Sunday’s game against Hiwa is a game that shall stay in my memory for a very long time.

First of all Jayson and the team were late at the meeting point outside Regents Park station and left me, Jeff and Joe standing in the rain waiting for them for over 40 minutes. I was desperate for the toilet but could not see a tree to go up against that was secluded enough.

We then got lost finding the venue and had to keep ringing the home team to ask for directions. We finally found it and not a moment too soon as I swear my bladder had doubled in size and was going to explode as I raced into the toilet!

We got changed and then got out onto the pitch and Jayson then told me about a minute before kick-off that he had made me captain for the game today. Which meant I had to be a lot more vocal than normal. I also had to take charge of the backline for the first time ever.

I think to sum up how I did I should just say that I was awarded man of the match. 🙂

We went on to win the game 4-1 and in the second half we looked far superior and should have won by a larger margin, but poor shooting and finishing let us down. But 4-1 is still a great result or us.

The third minute of injury time was when things took a turn or the worse.

Hiwa had a freekick and they wanted to take it quickly but one of our players grabbed the ball to allow our players to get back (there is nothing wrong with this). One of their players raced up to him for the ball and Mo threw the ball over his head towards the freekick taker, the player then grabbed Mo by the throat and tried to hit him.

I came over to calm things down and was then attacked by one of their players, before I knew what was happening Hiwa players came piling into us and were kicking and punching every player in a blue shirt, from behind, that they could find.

I saw their goalkeeper run 90 yards to do a flying kick into a pile of Acton Town players from behind. Hiwa players were kicking and punching from behind and then running away. Very brave men indeed.

They then started hunting down lone Acton players, in groups of 6, and attacking them like savages. We had no option but to defend ourselves by punching them back and wading into the groups to rescue our team mates who had been set upon.

Their subs, management and friends & family members had also steamed into us, there were about 9 of us trying to fight off at least 20 of them as they kicked, punched, scratched and clawed at us from every angle and then racing away like the cowards they are.

I lost my temper when half a dozen of them jumped on me and tried to drag me to the floor and were savaging me like a bunch of animals, I managed to grab one of them by the hair and was pounding him in the face until my team mates managed to pull me free.

Then I lost it and headbutted one of them in the nose and possibly broke it, punched their goalie who punched me first and smacked another one in his huge nose before the ref called the police which scared the shit out of the Kurds who immediately backed off and went to their side of the pitch whilst our team were pushed to our side. Apart from me who was standing in the centre circle ready to go again.

The police came and by that time half their team had fucked off, thankfully the guy who I headbutted was one of them or I might have got into trouble for breaking his nose.

We were basically assaulted and Jayson was furious and made sure the police were made aware of all the facts by bringing over our players who were not involved as witnesses an bringing me over as I got the brunt of the assault.

The police cautioned the remaining team members and the people who own the pitches have banned Hiwa from ever playing on them again. When I got home I sent a very strong email to the league that we play in and demanded that they take stern action and kick them out of the league as this is not the first time Hiwa have been in trouble for fighting.

I was lucky, I only suffered a swollen ear (when I was being jump on by the six players someone came racing in and flying kicked me in the head with football boots on), a cut to my thigh and some bruising around my arm. It could have been a hell of a lot worse.

They did this because we were winning and they were running out of time.

Image by Daniel Reche from Pixabay