2012-13 Uncovered: Tuesday 19th December - Two Bald Blokes Fighting Over A Comb

   The world of football seemed to be chilling out for a day or two before the rush of festive season matches. No scandals, no matches being hyped up by the tv channels, just plodding along while the country gets pissed at their works Christmas parties.

   I still recall fondly recall the first works Christmas parties I was at.  One of the girls ended up sprawled across the telephonists room with love bites across her baps.  The following year, I wouldn't say I was living up to a cliche, but I got off with a bird called Tracey afterwards at Liverpool Street station.  This after a toilet was thrown out of the window at the party itself by a bloke from the ICF.  Classy affairs.

   These days, inevitably, it's much more mellow.  The one I went to last Thursday, I stayed for just a couple of hours or so, just a sort of meet and greet, and got the early train home.  I didn't want to get the later ones because I knew they'd full of pissheads like I used to be.  They say people rue their lost youth but I don't rue not acting like a dick anymore.  Well, I do still, just not by getting pissed at parties.

   What all this has to do with tonight's game I have no idea.  Except that may be the state of mind the players might be in.  'F*** the football, where's the party?' could be what's on their minds.  I wouldn't blame them either.  I was exactly the same. 

   It wasn't as if the game had any bearing on anything.  Between them, Southend Manor and Bowers & Pitsea had amassed just half a dozen wins in over 30 league games.  They occupied mid table or the lower reaches of the Essex Senior League.  Bowers had a League Cup quarter final on the horizon, but not until the new year.  Manor just have pride to play for.  For the next 4 or 5 months.  

   As one wise sage online commented, Southchurch Park Arena was hosting the footballing equivalent of two bald blokes fighting over a comb.  The main thing was, though, that it was hosting it.  Brentwood's Essex  Senior Cup tie had been postponed for 437th time, East Thurrock I'd seen but three days ago.  I was thankful this extravaganza of averageness was being put on for our pleasure.  Anything beats Christmas tv.

   I took my usual seat which gave me the worst view of the game.  I'm not sure why, apart from the obvious answer of worst view of the game actually being the best view of the game.  It's probably just habit more than anything else.  Once you get into a pattern of doing something, like say George Osborne fox hunting the working class or David Cameron peasant shooting, you just stick to it.

   I had the additional pleasure of a coconut shy in front of the half of the pitch I could actually see as well.  It's where anyone who's anyone at Southend Manor congregate and let forth with their pearls of wisdom.  One guy who I've never met before started chatting to me as if he'd been on the scene for decades.  I'd never ever seen him at Southchurch Park before.  I really don't like that, people talking to you as if they'd known you for years.  I resisted the urge to ask "Who the f*** are you?"

   One of the other talking coconuts I had known for years, however, as good as a man as they come, gets on with the nuts and bolts of  behind the scenes club business quietly and efficiently.  His opinion of the visitors during the early stages?  "They're just hit and hope, that lot."  Within a minute, the Bowers left winger cuts inside, goes past a couple of defender, and smashes the ball into the top left hand corner of the net.  Chortle.  Great, great goal.  1-0 Bowers.

   For the next 20 minutes, it's all Bowers, quick and incisive when they go forward, having success down both flanks.  Shots are flashing across the face of goal or are being well saved by Adam Seal.  Really is only one team in it.  Until the last 10 minutes before the break when it suddenly reverses.  A Manor shot goes a few inches over the bar, then a run, a through ball, rounds the last defender, the Bowers keeper goes to ground, but the shot is put wide.

   For a meaningless game, with perhaps both sets of players minds looking towards Christmas party piss-ups, it's bloody good to watch, even with the view that I have.  It does have one advantage where I am, though.  I'm spared the sight of the spectators, mostly stood on the enclosure, who look like they're auditioning for a re-make of Last Of The Summer Wine.

  

   The second half, though, I join them.  I'm tempted out purely by the cricked, aching knees.  Which makes me eligible for a role with all the others.  Including someone who was out, ostensibly to walk the dog.  As he doesn't have a dog, it seems slightly implausible.  I had a dog though.  But I told you all about her in my reminisces about Christmas works piss-ups earlier.

   The rest of the game continues as the last 10 minutes of the first half had.  Manor are all over Bowers, but their poor finishing is costing them big-time.  I can recall just one or two saves the Bowers keep had to make.  The hosts, however, get a deserved reward, from the penalty spot late on.

   

   They even have the ball in the back of the net again, but this is chalked out for offside.  On the balance of play, Southend Manor deserved the win.  But what you deserve and what you get are two entirely different things.  

   In any case, Bowers battled all the way through, obviously short of confidence, but showing flashes of decent football themselves too.  They could argue they deserved a point.  It's an argument they'd lose though.  Bottom line, however, is that they didn't lose on the pitch.

   We all head off, cheered by the unexpected pre-Christmas cracker.  There's the anticipation of things to come, too.  A cup tie tomorrow night, a day off, then football overdrive, with league and non-league action.  Providing, of course, the world doesn't come to an end before then.  If it does, tonight wasn't a bad way to bow out.

   Now, I wonder of I still have Tracey's phone number? .....

   Southend Manor 1,  Bowers & Pitsea 1