An impressive result on everyones day off.
The Sunday games closer to the season start pose a bit of a problem for me in getting a squad together. Most of the players have Sunday commitments, which is the reason for cancelling the previous Sunday game against Wylam Celtic.
Yet, for this one against Rutherford DFC, we managed to get a good turnout, despite McConville, Richardson, Dixon and Stoker all missing. I roped in Jon Wardle and Mickey Pearson early in the week and late on, Gav Greener requested a call up and had a very impressive game at centre midfield. Rutherford DFC are the same team we’ve played in the past few Summers under the guise of Newcastle United DFC, Whitley Bay DFC, Newcastle DFC and now under the Rutherford banner. We were playing against Andy Farrer and Gavin Brown, both ex-players for us a few years ago.
The game was played in a very laid back atmosphere. The sun was blaring down and the venue was the 3G at Gateshead. We were due to play at Rutherford, but their ground was waterlogged. Luckily Gateshead was free and we had a 1:30pm kick off.
We opened the scoring with Dave Graham notching one as he was in attack. Langan was out wide to try and get similar Nelly type service to him, but nothing much seemed to happen on the right side. He eventually went up front later in the game. Rutherford DFC equalised when one of their players was injured in the box. We all called for the ball to be kicked into touch, but everyone froze and Rutherford easily scored. No matter, the second goal for Sassco came not too long after when Dave Graham fired in from close range. A third was eventually bundled in by hat-trick hero Graham and a fourth was scored from a goalmouth scramble with Titch getting in on the end of it. Titch really didn’t have the best of games. The midfield was easily controlled by Macca and Greener. Macca was having a good game – but not a patch on McConville’s heroics last week.
Second half started with Wardle coming on and scoring within thirty seconds. This occured when he bulldozed past their players at the back. Complacency saw Rutherford reduce the arrears to 4-2, but after that, we broke away with several goals. Muers scored when his crossbar effort was adjudged to have gone behind the line. Gourlay (who came on at half time) scored a penalty and then Wardle scored a thirty yard rocket. For a fat lad he can’t half kick the ball.
The best goal came from Dave Gourlay as he took the ball inside their area and beat around five players before rounding the ‘keeper. Gourlay was also sporting his new look hairstyle, which the watching Rikki Kennedy and Liam Wooton (making notes for Redhouse) admired and compared to Demi Moore’s hairstyle from Ghost. Rikki even went so far as to say, “she played well.” It was getting easy now and Rutherford exploited the gaps at our back by scoring two further goals. However, these were interrupted by Gourlay and Macca scoring. Dave Graham grabbed another one late on when he scored from a tight angle. He later claimed that “only professionals like me could score from angles like that.”
12-4 was the final scoreline. Andy Farrer had me concerned by telling me their team was stronger than last Summer (when we beat them 10-2), but amazingly, Andy Reay was officiating. He pointed out he had a slight groin strain, but that immediately meant our defenders didn’t have a threat to deal with.
All the players did very well. Simma didn’t have much to do. At the back, Si and Emu weren’t troubled much. Mickey Pearson had a great game at centre half. Anth Pearson also did well, but bottled it and came off injured. Gav Greener was outstanding at centre midfield. Tim was also very good at left wing, but is still missing that elusive goal. The last time he scored, we used to wear red shirts.
A good run out. Next week’s going to be a bit more difficult.
