I went to see Dover Football club play the other week …they weren’t very good. Not really.
What was wrong?
Well, firstly they turned up. That was a bad move. A very bad start. Also, I don’t think there were enough of them. The opposition had eleven on their team and so did Dover. Frankly, eleven just wasn’t enough for them. They could have done with thirteen at least, if not fourteen. In fact, the opposition were not very sporting ‘cos once they’d played for ten minutes they could see what was happening and should, in the spirit of fair play, offered Dover a couple of their own substitutes to come on to boost Dovers’ numbers. Just to even it up a bit.
Of course the home team compounded the whole thing by coming out for the second half. Silly. Bad, bad tactics. They should have just locked the changing room door and hunkered down behind the benches until everyone had given up and gone home.
Still, I’m sure it will be OK. I mean, they probably need to ”bed in” as the managers like to say. At the start of every new season all managers talk about “bedding in” their newly acquired players. I suppose by about next April, like Crocuses, they’ll suddenly spring to life. They should be bedded in fine by then with all the verbal manure the fans will have heaped on them.
By April the realization that they are meant to get a round thing between three white wooden poles at one end of the ground may have taken root as well, hopefully. Their likely “blossoming” will perhaps mean they won’t be so confused about changing ends at half time either.
Somebody must tell these Dover players, and the sooner the better, that you don’t kick the ball in the one direction for the whole ninety minutes. Whether his team just forgot to go in the other direction or perhaps they didn’t like him, the Dover goalkeeper became the busiest footballer I’ve ever seen after the break. Having to stop shots from the opposition forwards as well as his own defenders was just too much. Mind you, it was only the visitors shots he had to worry about. They, of course, were the only shots on target.
Fortunately he had a net behind him to catch most of them.