Thwaites thrills but it’s Dark Greens who triumph

Hassocks Fatboys held the first ever Louisa Lytton 11-a-side Tournament at Ardingly on Sunday, with the Dark Green Team ending the morning victorious.

This was originally meant to be an Intersquad Friendly, but given the quite remarkable scenario of having 44 players available, a late decision was made to change it to an 11-a-side tournament.



Each team would face the other three once in a 30 minute game of football, with the winner being the side who topped the table come the end of play. It was decided to name the competition in honour of Louisa Lytton following the fantastic news that the woman who once asked Simon O’Brien on a date when he lived in Harrow is set to return to our screens as Ruby Allen in EastEnders before the end of the year.

Ms Lytton was clearly delighted with the news, Tweeting the Hassocks Fatboys account with a good luck message. It is less clear whether she was quite so enamoured when she realised the prize for the winning team had been announced as being a date with her.

The morning got off to a predictably poor start with five drop outs, meaning it very quickly became a 10-a-side event. The Grey Team set down an early marker, defeating Red Team 3-1 with Joe Brockes managing to score twice despite not leaving the sanctuary of the left wing due it being the only spot on the field with shade. Despite his reluctance to step out from the shadows, the Goblin still ended the day with sunstroke.

This wasn’t the strangest thing to happen to Grey Team however. That came courtesy of Kevin Ticehurst who, for reasons that are yet to be fully explained, believed that new signing Ando Knott’s name was “Smithy”. Despite the obvious problems calling a bloke whose name isn’t Smith “Smithy” could have caused, the Grey’s convincing win put them top of the early table. Dave Linehan got the other goal with Chris Clayton netting the Red consolation.

Over on the other pitch, O’Brien was loving the fact that there were no linesman and thus no offsides as he put Light Green Team ahead against Dark Green Team. That prompted Dark Green centre back Mark Potter to leave the field, unable to work out if his head was hurting from a poor heading technique or the 12 pints of ale he had consumed the previous day. Whatever the cause, despite Potter leaving his side shorthanded by wandering off the pitch in a bewildered manner, the Dark Green’s duly scored through Ian Simpson and would go onto win the game 3-1 with Dave Keane and Stuart Brown also netting.

The second round of games saw Grey Team maintain their 100% record, winning 4-1 against Light Green Team. Peter Martin scored for Light Green with Andy Brown, Brockes, Kieran Poulton and Knott netting for Grey. There was some controversy over Brown’s finish, with Nick Jones trying to claim it should go down as an own goal for him. At the time of writing, the dubious goals panel are yet to make a decision. The dubious nations panel have however ruled against Jones’ latest nationality claim of Japanese, despite him turning up to training two weeks ago in a Japan shirt.

The other second round game saw Red Team and Dark Green Team play out a 1-1 draw in what was now becoming the Rhyan Thwaites show. Thwaites was the star player, scoring a bullet header from a Daryl McLean corner to give Red the lead. Stuart Brown equalised with a cool finish before Jack Lewis gave away a penalty for the softest of touches on Ananda Hoque, after which he called referee Hayley a “cheating c**t” much to several peoples shock and several more peoples delight. That gave Clayton the chance to seal victory for his side with the last kick of the game, but the spot kick was kept out by the legs of Scott McCarthy.

That set up a tantalising final match between Team Grey and Team Dark Green – a draw for Grey would be enough to see them secure the date with Ms Lytton, a win for Dark Green and they’d be taking the former Strictly Come Dancing favourite out for a steak meal with all the trimmings.



But while the decider was going on on Pitch A, on Pitch B Thwaites was running riot as Red Team hammered Light Green Team 8-1. Martin was again the scorer for Light Green but this was all about Thwaites, as he scored four times to take the Golden Boot and the Player of the Tournament gong. His reward? Two pints of Magners and a starting spot at right back for the first team in their opening friendly against Burgess Hill Rhinos on Wednesday. McLean was delighted to score twice past his nemesis Jones, as was Jordan Walsh. The other goal came from Stevie Stockwell who netted the goal of the competition, scoring from a full 40 yards with absolute nonchalance.

In the game to crown the overall winnters, Dark Green stormed into a 3-0 lead through Rob Lloyd and two bullet headers from Matt Freeman, who was playing like Dixie Dean in his pomp. Andy Brown pulled one back with a distance effort which was nearly as good as Stockwell’s but that proved to be nothing more than a consolation as further goals from Stuart Brown and Keane secured a resounding 5-1 win and with it, the title.