by OLD GIT IN THE BROWN FLUFFY CAR-COAT

@Reserves@Pneumonia Road Training Centre, Rushmere, but we enjoyed a balmy average of 18 Euros (or 64 degrees in the old money) today, though we suffered as much wind as at Town's game at Leeds, almost as much as that suffered by my first wife, whom, as you will know if you've read all these Reports, was a martyr to wind.

TEAMS:

TOWN: Lewis Price in goal, a normal young Welshman, making his debut, as Salmon and Branagan are injured and egos are too delicate elsewhere; he has succeeded an excellent but crocked Irishman, Darren Kelly, as the Yoofs goalie; Price was Wright, today, hoho, alert and springy;

Reasonable, not Fab Wilnis; 'Dusty' Justin Miller, who looked good against inadequate opposition today, but who is still 'that contradiction in terms, an effete, thin young Boer' (whereas I am still a fat old bore;) he was subbed by Nabil Abbadabbah, after 70 mins, but only to prove that Abba is the exception that proves this rule: if you're good enough, you're big enough : (do you get it ?) gaaangling, gaargling Thomas Gaardsoe, who is still tall and unable to play for Denmark's under-20 team (EADT); he's 21 : there's the clue; and tidy Gary Croft, who was steady all afternoon; it's not enough; on your (literal) bike, Garfield;

The Dutch International on the right 'wing', as it used to be called; Darren Ambrose at right half-eh? but only a couple of peachy crosses to his tally; Tommy Miller, who has macho body language, which had the ladies sucking their dentures in awe - this is the Reserves - until he was subbed at half-time by Yoofful Matt Bloomfield, who doesn't cause as much sucking but will probably have a better football future; and on the left-wing, Frenchman Le Pen;

Up front were the natural goal-scorer, dazzling Dazzer Bent, and that natural non-goalscorer, Poofy Pablo Gonzales Counago: you can't hear me saying their names, but I've really got the foreign ones off-pat. (From where? Yes, yes.)

COVENTRY : Hyldgaard, Peed (he didn't), Normann, Brancati, Whing, Ford, Cook, Strachan, Martinez (whose bushy pig-tail made him look as if he was balancing a horse's bottom on his shoulders; the twtd editor wondered whether he might have been their mane man;) etc.

SCORERS : Town-Le Pen, Reuser, DBent (2);
Coventry : either Ford or Strachan or 'og' (not Old Git : Bent;)

18-year-old Darren Bent took his tally in all competitive matches this season to nearly 30, this afternoon, by scoring twice, the first just after half-time via the penalty spot, as retribution for a thorough chopping of Reuser, and the second, our fourth, when he took on the goalie after good work from the generally quiet young Darren Ambrose. Nearly 30? Sorry, but that's as close as This Reporter ever gets to accuracy, as regular viewers will know. Mini-Bent was in fact profligate with the chances, fluffing as many, today, as Mr Fluff himself, Pablo Gonzales Counago.

Thin, slight, intense, highly strung - we get the picture - Ulrich le Pen had opened the scoring with a spanking low volley almost from the kick-off, after fancy-dan work on the right, by Mr Fanciy Dajn, Reuser, who advertised himself, in the press, as being ready to burst into the first team via a stunning performance today. That's what he advertised and, throughout the match, he continued to advertise but mainly in the same way, with his voice. (Before the match, he was shouting banter at Finidi George, in English, which his, er, supposedly fellow Dutch speaker, Martijn - was not understanding, so Finidi was humouring him by laughing in a nervous sort of way. As people humour Old Gits.)

Reuser and le Pen swapped roles after half an hour, Rooster banging in a Penpoint cross from the left. The Old Gits with me and Phil Ham got quite excited about trying to create jokes for this report. In their excitement, they failed to produce any actual jokes, but here is my re-working of the best of their efforts :
- 'the sword proved mightier than le Pen when the latter was crunched by a Coventry defender after an hour.' Let me tell you, a very great deal of re-working has gone into that finished hoho;
- 'Croftie has been rubbish since they took that tag off him; it's affected his balance;' that one is reproduced neat.

White-stripped Town (: no, that doesn't relate to naked, un-sunbedded bodies;) easily turned over a young Sky Blue team playing their second match in three days. Beside me on the touchline, a fellow Old Git, in a sheepskin--outerwear of choice for the middle class OG, whereas I like to feel I am true to my roots only if I dust down my brown fluffy car-coat, though 'brush down' is not a literal action : were I to attempt to refresh it in some way, 'scrape down' would be more accurate...where were we...ah, he thought Bent had done the hat-trick by nodding in Coventry's sole goal (equalising our first goal.) I thought the scorer was a young Geordie called Brian Ford but it may have been the Ginger Whinger's left-behind child, Gavin; was it 6 or 8 ? Number 5 was a carrot-top named Andrew Whing, surely known as the Ginger Whing.

Standing on a touch-line is not the way to watch a football match. It may be hard for you, The Viewer, to appreciate just what a gulf in difference there is between viewing a match at FPR--at night, bright lights, huge, neat, new stadium looming up in the darkness like the Loch Ness Monster..evocative image... and shuffling along to Playford Road, where the atmosphere is that of a minor training session. You must forgive me if I do not offer you my normal blow by blow account, but I spent most of the game cackling to old (and merely ageing)) men.

The Sacred Pitch is being preserved for Saturday.

Yesterday, I was at the funeral of a 48-year-old sportsman, in Aldeburgh - sometime captain of Ipswich hockey club, and of all the sports at school...I've known him since he was 10. He, and of course his family, endured a couple of years of nightmare with motor neurone disease. Today, I'm watching a couple of dozen healthy young men having fun kicking a ball about in the sunshine; the two sides to Life.

It was my second funeral of the week, which helped me, last night, drink five pints of bitter, my 'PB' as a Senior.

So, in the bright sunshine this afternoon, my feeling of tristesse - the first sighting of such an emotion in a Reserves Report - may relate to funereal overkill, or the beer starting to 'draw'.

On the pitch, there was no need for gloomy thoughts, other, perhaps, than those caused by the injury to the knee/leg/hamstring/whatever of Ulrich le Pen which caused the Man Of The Match to be subbed on the hour by Ashley Nicholls, lately of Canvey Island Reserves, as you may not have noticed if you have a life and don't follow all this daft minutiae.

No-one here will have forced their way onto Saturday's team-sheet. We're talking shuffling along the subs' bench : candidates from today's crop : Le Pen, if he's not badly injured, and Darren Bent. I shouldn't bother harnessing up The Dutch International.

THE END.

copyright oldgit@reserves MMII
oldgit@reserves and oldgit@res.com.eu are registered trade marks

oldgit's hair by kirstie, though blown about a lot, today
oldgit is dressed by matalan
oldgit smells, faintly, of Old Spice
oldgit smells

this report is named for the late tony knight

Photo: Action Images

Ipswich Town Polls