Wasteful Fatboys pay the price against Inpulse

They call it Happy Valley, that patch of green tucked away against a hill between Woodingdean and Rottingdean. But for Hassocks Fatboys Reserves, it was anything but a happy valley.

There was nothing happy about the result, a 3-1 defeat against Inpulse. There was nothing happy about the performance as chance after chance after chance was squandered. There was nothing happy about the referee, a Jeremy Corbyn look-a-like who had less of a grasp of the rules of association football than his doppelganger does on how the economy actually works.

In fact, the only happy thing to come out of the whole morning was the return of Pete West. West has missed the last few months following the birth of his daughter, in which time he has defied all medical logic by becoming the only man in human history to actually gain hair after becoming a parent.

Seeing West bounding over to the changing rooms, many of his team mates didn’t recognise him, instead believing that whoever it was with the Tina Turner afro must be a new signing. When they discovered it was actually Pete, the disappointment among the Fatboys Shiny Bonce Club at losing one of their number was palatable, with Chris Clayton and Rob Lloyd particularly distressed when West began talking about how we was learning to use new technology such as the comb and the hairdryer.

West’s hair wasn’t the only thing making a comeback either as Justin Parker made his first appearance of the season. Parker hasn’t played since April owing to a mystery injury but with both Nick Jones and Nick Clayton unavailable, he answered Jamie Stratton’s call to play in the unusual position of goalkeeper. Parker naturally ended up claiming the man-of-the-match award, something that will no doubt have Jones worried on his South African holiday where the reserves number one is currently considering adding another country to his ever expanding list of nationalities. Current countries he claims to be from are Wales, Australia, Ireland and the Ivory Coast.

With the first teams County Cup Quarter Final away at Rudgwick postponed due to a frozen pitch, a healthy crowd turned up to support the reserves and one man keen to take the opportunity to showcase his talent was Nick Davie. Davie has been pushing hard for a first team recall since dropping down to the reserves at the start of pre-season and on the sidelines, Gary Whittington made the call of, “Davie is going to be trying really hard to impress us today.”

That was on six minutes. On six minutes ten seconds, Davie did manage to make quite the impression by flying into a reckless slide challenge in the box giving Mr Corbyn no option but to award a spot kick. This was one of the only decision he got right all day and the Inpulse striker made no mistake with the penalty, sending Parker the wrong way for 1-0.

The Fatboys response to that was to take control of the game with Jon Kelly bossing things in midfield. Kelly had shown great negotiating skills at the Christmas Party on Friday night to get some ridiculous rap music played in The Haunt and he took that fine performance onto the football pitch, first sending Simon O’Brien clear for a one-on-one hit (control + c) straight at the keeper and then testing the Inpulse number one himself with a rasping snapshot volley from the edge of the box.

O’Brien then showed a surprising turn of pace to get away down the left but Clayton could only hit the pull back (control + v) straight at the keeper and a long Parker kick ended up bouncing around all over the place, eventually falling to Mark Potter who hit a volley that wasn’t far away to ooooooooh’s and aaaaaaaaah’s from the watching gallery.

Inpulse really did not like Parker’s kicks and from another one, Tommy Tyler latched onto the loose ball but his effort was (control + v) straight at the keeper. You got the sense that all these missed chances would end up haunting the Fatboys and they nearly did as Inpulse battled their way back into things in the final 10 minutes of the half, Parker having to make one brilliant save low down to his left from close range and then tipping a 30 yarder over the bar for the cameras.

O’Brien had another great chance to level things up in the final seconds when he raced away from the rather rotund centre back but once again his low finish was (control + v) straight at the keeper. Stratton needed to deliver a big half time team talk and he did so passionately although the back four of Davie, Ross Joannies, Bruce Bignell and Stuart Young knew they would face a much tougher ask defending the slop in the second half.

As it was, the Fatboys began brightly with Lloyd sending O’Brien clear but (contr… actually, this time his touch was heavier than his love for Louisa Lytton, and the ball ran out of play. It was at this point that Mr Corbyn began making a number of weird and wonderful decisions, such as awarding fouls for accidental trips, letting horror challenges go unpunished and saying he would write off billions and billions of pounds worth of past student debts with no idea of how to pay for it.

With the game in a lull, Stratton made a double change, throwing on the mulleted West and first team captain Andy Brown in place of Davie and Tyler and it nearly paid instant dividends, Lloyd drawing a flap around the post from the Inpulse goalkeeper and from the resulting corner, Young’s pinpoint delivery was headed over by Clayton from a matter of yards.

The game was really opening up now and Brown headed in O’Brien for a one-on-one which he hit (control + v) straight at the keeper. From that chance, Inpulse were straight off down the other end and Parker was forced into another fine save with Joannides doing well to hack the loose ball clear.

Mr Corbyn turned down one of the clearest penalties you ever likely to see when Potter was tripped from behind in the box, later stating that he could never award a spot kick to a man who doesn’t agree with a 70p top rate of income tax. Stratton meanwhile was in a rage at this decision with Mr Corbyn threatening to send him to the gulag for not supporting the socialist revolution if he continued to criticise decisions.

That was Potter’s last action of the game, the midfielder coming off and booting a ball in frustration perilously close to a small child in the play park. Kevin Ticehurst took his place and his first job was to watch the Fatboys equalise, a reverse pass from O’Brien finding Lloyd who smashed home at the near post.

Clayton chested down to Brown who saw his shot from the edge of the box well saved and Kelly finally entered Mr Corbyn’s little red book for his 17th foul of the morning before he was replaced by Kenny Tinnion. Disaster struck minutes later as, totally against the run of play, Inpulse regained the lead. Parker made a good initial save but the ball ended up being turned goalwards past Ticehurst, who tried to stop the inevitable of it hitting the back of the net by taking the unorthordox decision to attempt an overhead kick on the line. This was beyond Kev’s skillset and all he succeeded in doing was smashing it into the roof of the net.

That completely deflated the Fatboys and a killer third was added just two minutes later. Inpulse had already hit the bar with a looping header before a man at the far post was allowed to tap in completely unmarked from a matter of yards.

There were still five minutes to go at that point but you sensed the game was up, a feeling exacerbated by Brown turning on a sixpence but only succeeding in hitting the bar and then Mr Corbyn waving away another penalty appeal which surprising given the man felled was O’Brien and Mr Corbyn’s fondness for members of the IRA is well documented.