If you can't beat em....kick em

If you can't beat 'em, kick 'em

Before today,  I thought Hendon was the title of the Female Union leader of the chickens at the KFC Farm but after witnessing today's match to me,  the Police Training College is now more renowned for not taking any prisoners.

As the teams trooped out onto the pitch, Hendon FC started the match in green shorts, white shirts and black socks and Merthyr Town finished the bout black n blue from head to toe.

If I believed in reincarnation, I would have sworn the Martyrs were playing Leeds United Team of the 1970's.

Hen Don Revie's Damned United.

Now according to the Bard of Avon, Foul is Foul and Fair is Fair, but clearly 1966 World Cup winning referee Martin Peters wasn't up on his Shakespeare.

Nor unlike the Police Training College, was he was aware of the Offences against the Persons Act 1861.

Hendon had more nibbles than a Camilla Parker Bowles cocktail party but it would appear the ineffectual referee and his aptly named linesman Samuel Fudge didn't see them.

Mind you, the quality of the eyesight of the officials was in doubt very early on, when the near sided linesman refused to award Hendon FC a deserved throw in when the ball was clearly out.

It is the first time in 40 + years of watching football , have I ever seen the linesman's boot classed as part of the pitch.

Now after a thrilling encounter with third placed Weymouth FC on Tuesday night, I expected the standard to drop a little, but not as far as it 'bungeed' this afternoon.

True, it is hard to play quality football when you are being pursued by the Hendon Crazy Gang but impossible when Merthyr had less protection from the man in the middle than an edible condom.

But I suppose there is more than one way to win a football match other than using superior skill.

And that is physicality.

Clearly Hendon had been schooled in the art of local Hendon pugilist*  Henry Cooper and used 'brut' force to  'splash it all over'.

* Ownes word of the week

Now before I am accused of 'sour grapes'- I will freely admit I have a glass of red wine in my hand - but I am a football fan first and not an admirer of the dark arts of foul play and whilst the result of the match is important it is not as important as the manner in which the game is played.

If I wanted to watch English shin kicking, I would go to the Cotswold Oi-Limp-Kick Games rather than this amateur Cricklewood production of 'Carry on Refereeing'.

I pay my money to watch quality players like Tiverton's Levi Landricombe or Swindon's Conor McDonagh or our own Kerry Morgan weave their magic - this is the reason I watch non-league football, not to witness players yelping with pain or rubbing their swollen ankles after each successive tackle.

However, that said probably the only Hendon FC player not deserving of a booking today was their keeper, Danny Boness , who made at least four quality first half saves that the late Gordon Banks would be proud of.

He managed to get his skeletal phalanges to thwart the Home side when they looked certain to take into halftime the head start of a goal.

Up front Hendon offered an arachnophobic threat in the shape of tarantula- haired striker
Ogo Obo and the uniquely named Shaquille Hippolyte- Patrick - whose shirt printers must rub their hands when he comes in at a £ a letter.

And it was the combination of the pair, that won a penalty just before half-time that sent the muscular London Boys into the dressing room singing.

From my position in the stand,  it was clearly a foul by our teenage keeper on their striker, but whether or not it was in the penalty area I could not be certain.

But the West End boys in the bowling green asbestos stand reckon the foul occurred on the exact spot on the 3G pitch, where there exists a hand drawn in permanent marker pen  which says 'Joe Perry was here'.

Clearly from Merthyr's own Graffiti Artist (Gordon) Banksy, about our former wayward wandering goalie.

SpiderBoy nearly deflected it to safety with one of his six legs but the shot was too powerful to keep out of the net.

Cue special delight from Hendon Manager James Gray, who could have 'sworn' it was going wide.

After all he had replicated the vocabulary of Gordon Ramsey all afternoon.

Fifty F's of Gray.

For the second half, the Merthyr Management changed tactics and sent the team out not in the traditional black n white home kit, but suits of armour borrowed from the nearby Cyfarthfa museum.

Sadly, it had the effect of slowing the game down even more.

It didn't bother Referee Martin Peters, as he was too busy having a photograph taken with Norris McWhirter for his entry into the Guinness Book of a Records for the most time spent in a football match with a whistle in his mouth without booking an actual player.

As the game became more stop and start than a Sinclair C5 driver on test, the Home fans and subs bench began to get restless as Hendon belying their clubs crest became Wolves in Sheep's Clothing.

On 70 minutes, Hendon replacement Calcutt put Merthyr deeper into a Black Hole, when he nodded home from a free kick on the right flank an accurate header, which the 'Marvel'lous SpiderBoy had little chance of stopping.

It was a bigger robbery than the Hatton Garden Job- after a more dirrty performance than a Christina Aguilera video.

Football can be so cruel on times, with the only real winner being Elastoplast tonight.

Tomorrow morning our players will have more Marx than Highgate Cemetery.

I hope Hendon award their Man of the Match goalkeeper a Boness Bonus.

Boz

Totally agree with you I thought at one time I,d got mixed up and gone to a Tag Wrestling tournament.

Ironic that there was an article in the Match Programme about VAR.
We had our own version of VAR yesterday - Veritable A**ehole of a Referee.

Well Geronimo.....I am sure you tribal elders would have found a suitable punishment for the ref at half time...buried up to his neck in sand, honey and ants....difficult to use on 3G but I suggest the penalty spot would be the best place.....Boz