I've stooped to soccer

I've finally played a semi-official game of soccer in the inaugural end of season Boundary Umpire v Field Umpire soccer game. The reason of course I mention it is that we won. 2-1. A goal down due to a first half goal to Shane Stewart, saw us looking down the barrel, but the promise of kicking with the wind in the second half revived our hope.

In the second half the wind changed, and once more we were kicking into the wind. However, the fieldies, obviously not fit enough, struggled to get men (or boys, or anyone) back into defence. Despite having trained all year for the event, having a significant bench and an almost drill seargeant attitude to the game, the Boundary XI (aka the soccer-muppets, plus a few decent players) still managed two second half goals via the boot of Marcus Orr.

Tensions were frayed when the field umpires couldn't handle the physicality (and sometimes brutality) of the game. Shane Stewart, with his VFL grand final imminent (congrats by the way), lost his cool when "Young Robbo" went hard at the ball with his head. Ironically, the game was exceedingly tame, despite the obvious lust for blood of all involved.

Things threatened to go awry in the closing moments when a deflection off a defender was "handballed" by the boundary goal-keeper Chris Badenach. However, the ensuing penalty, taken by Joel Harris (pronounced Harr-asss) fired straight at the keeper and Bades gleefully accepted the gift.

So, a 2-1 victory and a life-time of bragging rights.