More than a Wise man's hat-trick
By Mike Stabenow

If you are driving out to Mechelen on a Saturday afternoon and your team plays against the fifth in the league - and you have taken to the custom of only writing match reports when your team wins - then normally, looking at it from a match reporters' perspective, you can look forward to a good rest. But what is normal when your team all of a sudden decides to sweep away the number five in the league by winning 9-0? Yes, by NINE to ZERO! The best is to rush quickly home and to write down what you witnessed in disbelief and to make sure it is being quickly fixed on paper while your mates are probably having their fourth Blanche to celebrate and somehow realise what has happened on this 24 November 2007.

The fresh impression is one of - already mentioned - disbelief - disbelief of seeing so many goals scored, one nicer than the other. But of also of disbelief of seeing how one team can fall into pieces in a way which even Vets 2 have rarely managed to achieve in the past. It is true; their number one shirt man had a shirt with the number 14 underneath, because their goalie had been caught in a huge traffic jam on the Brussels ring when trying to drive up from Rhode-Saint-Genese where his son had been playing earlier on that day. Whether also in a veteran's side remains to be confirmed. Yes, they were down to ten players, their captain was limping already before the start of the match and they were missing some of their good players (but so were we). But is this enough to explain this lack of energy and the fact that they even refused to score a goal in the second half when we "offered" it to them after a "doubtful" situation in front of their goal had allowed us to score our sixth or seventh goal?

One of the explanations given by Pedro to explain the outcome of the game was that there had been a distinct smell of booze on the pitch - for which he claimed not to be responsible. Because of a cold the writer of these lines could unfortunately not double check this first nose information given to him. But what he had witnessed before was a stunning performance by our Portuguese striker who had managed three assists and one clever goal (in the second half). The 1-0 came from a high cross from Pedro which swirled past the goalie (with the number 14 shirt underneath) and ended up with Paul Wise who didn't seem quite sure whether to head the ball or kick it and so decided to use his knee. Shortly afterwards it was Wisey again, this time with a ball which as he claimed in his modest fashion afterwards, was only meant as a cross from the edge of the box but slipped through the hands of the man with the number 14 shirt underneath (2-0) into the goal. Shortly before half time following a break from midfield Pedro played a subtle cross into Wisey's right foot who made it 3-0 (and even, had he not been as modest, could have scored even more).

Since the game wasn't over at half time - as at least most of the spectators had hoped - it became clear that this game was going to mean more than a Wise man's hat-trick. Much more even! And while we are writing down this report we are still hesitating whether to publish this or just remain silent about it. But since it is linked to a guy who finds it - at least on a pitch - quite difficult to keep silent himself let's proceed with it: Perhaps by starting to mention that a phone call was given by Rachel at around 1.39 pm to a Hoeilaart to warn about upcoming events at home. And then, while still very much under the impression of what her dad had just achieved on the pitch, she made this prophetic announcement: 'He will certainly talk for years about it."

It? "I just put the ball into the corner", he said after the game. Was it from 20, from 30 or even from 50 meters? Who cares (except perhaps for Tom himself)? It certainly was the goal of the day in a game in which our skipper really showed the way. When the doctor came off the pitch shortly afterwards, it looked although this was made to give Mark the opportunity to play and to score through a marvelous header. But in fact it was for a consultation to advice Rachel on how to cope with the event of the day. Finally it was decided just to wait and see before administering any sedatives.

Talking about sedatives, perhaps had the doctor managed to pour it in some liquid form into the water bottles of Elisabeth at half time. At least that was the impression you could draw from watching their game unravel in the second half. By the way, now we had been down to ten men too since Stuart had to go off - not before having scored twice, one with his head and another by insisting twice with his foot. It could not come as a surprise that our reconverted goal getter Adriano scored once more to make it 9-0, but actually it came as somewhat as a surprise. It had emerged that Pedro, rather than watching the Portugal and England games over recent days had stuck in front of the television to watch Germany's last two games. In a Lukas Podolski manner he sped through the middle of Elisabeth's defense (with the ball) and ended up (without it) before he couldn't get it past the goalie. But then Adriano decided to call a day with the "Pedrolski" show and just buried the ball into the net.

So in the end it was 9-0, a result which will probably be recalled for a long time as a truly historical one...unless, unless we'll do it all over again next Saturday when we meet...Elisabeth again, this time on their pitch. If you asked yourself about the real state of mind of our skipper, here is what he said very calmly after the game: "I will be happy if we win..on aggregate!"

Team: Shayler, Kemp (c), Cohen, Brown, Schawe, Hunter, Blackman, Bortoloni, Dibb, Assuncao, Wise
Subs: Reilly, Trippe (first appearance of this left footed midfielder ensuring a journalistic presence on the pitch also this saturday), Zilhao (all on in the second half)
Scorers: Wise (3), Hunter (2), Kemp (1), Assuncao (1), Reilly (1), Zilhao (1)
Man and of the Match: (according to an exit poll taken during the third half): Assuncao, closely followed by Wise