B Town 4-2 Hassocks Fatboys
George Milyard Cup Second Round
Sunday 26th January 2020
This day has been coming for a long time. For the best part of three years now, Hassocks Fatboys have consistently delivered rubbish performances against sides from lower divisions in cup competitions. And up until now, we’ve always managed to get away with it.
In this season alone, we’ve snuck past Hove Lawns, Tally Ho and The View without actually playing well. That run is now over following a 4-2 defeat in the second round of the George Milyard Cup to B Town – coincidentally, another team we’d undeservedly beaten last season when winning 3-2 at Victoria Park in the Roy Terrington Trophy.
B Town have since swapped Portslade’s finest venue to take up residence at the Fatboys former home of Waterhall Pitch 8. We had some good times playing here, none more so than when winning the Division Three title in the 2014-15 season. We also had some pretty shocking ones, such as when we didn’t win a home game at Waterhall for 21 months with a form book that read played 13, won zero, scored 28, conceded 80.
One thing that we never realised despite playing at Waterhall for the best part of six years is that the goals actually lift out of the ground. Rather than having to have Pidge on Gander’s shoulders – often a frequent sight before another inevitable defeat in which we shipped eight more goals – we could have simply taken the posts down to attach the nets.
Every team does this these days. This did lead to some confusion on arrival as it looked to us plebs that half the pitches were missing goals. That wasn’t the only confusion either. We’d turned up in the purple away kit, only to spot a team with the name B Town Flooring emblazoned across a set of shirts which were also purple. Fortunately, this turned out to be B Town’s reserves although with hindsight, calling the game off because of a kit clash might not have been the worst thing that could have happened.
A strong squad of 15 at 9.30am had become a slightly weaker squad of 13 by the time we were ready to start. Charlie Tyzack had pulled out due to family reasons while Karel Kutaa didn’t wake up until 3.30pm on Sunday afternoon, so just the five hours after kick off.
Ronnie Devonish meanwhile arrived at Waterhall looking very white and very nervous. He had a story to tell us. A car had accidentally cut up Ryan John on the A23. Ryan took this very well and sped up to pull alongside the other vehicle, wound down the window and began a two minute tirade with his eyes firmly off the road as they bowled along at 70mph. Ronnie meanwhile cut a sheepish figure in the front seat, looking straight ahead, trying not to make eye contact with the poor motorist to his left and praying that they weren’t about to die.
As horrifying as this all sounds, it turned out to be just a warm up for what was to happen to Ryan during the second half. A completely unnecessary foul right on the edge of the box resulted in a penalty for B Town. Again, Ryan took this very well and decided to launch the ball at the striker he’d just hacked to the ground.
Rather than hitting the striker in the head as presumably was Ryan’s intention, the ball sailed about 15 yards away, after which Ryan decided to try and fight five opponents in one go. Scott McCarthy of all people ended up being the one to try and stop this happening, with Ryan thrashing around so much that Scott was lifted off the ground and left to swing with through the air like a rag doll all the while holding onto Ryan’s neck for dear life.
Steve Spies eventually arrived on the scene to help with the defusing process and Stuart Brown began telling Ryan “Remember your breathing exercises” as if he were a woman in labour. after what felt like an hour, Ryan was finally shepherded off the pitch. “Like looking into the eyes of Peter Sutcliffe” was how one anonymous Fatboy described it.
The spot kick was eventually taken successfully, giving B Town a 3-1 lead and effectively ending the game in the process. To make matters worse, Michael Russell was then sin binned for using foul and abusive language by describing the penalty decision as “Disgusting”.
There’s a chance here to get a cheap joke about Michael needing to keep his hair on given that he’s just returned from three weeks out following a hair transplant (which surely wins Excuse of the Season), but seeing as this isn’t the tabloid press we won’t stoop that low. Michael was punished enough anyway by his 10 minutes off the pitch and the fact he did then launch into a rant about the referee, whose mother turned out to be stood no more five yards away.
It would be easy to pin the blame for our defeat on the shoulders of the young official, but it wasn’t his fault we couldn’t play a five yard pass all morning. It wasn’t his fault that the B Town forward scored two of the best goals you’ll see in Sunday League inside the space of 15 first half minutes. It wasn’t his fault that Jon Ballantyne was having one of those days as linesman.
As good as B Town’s first goal was, there was no doubting it was offside. By about 10 yards. As a result, the entire back line of Michael, Spiesy, Ryan and new signing David Ibrahim stood still and looked across to Bally, who was facing the other way and trying to talk to Aaron Agate who’d turned up to watch. With no flag forthcoming (“Sorry lads, I had to speak to Agate but he was ignoring me”), the B Town forward curled a brilliant effort into the stanchion from the edge of the box for 1-0.
Goodness knows what Iby thought. This was his Fatboys debut after he’d become the club’s record signing at a cost of a £15 transfer fee to the Sussex Sunday League to bring him in from Castle Sports. We had originally intended to bid for Zac, but clearly there was a mix up with the paperwork somewhere and we got Iby. He looks like he’s going to fit right in at the Fatboys, messaging a couple of hours after the game to say that he’d understand if he gets dropped to the reserves for next week. Welcome to the club.
B Town’s second goal was even better than their first and there was no help needed from Bally this time. The same player had a shot from outside the box which had so much spin and power on it that McCarthy did well to even get a hand to it. That wasn’t enough to keep it out sadly and it snuck in via a post.
The hosts also hit the bar in the first half, McCarthy showed good handling from a couple of distance efforts and Ryan blocked two goal bound efforts on the line in a bit of a scramble. Going forward, on the rare occasions that we managed to play football we looked like we could hurt B Town. Duck had a few runs down the right, Jordan a few half chances and Spiesy saw a bullet head blocked from a pinpoint corner delivery.
Our past experience on Pitch 8 told us that the wind can often be a deciding factor. The Fatboys would now have it behind their backs in the second half and in order to try and make the most of it, we switched from 4-3-3 to 3-5-2. The thinking was that Jordan would be less isolated up front with Duck alongside him, a back three of Spiesy, Ryan and Iby could cope with B Town’s two up top and pushing Michael and Stuart Brown into wing back roles would allow us to be more of an attacking thread.
The plan looked like it was going to work perfectly. Within five minutes of the restart, the Fatboys had a goal back. McCarthy collected a loose ball and launched a kick 80 yards down the pitch. Andy Brown latched onto it to head over the stranded goalkeeper, netting his 88th goal for the Fatboys in the process to overtake brother Stuart as the clubs record goalscorer.
B Town gave a quick reminder of the danger they still possessed on the break when, straight from kick off, they took advantage of a slip from Spiesy to go clean through on goal but McCarthy pulled off a superb one-on-one stop to keep his side in it. Michael then went close with a rasping drive, Stuart hit the bar with a cross-shot which was caught by the wind, Ronnie whistled one just over and a rare left footed attempt from Duck forced the goalkeeper into a good save.
It was one-way traffic at this point, right up until the moment that Ryan lost his mind and had to be replaced by young Miles Collins. Suddenly, from being 2-1 down but well on top, we found ourselves 3-1 behind and down to 10 men with Michael in the sin bin. Despite the fact that a sin binning is only meant to last 10 minutes, the referee kept Michael in their for 15, which led to rumours spreading that he’d actually been sent off. Luckily, this turned out to be fake news – otherwise, Michael might have found himself tearing his hair out (sorry).
Worse was to come for the Fatboys when Iby’s back gave up with 15 minutes left to play. This gave us no choice but to throw a calm and placid Ryan back on. He joined the game in attack where he could do less damage with Jordan dropping in at centre back.
B Town soon added their fourth with another offside missed by Bally, allowing the forward to square to his strike partner who had the simple task of guiding the ball past a stranded McCarthy. The striker who had been offside celebrated the goal by running up to Bally and shaking his hand, with Bally joining in the celebrations. As Mike McDonald so effectively put it afterwards, “I’m not expecting you to cheat for us Bally, but I don’t expect to see you celebrating a goal with the opposition either”.
There was still some action to come in the final 15 minutes. Mike put himself into Oscar contention when he went down screaming and rolling around on the floor after the smallest of kicks to his ankle. Once he’d been awarded the free kick, he then jumped up and sprinted to the other end of the pitch with great gusto. Minutes later and Mike was bundled over in the area but sadly, his theatrics weren’t quite as convincing this time and no penalty was forthcoming.
We did get a spot kick shortly afterwards when Stuart went down in the box, giving Andy the chance to send the goalkeeper the wrong way for goal number 89. The Fatboys did plenty of huffing and puffing in the last 10 minutes but you just sensed it was going to be one of those days, not least when in the final seconds the referee awarded a corner and everybody in purple piled into the box including McCarthy, only for the official to change his mind and give a goal kick.
Hassocks Fatboys (4-3-3)
Scott McCarthy
One of the better players. Little he could do about any of the goals, made one superb one-on-one stop and was the man to assist Andy’s record breaking goal.
Michael Russell
A strange morning. He really thrived at wing back in the second half, getting up and down the line and nearly scored. Also managed to get sin binned.
Ryan John
Might have been on for Man-of-the-Match until he completely lost his mind. Another excellent meltdown to add to his ever growing collection.
Steve Spies
Tried to restore a sense of order and calm to the back line. Won most things in the air and came close to scoring on a couple of occasions.
David Ibrahim
Still struggling with a back injury, the Fatboys’ record buy played when perhaps he shouldn’t have. Did well given that he had little help from Stuart defensively.
Mike McDonald
Pushed in central midfield, he did a great job kicking people and recycling the ball. Some second half theatrics were Daniel Day Lewis levels of good.
Ronnie Devonish
Classic Ronnie game. While nobody else really excelled, he went about having a 7/10 performance. Even managed to have a few shots.
Andy Brown
Two goals saw him overtake brother Stuart as the club’s leading scorer. Had several very polite chats with the referee.
Dave Keane
Up against one of the better full backs he has faced this season, he still fizzed in some decent crosses. Set piece delivery was excellent all morning in a good general showing, especially as he would have been very concerned about the whereabouts of his friend Karel.
Jordan Walsh
Took one for the team when he decided to drop in at centre back when Iby hobbled off. Made some fine last-gasp tackles to go with a hard working performance up top.
Stuart Brown
The goalless run goes on. He was unlucky to hit the bar however with the sort of clever cross-shot that used to be his forte when Pitch 8 was the Fatboys home.
Subs
Miles Collins
Came on at right wing back once Ryan had to be substituted to cool down. Got up and down the line well and did some good things defensively.
Jon Ballantyne
Unused.
Goals
55′ A Brown, assist McCarthy
80′ A Brown, assist S Brown
Man-of-the-Match
No real standout candidates. Ronnie Devonish had a typically good game but for breaking the goal scoring record, it probably should go to Andy Brown.