The air was crisp, the grass was green, the scarves were yellow and blue. The Guinness was off and the captain had the shits.
A team from the Wood of the North of somewhere appeared to march at us, fresh from wasting their and their fans time by rolling over at home to the league leaders Royston in the Trophy after a creditable draw away, it must have been to save themselves for their trip to “money-bags” Farnborough.
The return of Keith “Reggie the Rat” Emmerson at the back, slotting in next to skipper-for-the-day Sam “Ben Fogle” Pearce at centre half, was cause for early celebration and the beginning of proceedings suggested it would be a fruitful partnership in the absence of Curtis “Mayfield” Osano.
Tellingly, Ollie “Hands” Treacher was back as the left full of the backs, and John “Tiny Dancer” Oyenuga on the right which meant a quadruple defence that was as rigid as the Northwood woodwork. Back to that later.
Jack Barton returned in place of CJ with Charlie “Chaplin” Allen pulling the strings and his top bun through a scrunchy.
Early doors was a bit cagey. Post match it was discovered a number of the starters were playing through the pain barrier, not least Dennis “The Fire Engine” Oli who has been struggling with a torso injury and he was subjected to a number of rib ticklers from the ‘Wood central defenders.
But this was no joke. This was serious business. And there's few people in this league better at the business at the moment than Perry “the Hoffen” Coles. The clock hit 22 minutes and Chaplin chested down a cross from Nic “Clintons” Ciardini and there was The Hoffen, to use the sort of technique Paul Pogba could only have shamelessly copied, to drill it home into the bottom corner of the onion bag. Seven in seven for the ex -Cambo Rambo forward.
It was about fucking time. In the previous two home games Perry had scored within two minutes of the kick off. On Saturday he wasted twenty minutes. His form is clearly slipping.
Further evidence of this was after a few more minutes had passed, he took advantage of a goalkeeping mistake by their goalkeeper, naturally, and skipped past two challenges before hammering a shot against the North's “Wood”work.
Clinton peppered the opposition goal like an under seasoned steak and chips but to no avail.
Clinton peppered the opposition goal like an under seasoned steak and chips but to no avail.
In for the halftime Bovril just the one goal to the good. Still no fucking Guinness.
Typically, the Wooders bloody equalised in the second half with basically what was their only shot on target. Couldn't tell you who scored it, but as our exclusive updates on Saturday told you, it was some prick.
This brought us back to life and the Guy Fawkes Night fireworks came early, about 26 hours early in fact as Farnborough decided to have their display on the 6th.
Once again Perry “the Hoffen” picked up a knock down, this time charitably from the Northers centre back, spun on one of those new 5p’s that aren't that new anymore but really small, and lashed a shot that the Northwooders goalie could only “Perry” straight into the path of substitute Sam “Ali” Shaban who made no mistake because it would have been less a mistake and more of a fucking catastrophe if he’d missed. My 96 year old Gran could have scored it. She has as well. Except she was probably nearer 70 at the time. But credit where credit’s due, he did what all good make shift strikers (because we don't have any others) would do, and slotted into the goal.
Que polite pandemonium. I mean, it wasn't a last minute winner like Jamie Cureton's against Fleet (I miss you) but it was within the last ten minutes, so it would definitely fall into the BBC Final Score category of a “late winner”.
Another hugely important three points without ever being close to top gear, although at times it was like James May’s driving. What is vital is winning games like this and we did win. 2-1. A win is a win.
The referee nearly ruined it at the end by being a cock and giving a foul for a perfectly legitimate shoulder barge and then blowing the final whistle, but it didn't ruin it. Because Boro won.
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