“Tactics as successful as taking a vegan to KFC for a first date”

“Look at the positives. No matter what happens today, this cannot be any worse than last time we came to Newhaven.” Famous last words. Last time we faced White Garden was in the County Cup back in October. We lost 5-1 and that probably flattered us.

Wilkesy wore a pair of child’s shorts, looked like Mr Burns and kicked everything with his shin pad rather than his feet. Iby came off the bench, subbed himself back off two minutes later and then retired on the spot, Spiesy nearly went the same way and Karel…. well, Karel was something else altogether.

So yeah, whoever said “It cannot be any worse” probably thought they had a good point. And yet despite everything that happened on that previous visit to Newhaven, we did somehow manage to be even worse in the first part of this double header against opponents who had not won a league game all season.

Within one hour of Hassocks Fatboys rocking up at Eastside Recreation Ground, Garden had their first three points of the campaign in the bag thanks to a 2-0 success and any hopes we had of the most unlikely title win in history were done and dusted.

Double headers are a nightmare at the best of times and if you are to avoid them becoming an even bigger problem, then there are certain things you need to happen.

A full squad of players is a good start, for example. Whereas Garden seemed able to call upon two thirds of the population of Newhaven going on the number of substitutes they had, we in contrast mustered together only 13 men.

It should have been 14, but Karel decided after travelling 33 miles from Crawley to the roundabout no more than 800 metres from the ground that he was too sick and hungover to play, and so he turned around and went home.

Ryan and Alex were both late drop outs, although we were boosted by the unexpected presence of Turner who had been roped along on the treble promise of a McDonalds drive thru, that he could start in central midfield and would not have to take goal kicks.

Another thing you cannot do in double headers is afford to give away silly goals as you have half an hour less playing time to make amends. We managed to concede from two easily preventable scenarios and that ultimately is why Garden ran out victorious.

Our hosts also dealt much better with a pitch that resembled the grand canyon. One of the most surprising aspects of this season’s shock rise to the top of the table has been that it has come with some pretty good football.

Playing that way simply wasn’t possible, Garden realised that and spent most of the first game going long whilst we tried to knock it around on the ground, a tactic as successful as taking a vegan to KFC for a first date.

The tone for the opening hour of football was set very nicely inside of the first five minutes when Duck managed to tread on the ball and fall over under absolutely no pressure on the right flank.

Garden’s left winger gleefully accepted possession and sped away from Duck, who was now crawling on his hands and knees after the opposition player as he hurtled towards goal. This sorry sight knocked the little composure anybody wearing purple possesses right out of them and only a poor final ball meant Garden did not score.

Duck was still on the ground when the cross harmlessly went out of play. Scott then pinged his bicep taking the resulting goal kick and suddenly we had a right winger who was in pieces on the floor and a goalkeeper playing on one leg. Oh, and Turner was back on goal kick duty.

It was not long before Garden took the lead although they did have a helping hand from the referee. Andy broke down the right and his attempted cross into the box was quite literally caught by the home defender, juggled and then drop kicked down the pitch.

Remarkably, the young official waved play on. Garden broke down the other end to earn a corner from which they powered in a free header to make it 1-0. From the clearest penalty you will ever see to conceding within one phase of play.

Our injury problems worsened just before half time when Dave took a nasty whack from a late challenge. He tried to run the problem off but it soon became clear that would not be possible and so changes were needed.

What followed at the break was a game of musical chairs. Wilkesy had spent the first half at right back but he was moved into central midfield. Mike took over at right back from centre half with Turner dropping back into defence as we looked to take advantage of the fact he can head and kick a ball 80 yards down the pitch.

Young Max entered proceedings in place of Jack who had to go to a BBQ and Willow replaced the injured Dave, which meant a delighted and gleeful Stuart took over at left back.

If you have somehow managed to keep up with all that, then you will have deduced that Dave being crocked and Jack abandoning ship in favour of a burnt horse burger from Iceland (the shop rather than the country) meant that we now faced the rest of game one and the whole of game two with only 11 players.

The second half of game one ended up being a mild improvement on the first. Willow offered width and on the rare occasions we managed to get the ball out to him, he looked a threat. Chances though were few and far between for both sides. Davo went close with a couple of headers from Turner long throws and Jordan drew a fine stop from the Garden goalkeeper.

Scott saved bravely at the feet of an attacker and got a kick in the head for his troubles. There was not much he could do about Garden’s second which arrived with 10 minutes left to play. Stuart was turned by Garden’s YouTube star, who has 911,000 subscribers and he finished low and hard into the bottom corner. Always preferred Saffron Barker, myself.

The game petered out into nothingness after that, both sides trying to conserve energy for another hour of football. From a Fatboys point of view, no matter what happened in that second game it could not be worse than the firs… hang on a minute…