Y'army marches on

Exeter 2 - 4 Norwich

Sunday 10th Feb

On a sun kissed Sunday afternoon at the renowned Civil
Service Grounds, the usual hindrance of multiple
hangovers were strangely conspicuous by their absence.
Instead the overriding feeling was one of
heat.......extreme heat. In the Sahara like
conditions the Capital Canaries lined up against an
Exeter team showing mixed form, but boasting a known
ability to produce against the big teams and
possessing a rat like central defender keen to impress
against his fellow old Bathonions. During the
treacherous warm up conditions, the Melanin starved
members of the team (Higgins, Jelbert, Utting and
Slater) twice had to re-apply sun cream whilst Tetley
struggled to come to terms with the sheer lack of wind
making anything other than a heavily deflected goal
highly unlikely for the midfielder.

The whistle blew and we were off. After a few minutes
of touchy feely the play settled only for the first of
many horrible officiating oversights to occur, a
seemingly innocuous ball was shielded by ex keeper
Gareth back to current keeper 'keeps' when one of the
frumpy Devonian strikers gave a blatantly blatant
shove, sending Gareth sprawling and tapping the ball
into the empty net. 0-1.

From the re-start the 'Big Yella's' aim sounded rather
like a 1960's musical, regain the rhythm whilst losing
the blues. Key to this revival was the
willingness of Every and Davies to come looking for
the ball and subsequently play off each other, helping
to develop their partnership which, although
still in the lust not love stage of the relationship,
is beginning to show signs of erotic fruition.

With Utto and Boucho on the flanks continually looking
for the ball Norwich started to test the Exeter back
line. With 5 mins of the first half
remaining Every received a short pass from the
Revster, turning he sent a great through ball to
Jelbertinho who chested down nicely and broke clear of
the back four. With only the keeper to beat he
attempted to push the ball around the keeper and slot
it home, only for what the opposition sportingly
described as a great stretching intervention, but what
the rest of us know was actually a glaring miss.

Half time, still 1-0 down, and the melanin deficient
foursome moving onto factor 70, the team needed a
change. Cue Perrett and Ricko who had just humbly
decided to pop along after an over successful skinny
jeans shopping trip left them running a little late.
Perrett replaced Boucher on the right whilst Ricko,
minutes into the second half came on for Davies with
both departees unlucky to be removed - more a case of
suffering from the lack of supply from the central
midfield trio rather than poor play.

In central defence Danno was continuing his fine form
of late. Supported by Higgins and Gareth the Canaries
began to build from the back and finally started
knocking the ball around with Rutting and Perry
getting more and more joy down the flanks. As a
result of forgetting his pump inhaler Revill was
replaced by Barney, fresh from his gap year spent
travelling across the 6 wonderous continents of the
world. With an increasing number of balls being
whipped in behind the Exeter defence the equalising
goal surely had to come soon. A flowing move sent
Perrett down the right, his scuffed cross found Evers
who's shot was blocked, the ball rolled back to
Jailbait who floated a high ball back into the
dangerzone. Unfortunately the keeper failed to read
the kicking Agassi-esque top spin placed on the ball,
as the panelled mitre hit the turf it lurched over the
keepers bingo winged upper limbs, and rolled into the
net, helped on its way by Slats from 1/100th of a
yard. Slaterinho incidentally later admitted his
favourite moment of international football was David
Nugent's first and only goal for England.

1-1 and back in the game, not a doubt in the canaries
mind, this win was inevitable. Despite this added
belief a few of the team started bickering, culprit 1
& 2, Sir Uttingly and Danno, the topic of
disagreement; who had the straightest yet best peg
leg. This argument would be settled later on, in the
mean time, Utt swang in Norwich's 19 corner of the
games, Danno rose and crashed in a header with more
venom than a black widow python. Rick and Danno ran
to each other, hugged, kissed, heavy petted and lived
happily ever after.

Inspired by the goal scoring centre back's generous
charity efforts seen recently against Aberdeen the
whole team momentarily stepped off the pitch, sat down
for a cigar and a cup of Earl Grey and watched the
opposition waltz through to equalise. Shocking stuff.
With 5 minutes remaining the words 'blown it' were
close at hand, despite this Norwich pushed forward.
After another clearance from the opposition's penalty
area, the ball bounced to
Captain marvel's right hand side, I repeat, right hand
side. Now all you readers out there will know this
normally results in horrific consequences,
but a strange sense of calm transcended across the
field. Handily placed in his back pocket Rick pulled
out 3 pieces of differently lengthed wood, drilled a
few holes, screwed the pieces together to represent
what looked like a very rigid right leg, he wacked it
onto an otherwise unused right hip joint. By swinging
his hips in a disturbing clockwise manner he got
enough momentum from the rigid piece of wood to pick
up real pace, with perfect timing the wood struck the
ball looping it into the back of the net. Argument
settled: Danno had no leg to stand on.

Just enough time left in the game for another goal,
Every was felled for a last minute penalty. Up
stepped Slater, crashing it home to complete a less
than relaxing 4-2 victory.

So the dream lives on. A few conclusions from the
game:

1. A better performance needed over the next few
weeks.
2. Its a Cornish cream tea, not a Devon cream tea.
3. Teams with links to Cornwall will always beat
teams from Devon.

MOTM kindly sponsored by the blind members of the
team: Ian Jelbert

__________________________________________________________
Sent from Yahoo! Mail - a smarter inbox http://uk.mail.yahoo.com