Redhouse stumble to the finishing line with a win.

Scott Dixon strode up confidently and stroked the penalty to score for Redhouse FC, early in the second half to settle the game for Redhouse FC. This was the third AGUK Challenge Cup game, and Redhouse FC retained the trophy. It was a controversial decision and definitely swung the game into Redhouse’s favour, as Sassco put up an excellent first half fight.

Sassco produced one of their most stubborn performances for many years, mainly down to Davinder Sangha taking the reigns in Michael Pearson’s absence. Privately, many players after the game said that Sangha’s grasp and knowledge of football is far superior to the incumbent Coach, Michael Pearson. One anonymous source, when asked If Sangha should usurp Mickey Pearson’s role said, “I naar that.”

Sassco were depleted. Muers had to call off before the game, while Mickey Oliver dropped the team in it again. Jack Wright was roped in and there were “debuts” for Callum Howe and Lee Ramsay.

A disappointing defeat, especially as Sassco were still in with a chance right until the death…

*This report is littered with inaccuracies, cynicism and downright lies as the scoreline could be wrong.

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Walking wounded.

Bit of a disaster. The first ever Monday evening game in the WCFL for Sassco.

It didn’t start well considering we had to rely on the ever unreliable Wayne Greenwell being one of the eleven walking wounded. As expected, he didn’t show, but I was desperately trying to get in twelve players to cover. The missing list was:

• Chris Dixon
• Scott Smith
• Scott Hembrough
• Simon Mulvany
• Gareth Stoker
• Anth Langan
• Marc McDermont
• Neil Richardson
• Mickey Oliver
• Dave Gourlay
• Nicky Smith

All who’d be starters. Some were injured, some were working, but some were simply too unreliable to rely on.

Great team talk by our “Dear Leader” Mickey Pearson. Emu was arising around and Pearson just said, “he’s a f**king tit.” Brilliant. The game actually kicked off late as Bri Watson had a message on his phone about a change of kit, but the last time we played and defeated Hylton, they were in red.

We started with ten men, but Marc McDermont hobbled on. Instantly we were 3-0 from some really poor goals – all could have been easily prevented.

Dan Campbell got red carded for arguing and swearing at the referee as he thought Dave Chops had been tackled in the box, but in reality only tripped up himself.

Macca played through an injury, while Dave G and Si Mulvaney were also there, but were unable to play.

We were eventually defeated 7-1 in a poor, but typical non-Saturday game.

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Brave performance from nine men.

Well what can I say? Yes, my legs weren’t as long as I thought they were and didn’t reach the ball, which went on through for Usworth FC to score their equaliser. However, this was just after Muers had waddled up the field and turned a player inside and out, and missed. Also, when Emu’s twisting the captain’s armband on, we know we’re in for a battle (around twenty games as captain: one win).

We started with eleven and ended with nine. Scotty H and Si Mulvaney both wandered off injured, but the fury was directed at Stoker and Langan; both who failed to show. Stoker texted in the morning saying he was still injured, but no response from Langan and no show for the second game running. Scotty went off with his guts playing up. I did offer to give him a body cavity search to remove any offending object (“with nee vaseline”), but he turned me down. I think Si’s just getting too old.

With an already injured set of players, Sassco battled through and Anth Pearson took the team 1-0 ahead in the first half, which ended with the aforementioned nine players. Si managed to come back on for the second and we actually missed around six really good chances. Usworth’s winner came near the end when Mickey Oliver sliced through an opponent and gave away a penalty.

I got booted in the skull going for a ball, everyone else got a fair few knocks, but it was a strong performance hampered by unfortunate injuries before the game and during it. Also a mass panic as I thought my car keys were lost, only to turn up in Nelly’s pocket. Cheers.

PS. Bri Watson’s quit a Team Secretary due to work commitments so I’m looking for a volunteer to step up.

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Lack of numbers; inevitable defeat.

I was as surprised as anyone on the pitch that we were 2-0 up in a difficult first half. Gourlay had struck first and Muers struck soon after. At this time, Traveller’s seemed to run out of steam, despite having the most of the play. Both our goals came from break outs from their moves.

Surprise as well considering Hembrough, McDermont, Langan, Campbell were all missing. Back line was actually me (left back), Stoker, Mulvaney and Simma. Making his debut was Mickey Oliver. We knew we were lacking in numbers, so Mickey would mainly be used for midweek games. However, he made an impressive debut and had a hand in both goals.

Yet, despite being 2-0 ahead at half-time, the second half saw two give-away goals, before Mickey Oliver had to limp off with an injury, but did manage to make himself useful by taking the majority of the photos. But, after he was off, it was over. Traveller’s scored again and ran up a 5-2 scoreline. Muers was on his own in attack and didn’t really provide an outlet once we were down to ten men.

The long unbeaten run comes to a disappointing end. Had we managed to get out a first eleven, I’m sure we’d have done better. No matter…

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Sangha defies Bell, Walker, Anderson and co. (Kyle wasn’t that good).

Sassco.co.uk 2 WWC 0.
The last game of the night sprung a surprise. Sangha drafted in two ex-Hendon players, McConville and Lee Ramsay, while WWC had the full complement on show, with Grant Foster, Bell, Robinson, Anderson, Walker and even Teeb!. Thirty minutes later, the aging Sangha, with several body parts hit, smugly walked off with a 2-0 win under his belt. An ultra-defensive performance with Ramsay and Conlin scoring for Sassco in the last five minutes.

Redhouse Fusion 5 Downhill Impact 2.
No Logan or Mickey Pearson saw a depleted side taken apart by Redhouse Fusion. An impressive set of goals in a good performance from Fusion. Especially considering that WWC lost later.

Wear Consulting 1 Town End Thunder 1.
A solid performance from both teams. Wear Consulting struck in the first half with an excellent goal, but Tyson responded with an equaliser in the second. An evenly balanced game. A draw was a fair result. 

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Anth Pearson saves Greenwell’s job.

Greenwell’s job was hanging by a thread and it took Anth Pearson, a player I and Neil Richardson had discarded during our reigns in the past few months, to save it. Pearson was the reason why Greenwell can now relax with a six-month rolling contract which was confirmed after the game.

It looked so different in the first half. Greenwell was readying himself for the axe, with Mickey Pearson lined up to replace him. The team were 3-0 down, with Greenwell’s tactics coming under fire for failing to utilise Mark Muers, Mickey Pearson or Mark Middlemiss in centre defence. Instead opting for Paul McConville. Pearson slotted a supposed consolation goal at 3-1, but second half saw the anger come out. Within moments of the restart, Anth Pearson had reduced the deficit to 3-2 and the pre-planned changed came. Both McConville and Dixon were removed, much to their disgust. Dixon actually stormed off and left to go home. Fancy Dan, McConville had a slanging match with me, where I responded that we’d be happy for him to de-list from the squad if he didn’t like being subbed. In any case, it was quite obvious that McConville was struggling in centre half, in contrast to his performance in the opening two games in Portugal.

The other questionable point is how the hell Emu still retains his spot up front. It’s quite obvious that him and Greenwell have a thing going, because based on this performance, he must be doing special tricks with Crunchies and Maltesers to retain his place.

There was also a welcome return for Gareth Stoker, fresh from the sex offenders list. Oh how we missed him calling everyone(including his own team mates) “Paedos” or “Fiddlers”

Greenwell himself struck the equalising goal. We could have gone on to win – but that was too much to ask.

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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.

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Charlie notches up a hat-trick.

So, to the game itself. It was quite eventful as are most Sassco games. From Yatesy’s yellow boots, to Simma going off in a huff because his shirt didn’t have a badge on. Then Mark Middlemiss saying he “hated me” during the game. Dave Gourlay getting cautioned, because he was swearing at the lad who apparently kicked him in the 2005 friendly. And to top it off, Mickey Donkin getting through a game unscathed.

Even the referee said Whitley Bay Deaf FC were quite useful. Turning up with a massive squad when we only really had Danny Defty on the sidelines didn’t look promising for us. Danny turned up to watch, but has played for us in the past and did a decent job when we started the roll on/roll off in the second half. The game kicked off and we seemed to dominate the opening stages. However, we let in a soft goal. A through ball wasn’t dealt with and Simma couldn’t do anything to stop it. Both Dixon and Emu probably should have dealt with it. Just prior to this, we had some intensive pressure. Dave Gourlay won a penalty, but saw the ‘keeper make a superb stop. We had a few free-kicks which saw some desperate clearances from Whitley Bay and then, with around five minutes remaining in the half, Craig Charlton hammered the ball past their goalkeeper to make it 1-1. I expected ourselves to settle and re-group for the second half, but stunningly, we went well ahead. Pressure on their back line led to Charlie scoring twice again to make it 3-1. Both superb lobs. He also laid Dave G’s goal on. So, half time at 4-1, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Whitley Bay.

So to sum up the day. Disappointing drop outs, but Gateshead turf was a brilliant venue. The genuine Field Turf was a joy to play on. I wish every pitch had it and fingers crossed, Downhill will be able to get it soon. Also, thanks to Whitley Bay DFC for providing the referee and taking part in a good competitive game. Finally, thanks to the players. Good loyal turnout and a good performance from Sassco (albeit in the first half).

Gateshead International Stadium
Pre-season friendly
Sassco.co.uk 4 Craig Charlton 3, Dave Gourlay.
Whitley Bay DFC 4
Sassco.co.uk: Dave Simpson, Brian Marley, Chris Dixon, Mark Muers, Davinder Sangha, Mark Middlemiss, David Staples, Dave Gourlay, Anthony Yates, Mickey Donkin, Craig Charlton*.

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