Report by ColdGit@ReservesInAFieldUpPlayfordRoad. Email your heckling to oldgit@postmaster.co.uk

ATTENDANCE: more officials and their hangers-on than supporters. I stood with Kevin Steggles and Phil Ham, so they were in distinguished company.

TEMPERATURE: 9 degrees C, but wind chill max factor, so, net, colder than Snetterton. Helsinki, last February, was unbearably hot, on this scale. I had not been so cold since I received Mrs OldGit's final look of the argument, when we fought during her 'Christmas Shopping Expedition to Milan'. Shackleton's snout was a red hot poker compared.....you get the pic. Phil Ham shrivelled down into a tiny dwarf (Alright, a medium sized dwarf, because a tiny dwarf would....I know).

There's only one David Johnson and the multi-national-almost-international today scored the only goal against his old club in a triumphant return to Pitch Eight of the Town training ground, at Rushmere. In an Exclusive OldGit@Reserves interview, before the game, I wished him luck and, in reply, he yelled something I didn't quite catch.

In a rather fuller Exclusive OldGit@Reserves interview, Head Groundsman Alan Ferguson explained that he needed 'three to four days, laddie' to renovate the Portman Road turf after each game. He said laddie because he is Scottish, not because I look anything other than an old git.

So, we few ugly, sagging old daytime Reservistes went to stand in a field up Playford Road to freeze our extremities watching the reserve team of the double European champions of a couple of years ago [Editor's note: actually dozens of years ago] and the European champions' reserve team's victory made it four matches without a win for our previously unbeaten and unbeatable Reserves.

Annoyingly, the heart of the Reserve team has been transplanted into the, now, unbeatable first team, thus ruining our chances of winning the Reserves Premier League (South).

TEAM: Mike Salmon in goal, last seen being drenched like a fish when the automatic pitch sprinkler burst into action in a reserve match last season. He is, unquestionably, our fourth choice goalie, unless Pullen comes back, when he would be, merely, the arguably fourth choice.

Fab Ian Wilnis (the shaven back of whose head is lumpy, when seen at such unnaturally close quarters) and young William Snowdon as fullbacks.

Thin, effete South African (Phil said that was a contradiction in terms) Justin Miller, and Titus Bramble at centre-back. Titus made one or two silly errors, no, he did. Kevin Steggles, sometime Town centre-back, thinks Miller is steady and that that is probably not enough.

Gangling, gargling Gaaaardsøe, and Jim Magilton in central midfield. Skinny Darren Ambrose and skinny Ulrich Le Pen out wide.

Pablo Gonzales Couñago and unrecognisably 'Hairy' Darren Bent up front, presumably to differentiate him from 'Baldy' Bent. Hairy has gone off the boil, at the moment, but he will heat up again. I only hope I do.

The rest of the squad is on loan, scattered at random across the Nationwide and Africa.

FOR FOREST: A fairly hairy David Johnson, which therefore increased his height by about 18 per cent, and some other blokes, the best named being Mickael Antoine-Curier, whose mother invented, er, Radium.

OFFICIALS: Messrs. Graham, George and Kett. (That's not George Graham, just two different people that sound like one bung taker). Either Mr George or Mr Kett had a huge belly, why put yourself through all that huffery-puffery when you'd obviously rather be eating pies like us? (No, we're not pies. I know).

Because we were telling amusing anecdotes, and because we were so not warm, your full-time Official Reporter Of Everything, and your Official Reserves Reporter not only missed the only moment of interest during the match, which was the cause of the sending-off of Young William Snowdon, for a second bookable (after 25 mins, I think that that was the only thing I timed) but we actually conspired to miss his first bookable. I promised Phil I wouldn't mention it but that's entertainment. (He was first booked, we learned from a Source, for throwing the ball away, and then, latterly, encroached upon a freekick).

I'm sorry but it was impossible to take this match seriously. Or humorously.

Phil went to his car at half-time, to put on more and more clothes. Clearly, he keeps all his clothes in his car. Is that what young folk do, nowadays? I considered ripping up the floor mats from my car, to wrap around me, but I was not in my beautiful British Racing Green Jaguar today so the mats would have been black rubber and I may have looked too Jamie Theakston.

The main problem was the viewing angle, though, or, rather, the lack of it. I should have taken a step-ladder or climbed the Sky-ish viewing tower alongside Pitch Eight where a cold old man was conscientiously recording this epic. Are George and Mogga round at Chez Burley wasting away the evening analysing the vid, even as we speak/write/read/depending? 'More haggis, George?' 'Och, awy wi' ye, womin or I'll spank ye agin !' (Sorry, but I was just trying to build a picture. Too Jamie Theakston again?).

From my angle, both teams looked ordinary and I think that that is all I can be bothered to write. I was lulled into inadequate personal heating requirement partly because I'd forgotten that this match was in the middle of the day, and so had left home without a Ham-like carload of clothes and partly because Fortress Portman Road, filled to record-breaking 25,000-plus capacity, is nice and snug when filled up by rows of fat boys like me...and partly because it has been some years now since I watched a football match from the windy, and hopeless viewpoint, of the touchline of an immaculately presented field. I must email Sir George, to tell him that you cannot possibly run a football team from the dugout.

The pitch, needless to say, had been freshly pressed and kissed, or whatever Fergie does to it. He told me with pride of his duties as President of the Scotland and Northern Ireland Groundkeepers Association (Not England, then?). As my father joined the WorldWideWeb last week, at the age of about 100, I sent him, as a tiny joke, the URL of the National Lawnmower Museum, judging by our conversation, Fergie would already have it filed under 'Favourites').

Bloomfield, Robinson and Nicholls came on as subs for some of our players. You'll have to borrow George's video, to find out if they were any good.

PLAYERS' MARKS: oh, I don't know; I'll leave all the points in a pile and you can share them out how you like. Poor, sad Johnno was the ManO'DeMatch. What must he be thinking ?

THE END
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