Restless Rosehill rue Fatboys fightback

In 2000, there was great sadness across the country as one of the BBC’s most loved characters, Victor Meldrew, was killed off. Or was he?

Mr Meldrew was known for his incessant moaning. Once it wound up a gardener so much that Victor found himself being buried up to his neck in soil in his own garden. A specialist in pub signs got so fed up with it that he designed and erected a sign outside Victor’s house with his face on and the words “The Pain in the Arse.”

Yes, Victor liked a moan alright. Sometimes these were justified; such as when he found a wig in a loaf of newly baked bread from the bakers. Or when he instructed a courier to put the plant that was being delivered in the downstairs toilet, only for him to physically plant it in the pan. Or when the dry cleaners managed to mix up the ticket on his suit, leaving him with a gorilla costume instead.

The good news is that Victor’s spirit lived on in the form of Real Rosehill when they came up against Hassocks Fatboys at Waterhall. Unlike Victor, who had every right to complain when he spent £100 on equipment to look after a neighbours dog only for it to turn out to be a stuffed animal, Rosehill’s moaning towards the referee, the linesmen, the opposition and even each other was pretty unwarranted. Not that the Sussex County FA would’ve been complaining given that their coffers were swelled by at least two bookings for dissent.

Even when they had stormed into a 2-0 lead inside of 10 minutes and were cruising they found something to moan about. This was all the stranger given that our games with them last season were always enjoyable and played in the right spirit. I suppose it is easy to be nice to a team when you are hammering that, but not so when you fail to beat them. Let us call it the “Failing to beat the Fatboys effect”.

Yes, you’ve read that right. Despite that terrible start to the morning, this was another Premier League game in which the Fatboys managed to avoid defeat, a 3-3 draw meaning that we already have over half of last seasons final points total from just five games. That there was a feeling of disappointment not to have beaten the side who have been crowned best in Sussex the last two seasons by winning the County Cup is a sign of the progress made so far in 2017-18.

That first 10 minutes was very 2016-17 Fatboys however. Some of the side were clearly feeling the effects of the previous evenings Fatboys Beer Pong Tournament. The Beer Tournament incidentally was a roaring success bar the fact that it wasn’t actual won by a Fatboy, former manager of The Blades Chris Mackinon taking a guest slot and going all the way to the final where he defeated Jason Gander. Such was Gander’s embarrassment at letting the club down that he decided to go and watch American Football at Wembley, which was a real shame as he would’ve enjoyed the way Rosehill stormed into the lead.

The first goal came from some pinball in the box with the Fatboys content to whack the ball against each other rather than try and clear it. Rosehill weren’t in the mood to partake in the fun and games with their striker ruining the fun by burying a shot into the bottom corner past Scott McCarthy.

1-0 soon became 2-0 when a corner came in and was met with a free header at the front post. It was Daniel Pidgeon who had lost his man and the centre back bravely put his hands up and said he shouldn’t carry on as his long standing knee problem wasn’t going to allow him to do the team justice, rather like how it hadn’t allowed him to do himself justice on the Block and Gasket dance floor eight hours previously.

John Humphrey entered the fray alongside Arni Kublickas in the heart of the defence and, given this is the first time Mo Farah and (insert name of famous Lithuanian long distance runner here. What? There aren’t any?!) had played together, they forged an extremely effective partnership restricting Rosehill to one shot in the remaining 80 minutes which ended up being their freak third goal which we will come to.

Before that, the Fatboys scored two quick fire goals of their own. One member of the Rosehill staff on the sideline had rather boldly shouted after his sides second goal went in “Come on boys, we’ve still got nine goals to catch up”, presumably expecting this to be some sort of massacre. Well, Andy Brown clearly hadn’t read the script as the Fatboys captain hauled his side back into the game with a brace.

Peter Martin set both up, firstly sending Brown away to beat the offside trap, round the goalkeeper and score and then five minutes later when his beautiful free kick from out on the right following a foul on Ananda Hoque was met by a big head from Brown’s big head. Just like that, it was even stevens. And Rosehill still had those nine goals to catch up.

Hoque in particular was looking dangerous and he went close to his first Fatboys goal after coming inside from the right and exchanging passes with Brown only to see his effort well saved, while there were further chances for Martin, Britton and Dan Jacques. Jacquesy made a number of telling contributions both on and off the field, not least by bringing what can only be described as gazebo along to pitch on the sidelines to keep everyone’s bags dry as light drizzle fell over Waterhall throughout the morning.

Regular readers of match reports will know we love a freak goal or an own goal so there was at least some joy that Rosehill retook the lead with a freak-near-own-goal 10 minutes before the break. A shot that looked to be going way off target found its way to the feet of Humphrey who, in an attempt to clear it, managed to succeed in doing seemingly the impossible as he diverted it in completely the wrong direction and towards the goal. McCarthy was already going one way and with a belly full of Stella 4, could not adjust in time as the ball went through his legs. From there, he couldn’t recover and was beaten to the loose ball by the Rosehill forward who fired home.

Half time followed that with the Fatboys making two changes, Dave Linehan replacing Hoque on the right and Kieran Poulton coming on up front for Martin. Rosehill didn’t have much of a sniff in the second half; Kublickas, Humphrey and the full backs of Michael Russell and Jon Ballantyne and later on, Rhyan Thwaites kept them far away from McCarthy’s goal while Sam Lowe did a solid defensive job in the centre of midfield which allowed Jacques to push on.

The one time Rosehill did get clear bought an absolutely brilliant dive from their striker which remarkably the referee awarded a foul for against McCarthy who quite clearly hadn’t touched him. Given that the Fatboys are big lovers of low quality acting and their number one had already produced two pretty poor pieces of fakery in the first half – much to the utter disgust of the Rosehill forward who threatened to “do him” – this went down an absolute storm with everybody involved, especially with the Rosehil diver grinning like a Cheshire cat as Alex Ternouth would not doubt have put it. Thankfully, the free kick right on the edge of the box came to nothing.

Brown, Martin and Jacques all went close as the game crept towards the 90 minute mark but, in all honesty, it looked as though it would be a repeat of last weeks defeat to Peacehaven DPA in which the Fatboys huffed and puffed but were not able to make that final breakthrough for an equaliser against more experienced and better quality opponents.

It was a timely moment then for young Poulton to come up with his first Fatboys goal with five minutes remaining. And what a goal it was, the teenage striker leaping like the proverbial salmon to meet a Brown cross with a quite spectacular header into the top right hand corner of the goal.

The Fatboys even had a few half chances to win it in the final few minutes with Martin’s free kick in particular forcing a decent save but a draw was probably a fair result come the end of the day. Not that Rosehill saw it that way as they continued moaning after the game, seemingly unaware that a Sunday League draw is nowhere near as bad as finding a stray cat frozen to death in your kitchen freezer. Or mistaking a bird shit covered piece of plywood for a piece of modern art and giving it to your neighbour as a birthday present.

No, there is only one Victor Meldrew.