The Irish Disaster

By Kieran Kelly

We had all arrived in good spirits after the previous week's moral-boosting, opening day victory. As usual, the team had some notable absentees and Sir Allen had to once again shuffle his pack. Young Keeper Alex was back after a 84 hour train ride from Siberia. Wearing only a T-shirt and flip flops. In -5 temperatures. Strangely enough, he was feeling "rough" and had 70% vision. This still did not prevent Scott Mourinho from picking him ahead of last weeks' clean-sheet hero.

Marek had turned up without his traditional under garment. Being heavily superstitious, this was a concern. They had been with him for the last 15 years and were part of the family. The spanish continued their 21st century invasion of Europe by providing us with yet another player. Antonio was ready to make his debut. And what a debut it would be. More of that later. We were also welcoming our first Dutch contingent since Willy arrived in 1856. His name was Bram Brummer. If there was ever a superstar name in the making, this was it.

The opposition had also won the previous week and the word on the street was that they were ready for battle. Anglo-Irish relations have always been fairly amicable but this was going to be different. Captain Allen showed us his immense grasp of Irish politics by promising to send Bertie the Bird back to the Emerald isle. We were ready and confident.

Allen decided to go for a traditional 4-4-2 formation with a back line comprising of Lee, Dean, Tiilfer and new Dutch boy, Bram. Midfield 4 would be Marek, Scott, Thomas, Antonio with Juri and Miguel up front.

The first half was a disaster. Starting from the 8th minute when a good Irish move was finished off in some style by Blond number 8. We were sluggish in the tackle, poor in execution and played loose balls with no great conviction. I am often accused of being negative so apart from all of the above, we were fuckin# great! As for debutant Antonio, he gace a away a penalty. It was so obviously handball that a referee in Antwerp whistied it. Our new spanish acquisition wanted to argue with the ref but not about the decision. He was more concerned about the fact that it only slid his hand as opposed to slamming into it. The luck was with us as they promptly missed it.

We improved in the second half except for yet another defensive howler from our very own Justin Edinburgh. A cross resulted in K Tiilfer turning into his own net. It was 2-0. We started making some decent passes and were crawling back into contention when a speculative lob deceived our keeper for 3-0.

Miguel pulled one back to apply some pressure and after some near misses from Yuri and Thomas, the Irish completed the rout with a fourth.

All in all, a disaster. But we will bounce back. Unlike our pink sheets who were lost in a midst of alcohol-induced frenzy by Captain Allen that same night.