AFC 2015 6-1 Hassocks Fatboys

Sussex Sunday Challenge Cup Second Round
Sunday 17th November 2019
 

Where to start with this one? They’ll be no repeat of last year’s superb night out after losing a County Cup Final for Hassocks Fatboys after we were eliminated from this season’s competition at the second round stage by AFC 2015. Not just eliminated, but absolutely hammered.

This may not be a bad thing seeing as that Sunday session in Molly Malone’s took about five years off my expected lifespan. It will also save Brockesy from having to take extra shifts down at Gringotts Bank to pay off a credit card bill that shows 16 shots of tequila purchased every 15 minutes.

Last year’s efforts were of course in the Sussex Sunday Trophy. Following our promotion to the Premier Division for 2019-20, we were now playing in the Sussex Sunday Cup as apparently we are good enough for intermediate football rather than junior football, whatever any of that means.

AFC are the reigning holders of the title of county champions, having won the Culver Road final for the previous two seasons. Although we’d already beaten them 6-2 in the league back in September, we knew that this would be an altogether much tougher prospect. Sadly, that message didn’t seem to have translated to the players, eight or nine of whom turned up in what could only be described as a world of problems.

Steve Spies was arguably the worst offender, the 50-year-old seemingly forgetting that he is nearer in age to the Queen than some of his teammates and going on a bender in Idlewild that would make even a 19-year-old blush. Spiesy turned up to Nevill Rec clutching what appeared to be a can of M&S Gin and Tonic and saying he couldn’t see straight. We await conformation of whether this was down to cataracts or being pissed.

Despite the questionable state of many of the team – Jordan looked genuinely homeless upon arrival and Stuart Browntown was actually asleep in a corner of the changing rooms – we somehow took the lead after just six minutes. Duck got away down the right, breezed past the AFC left back and floated over the perfect cross for Jordan to meet with a beautiful bullet header.

Sadly, that was about as good as it got. AFC were able to call upon the services of Steyning Town striker Rob Clark, one of the better players in the Southern Combination League. Him up against a centre back partnership of a still-drunk Spiesy and Jason Gander, a former goalkeeper who has shed half his body weight in the space of six months, was always likely to be a bit of a mismatch and so it proved over the next 84 minutes or so.

With Clark dropping deep to get the ball, Gander and Spiesy had a bit of a quandary. Did they follow him high up the pitch, knowing that their QE2-sized turning circles would be hopelessly exposed? Or did they sit deep, allow him to pick up the ball and then try and stop him playing when he was facing towards our goal? In the end, they decided upon the latter approach.

Despite Clark’s obvious talents, it was actually Spiesy who was proving to be AFC’s most dangerous attacker. Nevill Rec was famously the venue a couple of years ago where 45-year-old John Humphrey shouted “NOTHING’S GETTING PAST JOHN TODAY” as he cleared the ball, only to then go and score a bullet own goal 30 seconds later from the resulting corner.

Spiesy spent the first half trying to do everything in his power to outdo his fellow veteran with three own goal attempts in the space of about 20 minutes. He latched onto an AFC through ball, firing it just wide of the post, put a free header inexplicably over our own bar when he could have just as easily headed it the right way up the pitch and was then inches away from turning a cross in when attempting to clear. Jack Lewis also had a good go at giving the opposition a helping hand, smashing an own goal effort of his own towards the bottom corner which clipped the post.

That was part of an interesting morning’s work for Jack. AFC scored three quick-fire goals, all of which you’d have to say were pretty well worked, even if sloppy marking and the Fatboys being poor in possession had led to the opportunities in the first place. When the third went in, Michael Russell pointed out that Jack perhaps should have done a little better, at which point Jack completely lost his mind.

Think Lee Bowyer v Kieron Dyer and you’re close. Jack began screaming at Michael, stormed over and started pushing him. Andy managed to get between the pair before Jack went full Logan Paul and needless to say, Jack had to be hauled with Dave Linehan coming on. Jack’s punishment was to run the line in the second half, where his meltdown continued as he got into a spat with the AFC assistant manager who told Jack to shove his flag up his arse and then called him an ice cream.

Being compared to a 99 Flake clearly upset Jack, and from that point on he was unable to give a number of blatant offside decisions. Afterwards, Jack was very honest by saying, “My head had completely gone by that point and I just couldn’t be fucked to flag.” Given that we were already 6-1 down, Jack’s lack of enthusiasm about being linesman made little difference.

We reached half time 5-1 behind and with Andy in the sin bin. Given that Andy might as well not have been playing for all the good he was in the first half, the referee’s decision to send him off for 10 minutes made little difference to us. In fact, you could argue it actually helped in the long run as Andy decided not to come back on and so when his 10 minutes in the bin was over, Rob Lloyd entered the fray. That meant we had 11 players for the second half, although it also prevented Spiesy from shouting “When’s Andy coming on?” for the 112th time in reference to the lack of impact from our captain.

So ineffective had Andy been that minutes before his sin bin, he actually decided to go right back, swapping with Jamie Wilkes-Spies. Wilkesy’s eyes lit up at the instruction from Andy but it was short lived as the passage of conversation went something like this. “I’m going right back Wilkesy, you go into midfield………..referee, how the fuck is that foul………..Wilkesy, back to right back.”

There were two pressing concerns at the break; try and find a local anger management class for Jack and work out what the hell to do about Clark. It was decided to give a new approach a try, whereby Spiesy and Gander would both push higher up the pitch and try and stop him playing. Spiesy took the instruction of playing higher a little too literally in the first five minutes; he didn’t just get closer to the midfield, but he went past them and also overtook the front three of Duck, Jordan and Stuart to be our furthest player forward.

As a result, Gander had to go through his first experience of trying to defend on the halfway line without his centre back partner. Not that having Spiesy there would have made much difference when Gander missed his clearance, allowing Clark a free run at goal from around 40 yards out which he duly finished after skipping around Scott McCarthy. Gander lay on the ground after attempting to recover, asking “Where’s Spiesy gone?” The answer to that was that he was slowly trotting back from the other end of the pitch.

Gander came off shortly after with Brockesy taking his place. Jordan dropped in at centre back which belatedly gave us somebody who could get close to Clark, allowing Spiesy to turn his attentions to helping other AFC players try and score. He got nutmegged twice and then rugby tackled the AFC captain to the ground which he somehow got away with. At this point, Spiesy turned to one of their players and said, “I have played football before, honest.” The AFC player didn’t look convinced.

We did at least force couple of chances in the second half. Linehan went close with a distance effort and Jordan drew an excellent save from the AFC goalkeeper at full stretch. At the other end, McCarthy made three decent stops to ensure that the hosts didn’t reach double figures and Ronnie Devonish’s all-action performance meant that we weren’t quite so overrun in the second half.

There was also the treat of seeing AFC throw on celebrity jockey Mattie Batchellor for the final 20 minutes. Batch once played for us as a ringer many moons ago, making the Fatboys the only club in the history of Sunday League football to use a relatively famous person – Batch had won the Hennessy and ridden in the Cheltenham Gold Cup a few weeks earlier – as a ringer. We got away with it too, suggesting that our opponents hadn’t backed Carruthers to win at Newbury at 16/1. Batch took up a position at left back for AFC, putting him up against Duck. Whenever the ball was down that side of the pitch, it looked like two children had won a cornflake competition to take part.

By full time, Duck was probably wishing he’d won a cornflake competition to be anywhere but Nevill Rec. Which is ironic, as he should have been. He and Rosie had planned to go to Portsmouth on this Sunday, until Andy begged him not to, telling our little feathered friend that the County Cup was a winnable competition and we really needed his services against AFC.

As Rosie so elegantly put it afterwards, “You made us not go to Portsmouth today for that shit.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

 

Fatboys (4-3-3)

Scott McCarthy
Made a string of good saves in the second half to keep the score respectable, before which he’d spent most of the game extremely baffled by what was going on in front of him.
Jamie Wilkes
Kept his winger quiet at right back. When he finally got a proper chance in midfield in the second half, he was able to create some opportunities.
Steve Spies
Astonishing.
Jason Gander
Not quite as astonishing as Spiesy.
Michael Russell
One of the Fatboys’ better players, not that it’s saying much. He recovered well from the experience of nearly being murdered by Jack.
Jack Lewis
A strange 90 minutes for Jack as he managed to fight a teammate, nearly fight the AFC assistant and then refuse to give any offside decisions – all coming after the match report from the previous game claimed that he seemed to be a much calmer man this season.
Ronnie Devonish
With Jack channelling the spirits of both the Kray Twins at the same time and Andy nowhere to be seen, he found himself doing the job of three men at points.
Andy Brown
Spiesy shouting “When’s Andy coming on?” for the entire first half sums it up. Does gain credit though for turning up wearing what appeared to be a full 1990s Le Coq Sportif tracksuit combined with a Peaky Blinders hat.
Dave Keane
The first man in football history to say to his girlfriend that he regretted deciding to play football rather than go shopping and actually mean it.
Jordan Walsh
Surprisingly effective given the state he turned up in. An excellent header and it was his deployment in the back four which allowed us to finally keep Clark quiet. Just a shame the AFC man had already scored four times by that point.
Stuart Brown
Not even Stuart could summon the energy to be angry with the absolute catastrophe that was developing around him. He also didn’t lose his mind once at an offside decision for the first time this season.

 

Subs

Dave Linehan
It was against AFC that he broke his ribs earlier in the season. Was on the end of some rough punishment again, but took it well. Unlucky not to score on a couple of occasions.
Rob Lloyd
Back from injury with 40 odd minutes at right back. Shanked a couple of balls out of play and put in an under hit back pass, proving that even the Fatboys’ Mr Dependable was being afflicted by the calamity spreading through the camp.
Joe Brockes
Was probably the only player in green to have a pass completion rate higher than 50% when he came on. Had a couple of good runs at the right back in a typically assured showing.
 

Goals

06′ Walsh, assist Keane

 

Man of the Match

Should probably be the Least Shit Player of the Match award rather than Man of the Match. Ronnie Devonish was an obvious winner.