few attacks. Our front two players linked up really well and our midfield was creating a lot for us. Half way through the second half we were still 1-0 down but were playing very well and it seamt like a matter of time before we got our equaliser. We had a free kick after our new guy took the piss out of one of their guys with a couple of stepovers before he was brought down. He is a good header of the ball so I was telling him to get in the box so our captain could send a ball in to the box but he looked a bit injured and not in a hurry to get in. It worked well as the ball was sent into the box only to be cleared by a defender to the feet of Ashley who hit an absolute beauty from about 20 yards out that arrowed into the top corner!! The keeper got a hand to it and even pushed it against the back post that joins to the corner of the goal making it look like it didn't go in but the ref was already putting his whistle to his mouth before our attacker smashed it in just to make sure!

There were only 6 minutes left when we equalised so I was happy to take the draw even though we deserved to win. I regrouped the lads and told them to keep there heads and see out the remainder of the match. We tok it to them in the last few minutes but was almost caught out when they broke and had a bit of a chance. We had everyone in the box when a cross came over and at one stage it looked like it was gonna go out for a corner but my skipper got there in time to hurl it upfield.

The Shirebrook gaffer was going crazy for a corner but the ref carried on, to our delight as the long ball was met by Joe Truman who slid it through to Jordan Hill who pounced on it and made it 2-1 to us!! We went crazy!! They had enough time to take the kick off, which deflected out for a throw in. It came near me and one of our parents who made a pretend effort to stop the ball rolling miles from the pitch but as it rolled past, the ref saw it would take a few seconds to fetch it and blew for full time!! Thus proceeded the moaning of the Shirebrook manager as I walked away whistling 'Always look on the bright side of life!'...:D

Friday 16 February 2007

Pro Pool Player

16th February 2007

Managed to drag myself out of bed on time for work for probably the first time this week, funnily enough on one of the least important days of the week too. No need for the whole shirt and tie job as today was staff development day at college, meaning there were no students so was a day to chill out - although we are officially supposed to go on training courses. We had one scheduled for 2-4pm so that was enough for me.

I had planned to get some more coursework done today but never got any started. I was easily distracted at the start of the day playing paper basketball before heading down to the diner for a morning of pool. I started off well beating James twice before then surprisingly losing to Stu ;). Stu then surprisingly beat James ;) before I got my revenge on him by almost clearing up on the break. I then beat Paul from the AV team and went on to win about 3 or 4 more games before letting Stu and James play each other.

We chilled in the early afternoon on YouTube checking out comedy skits - I managed to find a Harry Enfield sketch I had been searching for over the past year or more!

We were all eagerly looking forward to this afternoon's football. Stuart is playing again and this time James was gonna join in too. Note, it is James' last day at college today as he is an agency temp covering for Robert, who has been ill for 15 or so months but has recently returned.

Me and Stu and the rest of our department headed up to our training course on 'Managing Challenging Behaviour'. A waste of time if you ask me, I'm perfectly capable of doing it. Basically, you start by getting any lippy student in a headlock and proceed to beat them to a bloody pulp :)

The course was thankfully cut short at about 3:20 by a power cut. The tutor tried to continue with paper based handouts before we were told the college was being closed altogether and we could all leave. This was great as far as the course was concerned but sucked ass cos we were all proper looking forward to the staff football. I had practiced all week the different tricks I was gonna dazzle everyone with this week and even more dissapointingly I wouldn't get a chance to kick lumps out of James on his last day as he brought with him a filthy Man United shirt.

We duely headed for the nearest pub after leaving college although this too was without power so we ventured a little further to the Talbot. We got a drink apeice and was gonna shoot some more pool when some guys from college started playing on the dartboard which is foolishly positioned at the base of the pool table meaning we would all get in each others way.

We found a spot to sit down and chilled for a while. This included the distraction of James so Stu could steal his phone and send random 'I love you ' type text messages to a girl who had been paying James some attention in recent weeks - although James denies he likes her, he knows he wants her ;)

We finally got on the pool table where I beat Emma - not my Emma, but a colleague from HR who had joined us. I beat her twice before then almost beating her a third time but sank the white as well as the black :(. Some old guys then challenged us to doubles and I was well up for beating on the elderly! Like they serve any other purpose! They were both pretty damn good players and you could tell they played regularly. In fact one of them was a regular in the pubs pool team.

I thought I would have to play damn well as I would be carrying Emma at first as she's not a great player but gave it a really good go. We won as partners twice which was impressive considering the standards of the old guys. James then took Emma's place and we then played about anohter 5 more doubles matches, winning 3 and losing 2 - both because we potted the black and white at the same time so we almost won 7-0! I had to say I had the night of my life and it was noticed as I was asked to consider joining the pubs pool team. How cool's that!? I'm actually considering it as it'll be something else to do one evening per week and won't be too expensive. Plus I used to play for a local pub team and really enjoyed it but I left when we moved to the next village where I developed lazybastarditis. I had always considered rejoining the team, especially since I passed my driving test but the pub had changed and I knew many of the players in the pool team were n00bs so couldn't be arsed playing with them.

I'll give it some thought next week, maybe even nip in to speak to the landlord about it and consider joining. The pubs also across from Stu's house so he could come have a drink with me if I join. I know I do wanna join now lol. Just gotta see if it will be too much of a hassle or if it does actually fit into my already pretty hectic schedule, what with football and work et all.

After whipping the old guys asses we reverted back to singles where I foolishly lost to James having potted the first 6 balls! My game started to go downhill a bit then, maybe cos I wasn;t as determined to win so was just going for daft quick shots but it was all good fun nevertheless. James left us to go to work so mr and Stu chatted for a bit until we realised we were well under-dressed as all of the 'after workers' had now been replaced by the 'its Friday night, so gonna get wrecked-ers'.

I headed off home, knackered and starving, calling into the chippy for a kebab on the way. Was a good day all round except for the lack of footy. Hated that :(. Now looking forward to the weekend of footy with my lads. Tomorrow away at Shirebrook. Rival match! They are like 9 positions and about 18 points in front of us having only played a game more than us but weirdly enough they've only scored 2 more goals than us. Looks like we'll be in for a close game and I'm confident we can knick something, they ain' that great. Then on Sunday, the championship decider! Come on Ripley!!

Sunday 11 February 2007

Another week to wait!

11th February 2007

Well I'm not happy!! This week has been torture waiting for today to happen to see if we would be crowned champions or not! Due to the heavy snow we had earlier this week, the officials forecasted that the pitches would be unplayable and cancelled all this weekends games.

As it happens, the last couple of days cleared up immensely and today in fact was a very bright day. I'm sure the pitches would have been lush, perfect football weather! I checked in the morning to see whether they had decided to go ahead with the fixtures but as they had plastered all over the league website that the games were all called off, they felt they could not go back and get the games running again due to players, parents, coaches etc having made plans. Its a shame and it just makes the wait even harder and longer! Hopefully it'll be worth it in the end!

Me and Emma made the most out of today by going to Blockbuster and renting a few DVD's. We got Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal and Mr & Mrs Smith. We watched Catch Me If You Can in the evening, just after I'd finished watching The Mummy and just before we then watched The Day After Tomorrow. So it was pretty much a lazy day!!

There was a small embarressment too earlier in the day as Emma was at her folks' and I'd just been in the shower and was sat on my PC. I heard the door go and knew Emma would have a nark if she knew I was on my PC when I should've been going to her mum's for dinner. She came up the stairs and as I got out my chair my towel wasn't wrapped properly so I kinda opend it to pull around me more only to be stood bare ass naked in front of her dad. Oh dear!! I just hope for his sake he doesn't feel inadequate :)

Sunday 4 February 2007

We've done our bit

4th February 2007

It was difficult knowing that Ladywood and Ripley wouldn't be playing there match today so we wouldn't really know where we stand until next weekend but we just had to concentrate on our own performance and not worry about them. We were up against Huthwaite who were fighting to stay in the top 5. We had to be a little cautious as we lost 5-3 to them the last time although we were playing 5 v 7 and were by far the better team - so much so that they didn't realise we only had 5 all through the match.

Unsurprisingly there was an extra face in the crowd, Ripley's manager and son. I was surprised to not see the Ladywood manager there as it would be more in their favour if we dropped points today, Ripley are all but out of it. I was a little taken aback by the son who is a player for Ripley who shook my hand at the start of the match and commented that if Ripley weren't gonna win the league, they wanted us to. Good stuff and very sporting.

I was confident we would win but kept level headed. I named the strongest team possible and we went straight for the jugular. I started for the first time this year with 2 strikers and it seamed to pay off. We took the lead within 5 minutes and doubled the lead about 5 minutes before half time. Young Jordan Hill is having a strange season, he seams to have become a lot less confident, shirking challenges, shooting under any small sign of opposition pressure, no matter how far out he is, but yet he has still bagged 23 this season which is a great record, putting him joint second top scorer so far this campaign. It was Jordan who helped us go 2-0 up. The first he made a great run down the left wing and to say we've not done an awful lot of crossing on the narrow 7-a-side picthes, he put in an excellent ball for last years hitman Joe Truman to volley home. Jordan scored the second pouncing on a loose ball after an initial shot was saved.

In the final 5 minutes of the half Huthwaite came back into it and it looked as though a goal was gonna come. It was 2-0 at half time and I told the lads to remain cautious, their task wasn't complete yet. With Huthwaite coming back at us, were they to score now the game would be wide open. I reverted to a more defensive formation and as expected Huthwaite came flying out the blocks. They controlled the next 5 minutes and did find a goal but it was to be there last patch of action as their goal seemed to give our lads a much needed kick up the ass. Little Danny Watterson had the game of his life as he tore Huthwaite to peices. Jordan grabbed his hat trick in an emphatic 4-1 victory and our job was done.

We are now 3 points clear at the top with a goal difference that betters Ladywood by 6 - although this is irrelevant as the league no matter what will not be decided on goal difference. We found out the time for next week's match between Ladywood and Ripley and then went for a celebratory drink as per usual.

So, going itno the final weekend of this league, this is how it stands:

1. Welbeck Pl 18 Pts 40
2. Ladywood Pl 18 Pts 37
3. Ripley Pl 17 Pts 34

With Ripley only having lost 1 game all season and conceding a mere 8 goals in 17 games, you would put your money on them getting a result next week, if they really want to. The previous encounter went Ripley's way 2-0 so anything similar to this would be ideal. They still have second place to play for - joint second that is. No team would surely send their kids out to lose, would they? At the end of the day I guess it'll be down to the kids and who wants it the most. We'll be their giving Ripley that extra encouragement!!