A right kick up the KetteRinger

Having suffered the sheer bewilderment of our first 'no midweek game midweek' in a couple of months, November had dawned on us with more ferocious velocity than Glen "fister" Southam trying to order a happy meal from the dodgy order point at a McDonald's drive-thru. It gave the side some well needed r'n'r from the previous week's procession in the trophy at Larkhall. When I say "the side", I obviously mean "the fans" as we were all in general shock that we'd won an away cup tie. No clean sheet, obviously, but Rome wasn't built in a day you ungrateful bastardos. 

That reluctant glance at the fixture list, hoping that the day would bring Dunstable or Gosport at home, was frankly ruined by the realisation that it was former Conference adversaries Kettering who were descending in our general direction. A glance up the league ladder saw them perched up in the bronze medal position. Clearly their lofty ambitions were at a more advanced stage of execution than ours. Going on recent form though, they'd have to go some to outscore us... or rather they'd have to go some to out-concede us.

TEAM NEWS and there was no sign of "fister" Southam or the Hammond "organ" or indeed "Richlist" Forbes for that matter too, as per usual it seemed we were down to the bare bones again. "Mischa" Barton was in for a deserved start in the centre and the odds were on "Good" Evans to plug that pesky right back spot. More interesting was the bench. Bobby "Davro" Dormer had signed on from the CowThorpe park feeder club lot and Lamidi "George" was yet another new face. Literally could find nothing on him on t'internet... let's hope he could bamboozle some defences with equal effectiveness. 

Into the action and.... 0-1

Boro's back 4 were stretched across the park and their winger dropped one right on the noggin' of their big'ol' unit of a number 9 who had a running jump on Reg. Could "Kula" Cafer have done better in his ballbag area?? Hands up I thought he could of. But I'm not a GK coach. Maybe Keith "net'in'yahoo" Benjamin could lay some analysis on us for that one.

'Boro had a brief foray into the Ket'rin' half as Perry "the Hoffen" Coles slip streamed into peak 'feret on speed' mode and created the space for "Good" Evans to surge to the bisexual line and square for "Mustard" Calcutt to snatch at his shot like "clintons" in 'spoons at happy hour.

The visitors were soon back at it though and, following a routine belt up-field, Josh "the Salmon" Huggins proceeded to caress the ball, into the path of the on-rushing striker, with his nipples. Thankfully the increased blood flow to his areolas allowed him to reach breakneck speed and clear the aforementioned striker's effort off the line, after his rounding of the marooned "kula" Cafer.

Our transient guests did not have long to wait for yet more ballbag action though as a corner, yes you guessed it, was arched in to the Boro box. "Mustard" flicked one on, "Kula" Cafer spiked his punch with a big ol' slice of mouldy orange peel, Curo couldn't clear it and the ball bag did bulg'eth. 0-2

The red invaders were building more of head of steam than a man with a kettle for a head, as our backline rocked on it's haunches. Stretching us across the park and then steering the balls through the gaps like a bunch of tea-bagging man whores. They could have been a couple further ahead by the time we crafted together our first real moment of quality. "Clintons" "Cap'n Ceej" and "the Salmon" all working together like a very oily machine giving "Mustard" the opportunity to turn the defender and unleash a shot with more venom then an 80's cartoon bad guy. Optimism lasted about 42 seconds though as their left back suddenly turned into Bobby Charlton with a man bun, jinking through our back line and leathering his shot into "Kula" Cafer's nearside stick. 0-3  HT

Kettering probably the best side we've seen in 45 this season. We were shit.

Into the second section and, with Bobby "Davro" Dormer on and little to lose, we started actually stringing some passes together and finding a bit of space. Kettering, knowing the game had gone, were sitting back and inviting us on like a big old slapper at the dogging. "The Hoffen" and "Mustard" both had half chances, stinging the ballbag protectors palms like a couple of dotard wasps. "Clintons", now operating on the right, arched his way in and dumped his load from 25 yards out, just exceeding the crossbra. 

The Special K's began to find their feet though and, with us pushing forward, found a few gaps to move in on. A moment of high comedy ensued in which "Kula" Cafer simultaneously blocked and nearly scored a belting OG with his face which thankfully was cleared miraculously by "Ceej" mentality.

Boro pressed again and finally got some well earned reward when, after a couple of corners, one finally found it's way on to a big yellow head and "Mustard" had got us on the board. 1-3

With the visitors' defences breached for the first time in around 15 years, they suddenly were starting to flap like a bunch of startled penguin smugglers. "The Hoffen" could have reduced the deficit further, right before Curo contrived to miss a header from 3 yards out, striking the bar. He gestured to the ref out of moderate desperation, might have had a point.... but then.....

Absolute worldie from that lad "Mischa" Barton again. Just drink it in 2-3

It's fair to say that not since that roadkill special of masterchef has something so flat ever been turned into something so tasty.

Up the other end and the ref began to move into his "I'm a massive bellend" phase as some cumulative shirt lifting from "suck my balls" Everitt and their attacker, while waiting for an incoming cross, resulted in the man in black pointing to the spot. Their striker stepped up and absolutely thrashed it against the crossbar!! GAAAAAME ONNNNNNN

Momomomomentum as Boro earned yet another corner.... floated in... who else do you want on those beautiful second balls in the box but that little flippin' legend. J'aime le Cureton!! 3-3

Chaos ensued as both sides went in the hunt for the killer blow. The officials had inexplicably found 6 minutes of time added on, generally from their own incompetence and, obviously with this being Boro, it would be in the final of those 6 added minutes that a ball over the top found Boro completely exposed down the right and the lucky bastards kept their cool and slotted home.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Shit 1st half. Set up was all wrong and we couldn't handle them. Superb spirit and fight in the 2nd, against a side who ended the day top of the pile. Good solid debut from "Davro" Dormer too.

If we could just stop conceding goals we'd be a fucking tour de force.

We're gonna need a bigger boat for that "If"

ONWARDS

Banned-bury from the Trophy??

Well fuck me sideways with a rusty badger, it not so much pours at Farnborough, it rains so hard it makes your head bleed.

Maybe to some a 3-3 draw would be something of a talking point, but oh no, not at Cherrywood Road. We'd start a fucking riot if there were less than six goals in a game. It's like a 0-0 and the excitement only starts in injury time with the peril that we might concede but, shit the bed, we might actually win.

Perversely, the thing that gave us a right bonk on was a first half cleansheet and a goal lead, courtesy of Perry 'the Hoffen' Coles. Sumptuous through ball by Curo, bamboozled the Bumbury defence and Perry nipped in, round the ball bag protector and poked it between the sticks. Uno Nilo Boro.

We had the wonderful pleasure of having the nice peace and quiet of the PRE disturbed by the Pure-tit-an "firm". Besides politely clapping our goal, it was quiet, peaceful and serene. That was until Berk Cuntoon and his Bellends showed up with their beer and blue language. Generally good natured and just bloody good bantz, then Berk Cuntoon lost his shit for what appeared no reason at all. All of a sudden he was telling the old chaps up the back that we should be embarrassed that only 200 people were in a 1500 seater stand (he'd done his homework). The sweet irony of us being embarrassed wasn't lost on his mates let alone the rest of us. This guy could have started a fight with himself, on his own, in his bedroom, post wank.

After the goal they lost a bit of momentum and it took a couple of late corners for them to get going again, which  consisted of Berk and his Ginger Minger mate walking onto the pitch behind the goal in an attempt to gee up their team.

Half time and they grumbled their way back to the bar for a couple of pints of piss and a hand shandy to relieve the built up tension.

We made do with a cup of tea and a KitKat. There were kids about.

As predictably as the sun rising in the morning and being used to line the cats shit box in the evening, we came out in the second half to "carry on what we were doing" in the first. The most fucking obvious, clichéd load of arse water that never fails not to fucking fail. Mainly as the opposition were going to show up and give it both barrels. They weren't challenging up the top for no reason and it was only a matter of time before their No. 5 prick did a Salmon impression and headed a corner into the onion bag. Une Une. Bum.

Very shortly after they took the lead. Their bald left winger who had been blowing out of his arse most of the first half showed why he was on the pitch with a cracking ball into the back stick where their number 10 was waiting already lying down to head the ball from two inches off the ground into the ball bag.

This did in fact wake us up and within 60 seconds of the restart, Clintons had leveled it back up, intercepting a poor clearance to charge into the box and squeeze the ball under the keeps via a deflection. Zwei Zwei!

2-2 soon became 2-3 though as the same Clive Walker lookalike bunged in another ball to the back post and there was the No. 10 again, slightly better marked and actually stood up but the result was the same. Damn and blast their goggly eyes.

Fortunately, as long as you have The Hoffen on the pitch you have a chance. And so it proved. Stuff happened, Perry got it, moved it to his left and bang, he hit a defender. But it came back to him and in a blink of an arse he'd bent it between their two lanky tits in CB and into the far post utterly confusing the ball bag protector. Þrír Þrír.

And so it remained. Almost as soon as the fourth official put up that computer board thing with red and green numbers on that said there were 3 minutes of injury time there was a horrendous squeak as all eleven players, staff and fans sphincters closed up. Every player visibly slowed down as the memories of Kettering, Royston and Slough reappeared. Plus they'd heard Banbury's home form was shit so let's go on a Tuesday night road trip.

This was where the fun began. With limited notice we couldn't get out of work early enough and to be honest it was a good job we didn't. First we heard about the shitanigans was that the kick off had been put back to 8.45 as half the team hadn't made it. Jack "Mischa" Barton was stuck on an hour late train and five others were stuck on the M1. We then postponed the game ourselves on Twitter before pulling that and it finally being postponed. Accusations, hearsay and rumours bounced around like an opposition corner in the Boro penalty box.

We will probably never really know what happened but the players never showed, we had 6 eligible players and Bobby Dormer who was cup tied at the ground (which caused confusion) and there was no other option but to call it off.

Today we've discovered that we've been charged with failing to fulfil a fixture but this is a formality due to the game not going ahead. We have to submit the excuses, I mean reasons for the game being called off and hope they believe it. It's never fucking dull with us.

You can bet your arse it'll be 0-0 and go to pens. If we get the chance. Just feels like there's something we're not being told, of course we're not.

Whatever happens it'll have to be decided by Monday. The next round is in a week where we might come up against neighbours Hartley Wintney so it'll have to be played this midweek. Or not. The longer it takes the more it feels like the latter.

Amongst all the excitement, we're playing Bishops Stortford this weekend, a trip that will feel like we're going on holiday as we travel to basically Stanstead Airport. As we learn Nick "Truncheon" Hutchings has arrived at Hartley, we sign his replacement, Luke "Specsavers" King joins from.....from.....somewhere.

We'll see you there. If we all make it. Let's  leave an hour earlier.

Smack my bHitch' up

Christ almighty it had been a shitstorm of a couple of weeks. The Biggleswade buggering, the Hartley Wintney hammering, the Dunstable debacle and the Weymouth wodgering had most of us in very fragile spirits ahead of another Sat'day pilgrimage to the San Cherrio. Aside from the string of shit results, our overlord had also dropped the bombshell that we'd most likely be losing Sir James of Cureton, because he couldn't train twice a week or some such wiff waff. Somewhat ironic seeing as he's eligible for a free bus pass.

Something had to give though and we were also hearing fucking deafening whispers that a couple of new bodies would be making their way into the fray. That was enough to keep the faint embers of optimism burning like Clintons' bum hole after a big night down the Ancient Raj.

Hitchin Town were the visitors. They'd suffered a pretty lukewarm start to the season, so it could have been worse. Saying that, our home form had been absolute toilet, so it was pretty obvious the plucky green minnows would fancy it.

Team news and there were a triumvirate of new names to get acquainted with. First up, our new ballbag protector would be Matt "Kula" Cafer. We were pretty sure we'd seen the name before. Gosport or Dorchester or some such like.... he'd even played Europa League qualifiers in Gibraltar. Fancy. Next up was Adam "suck-my-balls" Everitt, a defender/midfielder, whom was obviously the next to have a go at stopping the proverbial rot in the rotting hull that is our recent defensive record.

Calum "clamper" Willock, a striker, completed the trio from the bench. The latter pair, at 35yo, were clearly not long termers, but with Grandpa Cureton still in the starting lineup, they were veritable whippersnappers so fuck it. Some solid non-league journeymen was probably what we needed to help stem the tidalwave of excrement. So Everitt was in for "mustard" Calcutt. Off we go.

Kick off brought a mild level of warmth, to the less then sparse congregation of Boro masochist fans lapping up the luxury of the San Cherrio, as we looked to press on with some crisp passing and  actually winning some second balls. A couple of early corners were won and squandered as Clintons started to get a feel for the visitors right back. Curo and Clintons then combined for the first real sighter as some lovely chuckle brothers interplay resulted in Clintons exposing their last defenders testicles and serving them up on a plate for Curo to gobble down. Unfortunately Curo couldn't halt his one man meals-on-wheels procession, only offering up a big fat dry cold cut which the ballbag man graciously cradled to his portly bosom. Boro's defensive unit, clearly with a remit to sit and keep things tighter then a duck's arse, were functional and concise. Reg back in at CB was making things tick and the "suck-my-balls" Everitt factor was showing early promise.

The visitors came to life and were on the corners trail themselves. The first one not defended properly, as standard, and the ball fell to one of their up toppers who hooked it over his shoulder and, thankfully, over the crossbarbar blacksheep. Moments later and they were at it again as one was driven low and one shanked it with all the conviction of a Trump tweet which fell into the path of Reg who also managed to airshot the leather sphere thing into the path of a waiting greeny who spanked it home past "Kula" Cafer. As you were. 0-1

Moments later and the hosts should have been 2 up as another piece of slack defending allowed a cross to be looped up into the squared circle and, with "the salmon" caught out the wrong side, their striker had a pretty much free header. He hadn't read the script, or maybe couldn't read the script, and fluffed his header wide of a relieved "Kula" Cafer. Another couple of minutes later though and the ball was in the net again for the visitors. There's an old saying round these parts. "Elbow someone in the fucking face, karma will catch up with you and roger you senseless". And so it proved to be as, following a blatantly obvious off the ball elbow to the face of "the Organ", their number 9 bell end of an Ibrahimovic wannabe meandered into the box and laid it off for their winger to carve one across Kula Cafer and into the empty net. Thankfully though their striker had the IQ of a bird bath and thought it best to touch it in from an offside position, thus giving the lineo no choice but to remove the flag from his arse and wave it in the air like he just didn't care. Bravo lads, bravo.

Big test time, could the lads suck it up and carry on playing? Would they lose their composure and start lumping it up to our midget goliaths?! The safe money was on the latter. We didn't have too long to wait for an answer though as completely out of nowhere our new ballbag man ploughed his kick out down the right into the path of the on-rushing "Hoffen" Coles who lobstered their floundering keeper, plaiceing it into the far side nets to crab the equalizer. Game on! 1-1

The relief around the ground was so palpable that you could literally take it in to the clubhouse and give it a right good rodgering over the pool table. The relief was only just starting to ratchet up though as just 5 minutes later Clintons surged on in his one man world record attempt to drop more shoulders then a faulty meat trolley at an abattoir. He found his way through the maze and squared at the bisexual line in the direction of Sir Cureton of East Anglia who deftly set himself up with a modified Cruyff turn, swivelling on a sixpence to then unleash his finish into the far corner. Absolutely fucking beautiful stuff from the 53 year old. 2-1 

Saw out the remainder of the half fairly comfortably and, before you knew it, much like the trailing stench of stale ale and traction engine lubrication oil left by the Hitchin faithful, it was gone. HT 2-1

Winning at half time, at home, is somewhat of an unfamiliar experience so plenty of general merriment was had by all as we realised that we were going to give them a damn good seeing to in the second half. Their players were already starting to turn on each other so, as long as we kept 11 on the field, we'd get the trois points we expected. Signs of it gelling, as opposed to signs of playing like jelly. Nice.

Into the second period and Boro came out looking to kill this off like the retiring partner in a hollywood 80s cop movie. Shoot on sight seemed to be the next game in the order of play. "Richlist" Forbes, "Fister" Southam and "Clintons" all attempting lengthy slappers with varying degrees of success. Well, when I say varying degrees of success... I mean they all missed. But that's dramatic license for you. That said, "Fister's" effort did force the ballbag lad into a low save which, from the resulting corner bent in from "Clintons", "suck-my-balls" Everitt looped a header in from which 2 Hitchiner deeefendos did some weird penalty box synchro swimming performance to just about keep the ball from crossdressing the white line.

Time for our new ballbag man to put the shit up us by forgetting where his goal was but that was mere childs play as the moment of the match was about to unfold.... "Reg" intercepted a loose pass by the centre circle and laid it into Curo, setting off on his procession for a bit of chuckle brothers action. Curo happily obliged the chrome topped demigod and suddenly Reg found himself 25 yards out and with more acres of greenfield then one of his Somerset farmer neighbours. Hi picked his spot and unleashed a WMD, leaving the keeper needing 6 months of counselling. Shoot on site. 3-1

With the icing now setting nicely on top of the cake of a performance, we just needed the brandy soaked cherry to really get our bakeoff-lob-on. Rather amusingly that came from a Hitchinny-chin-chin corner which was floated in met by the fist of "Kula" and then the soaring left peg of "fister" into the feet of Curo. He laid it off to the on-rushing "Organ" Hammond who then channelled Curo down the right. His centre was taken off of "the Hoffen's" noggin' by the ballbag lad but only in to the path of the galavanting "fister" who settled with 1 touch, then leathered it home. Pretty much 20 seconds from them taking their corner to the ball being in their net. They'd be spunking over that on MOTD if it was Arsenal City or Manchester Rovers or whoever the fuck plays up there nowadays. 4-1

That just left time for

• Curo to get his lob-on and smash the big horizontal wood 
• "Kula" Cafer to start bedding in with a couple of good stops 
• Hitchin to carry on throwing around their handbags like Tyson Fury in drag.
• A (final?!) standing ovation for Curo as he was subbed for "clamper" Willock 10 from time
• 16yo EJ Anyan brought on for his debut. EJ and CJ.

"Suck-my-balls" Everitt took official MOTM, but the day's performance was more about the majority of players winning their battles and putting in their best performances of the season. Not only that, but we finally realised that passing, moving and pulling the defence wide is how you beat teams at this level. Not a lumping in sight, just an absolute plethora of positives.

We really fucking needed that with a certain trek to Hereford on the horizon.
We don't miss too many games, but the Hereford weekday trek was a step too far. That said... if we were going to sacrifice ourselves for the good of the club, then so be it.

And what a sacrifice it was!!!

A "where-were-you" moment for sure. The 9 (not 9, we've already "fake news'd" this) who did attend were very very lucky to have witnessed it and we were sick with jealousy.

So 2 wins and next up? The St.Neotians again. We've beaten them already.... we've turned a corner... nothing will ever go wrong again... WE'RE GONNA WIN THE LEAGUE.

Make hay while the sun shines and all that.

ONWARDS