O’Brien on fire as Amici are annihilated

You wait four years for a Mid Sussex Derby with Amici Athletic to come along, and then you end up playing three times in a season.  

With both Hassocks Fatboys Reserves and the Fairfield Rec outfit placed in Sussex Sunday League Division Three this season, it means supporters and viewers on Now TV will be treated to this mouth-watering fixture twice more over the coming months.

It is doubtful whether they will live up to the entertainment value of this clash. In fact, I can safely say they won’t. That the Fatboys scored six was largely because Amici were forced into putting Andy Wilson in goal, a man who was, in the most literal sense of the word, playing on one leg. That Amici got four of their own was because

Jamie Stratton in all his wisdom decided to “help them out” by giving them Peter Martin for the second half. Yeah, that guy who has got three in two already this season for the first team.

Amici weren’t so much down to the bare bones as having had all the skin scraped off their bones and had them placed in a nice little pile, ready for some sort of pagan ritual. Five drop outs and 10 pints in the Lord Nelson the previous night left manager Jared Evans in a world of problems.

The Fatboys themselves looked extremely ropey with Chris Clayton asking to go on the bench such was his hangover. For a man who once managed to knock the International Space Station out of orbit with one of the toys he launched from his pram at being named as a sub, this was a very clear indication of some severe hangovers among the reserves squad.

Not Mark Potter though. No, Potter was quite clearly still pissed. Even by his high standards this was an interesting start the game as he gave away possession with four of his first five passes. The other time he had the ball he couldn’t even make a pass as his touch completely failed him.

While it may have taken Potter 15 minutes to stop flidding around in the middle of the park, it didn’t take the Fatboys very long to get onto the scoresheet, realising pretty quickly that Wilson wasn’t a goalkeeper. And if they hadn’t have realised themselves, the shouts from Amici of “He isn’t a goalkeeper”, “Do your best Andy” and “Don’t give the ball back to him” would probably have given the game away.

Simon O’Brien is like a fine grey wine in that he is getting better with age. He already had three goals in two games coming into this and within 10 minutes Amici were feeling his wrath as he scored the first of what would turn out to be a hat-trick. Jake Graham was the architect of the first, using his pace to get away down the flank and cross for O’Brien, who swept home.

Quick interjection here – I’ve just realised that “pace” is a word that regular purveyors of reserve team match reports may not be familar with. According to the Oxford English Dictonary, it is “to move at fast rate or speed”. Hope this clears up any confussion among our loyal readers.

Amici threatened after that, Scott McCarthy showing why he had been promoted from the first team with an excellent save at full stretch onto the post. McCarthy then pulled off another stop at full stretch and tipped one onto his crossbar. Not wanting to outshine the injured Nick Jones too much, he did produce a volleyball spike, get lobbed for Amici’s first and shout “JONES YOU C**T” when a kick flew straight out of play, which went down well with the gallery.

The visitors were left to regret not making that pressure play when the Fatboys added a couple more goals in quick succession. Graham scored from 25 yards with what I’d like to describe as a rocket but, in order to avoid charges of FAKE NEWS, did in fact trickle across the line after Andy Wilson swung a leg at it as if teeing off on the third at Mid Sussex. O’Brien made it three when he beat the offside trap and Graham added a long ranger that actually did deserve the term rocket.

That could’ve been Graham’s hat-trick goal had he have not missed a penalty moments before. With Amici only having 10 men, Pete West had angrily agreed to play the first half for the visitors and, never a man to pass up an opportunity, saw the chance to claim his first assist for the Fatboys. So in he went with a horror tackle on Graham to concede a spot kick, but any dreams of notching a ‘1’ in the assists column went out the window as Graham’s effort cannoned off the post. It did make a quite beautiful sound.

One other first half highlight that we cannot gloss over was a quite outrageous handball from Nick Davie who effectively caught it at right back and then began break dancing with it. Quite what him and his new missus get up to at home is anybodies guess but on this showing, it would probably make Max Moseley blush.

So 4-1 at half time when Stratton made a raft of changes including handing Amici a new weapon in Martin. Not that that bothered O’Brien who made it 5-1 to wrap up his treble. Not only that, but it came with his balding head to complete the perfect hat-trick after a delicious cross from delicious Stuart Young. Bod was now sober enough to enter the fray and he was soon into his grove, calmly slotting past Andy Wilson after being found by a delightful ball from O’Brien.

This was all too much for Tom Pinnock who was heard bemoaning how easy and what a pointless game this was. The listening first team manager took great note of this – could we this season see Pinnock playing in his correct position of centre back for the fronts? Watch this space.

Stratton did his level best to ensure the last third of the game was more of a challenge for his side, by making the bold move of finishing the game with a brand new centre back partnership of two players who aren’t centre backs – Potter who was now sobering up and Glen Clayton, who had arrived at Downlands wearing nothing but a towel. His reasoning for this was “What’s the point in putting on clothes after a shower, only to take them off again 20 minutes later.” This could not be faulted.

If Glen’s arrival that morning had bought his team great enjoyment then the arrival of this new back line bought Martin equal glee and he soon chalked up two goals of his own, much to McCarthy’s frustration who bellowed at his defence that they’ve played against Martin for weeks in training, they should no how to stop him. Potter was frank and to the point as always, responding with “We know how to stop Pete, it’s just none enough are good enough to.”

An honest appraisal in an honest game of football. No doubt things will be much different when these two clash in competitive action further down the line, but a pleasing mornings work for Stratton’s men as they secured their first victory of the friendly campaign.