In Sickness and In Health...

There’s more than a passing resemblance between a folically-challenged grumpy wizened old man who has a love/hate relationship with a curly-haired and equally-irascible partner by the name of Hollamby in the Johnny Speight sitcom of the 1980s.

A love for Chas & Dave, licking the plate clean after a meal and debating the dilemmas of the day with a challenging comment but ending up violently agreeing with the “bleedin’ Scouser“ in the team.

SuperVets football is in different ways, a case of In Sickness & In Health. Most midweeks there’s a role call of who is injured and who maybe fit. Whilst familiarity might breed success with a small squad of 16, it would result in more cancelled games than Monopoly at Christmas time. Despite a few rogue names in our list that are anomalies, it is why we have a squad of 23... and it was needed to its fullest extent this weekend.

After the exertions of Tuesday’s Cup Final, we had players missing due to friction burns, tight hamstrings, pulled calves, tender Achilles and thumb injury. So we took to the field vs Great Baddow with another patched up side that also included the Gaffer on the sideline with his Dalglish-sequel no. 7 shirt.

Welcoming Brutey back from injury and wanting to see how far tired legs would last before running out of gas, the game started at at a frantic pace with more misplaced passes than a teenager’s school disco.

the long grass did not help, but on 21 minutes Lux was upended in the box, dusted himself down and slotted home for his first competitive goal of the season. Holly went close with several chances before succumbing to strained muscles in the 1st half.

Running repairs were the order of the day, with Big Steve, Woodsy, John Deamer, Bumble and James all on the receiving end of some agricultural approaches to winning the ball. The lads held firm and yellow cards were flashed.

Terry did not stop running (again) and has been in a rich vein of form since the season kicked off properly, but still his non-goal from 2 yards after Woodsy’s wing play will be frustrating for him. We should have won by more, particularly when Bumble found DD in space and in the box only for him not to beat the keeper.

Football is a squad sport, not just a team game Tough selection choices for the Gaffer in the weeks to come, not least... where to start himself next Saturday...