AFC Ealing (once known as Acton Town) had their first official game of the season yesterday. I’d love to say that we battered Sevenths (B) all over Wandsworth Common but alas that would be a lie.
I had my brother staying with me over the weekend and we spent the best part of Friday night trying to find out how in the hell I was going to get from Bethnal Green to Wandsworth Common, especially after being given three ground names by Jayson and the home team.
We established that I had to get a 26 bus to Waterloo and then catch a rail train to Wandsworth Town and then catch a 44 bus from there to Southside shopping centre and then walk about 17 minutes.
When I got to Wandsworth Town station Jayson phoned me and gave me the name of a completely new venue! So I spent twenty minutes walking around the town cursing out loud and scaring the locals who were obviously not used to seeing people talking to themselves.
When I finally found the ground I was not surprised to see that only nine players had bothered to show up for the game. We had four players starting that I had not even heard of so basically only five regular players had bothered turning up.
During the game Mo got kicked in the face and had to be taken to hospital with a possible concussion so we had to carry on with only eight men and got beaten 5-1. Despite this I thought we played well considering what we had. I was playing alongside a new guy called Dan and we ran the defence almost perfectly between us.
To be fair the scoreline really does not do us justice as we battled away and should have had a few goals and could have actually won it if it were not for the midfield lapsing in concentration from time to time.
This game was significant for another reason: it was the first game that I really started acting like a captain. I may not have turned into John Terry but I started talking and ordering the defence at corners and stuff, something that has been lacking before because I did not have players willing to listen to me.
Jeff continued to ignore me and I’ve made it quite clear that he will end up with a broken jaw if he carries on telling me to fuck off. I get the feeling that there would not be a lot of people in the team who would feel too sorry for him if it happened.
