Super Side Me

Super Side Me

Old age doesn’t come by itself.

I had only walked a few hundred yards from my house to the Met Coaches Stadium at Penydarren Park and I had already forgotten who today’s Southern Premier League opponents were.

Until that is,  I saw the away team coach parked on the driveway, previously white but now covered in bird excrement and it ‘dawned’ on me it was the ‘high flying’ seagulls of Weston Super Mare AFC.

The bookies favourite pre-season to top our league and also a strong Turner Prize Candidate for their off shore art installation ‘Unboxed’ (although only of course if the competition is ‘rigged’)

Weston Super Mare AFC have recently had a lot of money put into the side, as the people of Somerset have been ditching their traditional cricket and cider in favour of English football, Australian lager and American Fast Food.

New Weston shirt sponsors McDonalds have combined with Castlemaine to supersize the home shirt into a XXXX.

And have also installed a speedy Club Captain called Grubb.

Talk about ‘fast food’ but the wearer of the number 10 shirt put on a display today that put the ‘small fries’ of the division- Merthyr Town- way down the ‘pecking order’ as he scored one and was instrumental in another before being substituted whilst his team were three goals to the good.

His ‘drive thru’ the midfield was the difference between the two teams, as he scored the second goal after a one-two ‘combo’ with another impressive player up front 9 - Marlon Jackson.

I previously thought the count of Jackson’s stopped at 5 but his interaction with Grubb looked as easy as ‘ABC’.

When your confidence is high and scoring goals for fun, football at 3pm on a Saturday is simply ‘Super’ for your own fans and a Night ‘Mare’ under the floodlights for Away Teams.

In less than twelve minutes, Weston were 2 up and ‘coasting’ with their goalkeeper, Max Harris easily plucking the high balls out of the air -but then again you would expect Seagulls to be good at ‘pinching our chips’.

To have a large goalkeeper and clever Burger called ‘Big Max’ is a sponsors dream, even if they decide to switch over to Pepsi next season in the Conference South.

And yet it could have been a very different start to the day, as after a minutes silence impeccably observed by the crowd for our fallen heroes of the First World War, it was ‘all quiet on the Weston Front too’  as in the very first minute of the game, silent assassin, Samba King Curtis Jemmett-Hutson stole into the empty gulls nesting box but couldn’t produce an end product.

The Away Team clad in a light shade of pink seemed distracted - apparently still angry with their Kitman for leaving a red sock in with their white shirts -but soon regained their composure and retaliated on 6 minutes when their winger Jordan Bastin slotted him the opening goal.

The Away fans ‘flocked’ to celebrate it but ‘I Ran’ * ( Boz Note for Ownes 1983 hit song- look up the Band) as they chanted his name
‘Bastin, Bastin, Bastin’ and the Merthyr Fans muttering under the breath a variation on the theme.

The half ‘flew’ by, with Weston dominating play looking the much hungrier of the two sides with the Seagulls searching for Grubb at every opportunity.

It was only brave defending from our goal line clearance expert Tom Handley and his cherubic counterpart Liam Angel who is turning into the non-league equivalent of Arsenal Brazilian centre half Gabriel, that kept the score down.

Great in the air, flies through a cloud of defenders and is more of a star than Pygar in the 1968 Film Barbarella*

*Boz Note 2 for Ownes- the original Jane Fonda Workout?

Jaime Cogman too brought off more saves than Heaven-bound evangelist
Billy Graham.

2-0 at the break but Merthyr still in the game.

At half-time, my dodgy bladder was trying to get to grips with my recently imbibed pint of  Magner’s green haze cider, although fortunately it had changed colour as it passed through my 58 year old body.

One side effect of my recent spine operation is that like a Diesel car on a cold Autumn morning it takes time to for the engine to start and can be a little embarrassing when enclosed in a small space with Away Fans.

Especially as Weston has more than one Grand Peer.

But at least it wasn’t Buxton, where the queue for the toilet stretched longer than the Black Friday one on Robinson Crusoe Island.

And Merthyr’s hopes of salvaging something from the game got even longer, when on 59 minutes the greedy gulls got a third, after a clever ‘tern’ from striker Marlon Jackson.

He had it all.

Height, pace, skill -despite his webbed feet.

3-0 to a very ‘spirited Weston’ side.

But Merthyr are not the same team that capitulated so easily last season.

This season we are so confident in our ability to comeback -we give teams head-starts in matches.

We even wait for the more fickle fans to leave the ground before we start to play.

Mr Miyagi Michael consulted his playbook and went for a triumvirate substitution.

Maher, Sama and Lewis thrown on to defrock full back Jason Pope.

And today, we needed a miraculous comeback of biblical proportions.

Step forward Lazarus ….sorry Noah…who ‘Marooned their back 5’ , moving like Jagger-Cane through their defence before firing home at Max Speed passed Max Harris.

3-1 now and all to play for thanks to the original Ham* Burglar (Brother of Shem & Japheth)  

*Boz Note for Ownes ( Keep it in the Biblical Family)

A Mexican wave of optimism ( started by Noah?) spread through the Home crowd like       a gay alcoholic England football fan being told the Doha equivalent of Minski’s nightclub was to be open for the duration of the World Cup in Qatar.

And then on 86 minutes, the evergreen Merthyr Messi, Mattie Harris, hit a different kind of pile-driver through a crowded box for 3-2.

The last few minutes of the game suddenly became interesting, as was it a case of Weston taking their foot off the gas or the after effects of too much junk food, or was it the rejuvenation of the Martyrs with the tactical substitution causing an extra McFlurry of activity with extra former Managerial ‘Relish’.

Whatever the cause - at this stage ‘I”m Loving It’

The top of the league side held out for a valuable three points and must have been very happy to hear unbiased referee Thomas Staten whistle the McDonalds jingle to signify the end of the game before heading off for his ‘happy meal’.

But cause for celebration for us Martyrs in witnessing our young local heroes going toe to toe with one of the best sides in our league and ultimately only losing by a single goal.

Especially after they could have been out of sight by halftime.

The next stage of the Merthyr evolution is complete.

Next season - please Super Side Me.

Boz