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| Hong Kong Reds 1 v 1 AIG (II) 1st September 2007, KO 11.30am, Ho Man Tin Manager: Dave ’Benitez’ Oh Team: Duncan Micallef, Ian McAlan, Andrew Creber, Tony Chan, Matt Houghton, Harry Sin, Marcus Liu, Chin, Roger Shuttleworth, Alessandro Calace, Russ Werner, Jason Li, James, Steve Wong, Simon Forder, Tony Bratsanos & Tony Stringer Match report by Dave Oh and Roger Shuttleworth  It was to be Dave “Benitez” Oh’s first game in charge as manager since his retirement from his cruciate ligament injury. With a big squad to choose from his rotation policy came into full effect. Team news There were rumours of a heated exchanges between Benitez Oh and assistant Ian “Pako” McAlan over the choice of his sun cream! Shuttleworth turned up like a slob (unshaven in days); Bratsano’s the cultured centre back with his David Hasselhoff looks put the rest of us to shame; Jason “Bellamy” Li was out to get rid of the Wally Wallet award; Tony Stringer jetted in from OZ and found himself on the bench; Tony Chan was lighting up a fag! Stevie Wong had a pre-match moan! A late addition to the squad was Simon Forder who did bring some glamour to the match by bringing his girlfriend Christine to the game…unfortunately she was interested in sun bathing than watching a bunch sweaty blokes running around the pitch! The new kids on the block were Chin, Arry, Marcus and James who were looked after by Uncle Ian Agass - he gave them some lollipops! The match The HK Reds were in confident mood especially beating AIG 2-1 in there last outing, but they would not take anything for granted. After confusion about kick-off time the game finally began! Dave “Benitez” Oh’s large squad trundled into Ho (pronounced ho as in the America crude abbreviation for friendly ladies of the night) Man Tin intent on laying the record straight and steam-rollering their opponents into a quick submission.  After a succinct pre-match morale-boosting speech of “come-on,” which was said with all the gusto of a man on death row ordering his last supper, Benitez Oh’s first-choice, but not necessarily best choice, first eleven took to the field and duly dominated proceedings from the start. Passing the ball round like the Harlem Globetrotters, the opposition were chasing shadows and when Shuttleworth beat the off-side trap for a one on one with the keeper, Benitez Oh was already chalking up one-nil in his notebook. However, confused by calls for being GAY and offside, Shuttleworth ballooned the ball over the bar with only keeper to beat. It wasn’t uncharacteristic but just laughable!  The red dotted line is where the ball should have gone. The white dotted line indicates where the ball ended up! Note that is a 10 year boy in goal! Last week Carragher cracked a rib in a collision at Sunderland, unbelievably three HK Reds players suffered the same freak injury when laughing at Shuttleworth’s miss. So, whilst the bench roared in disbelief, Shuttleworth went through his shortlist of lame excuses, “the sun was in my eyes, Duncan Micalef should have lent me his cap, the ball bobbled, I thought I was off, the keeper pulled a face, a granny at Wan Chai was hammering my photo and putting a hex on me,” all of them credible, but Tony Chan (hard as F**K) perhaps best describing the glaring miss. “He f**ked up.” With a shuffle of the pack Benitez Oh’s move paid off when HK Reds finally took the lead through Ian Agass on his debut. Suffering from a stomach cramps (gay) Agass managed to score from all of 3 yards after fine run from Jase Li and then a flick from Stevie Wong’s backside. 1-0 at half-time but for all their domination, HK Reds were perhaps lacking a bit of composure and finesse in the final third of the field. Well if Shuttleworth hadn’t missed a sitter HK Reds would have been comfortable scoreline.  Half-time was given over to “the miss” and Smiegal McAlan, with bitter memories of the “Everton Wally Wallet Award” still plaguing him, began sowing his sneaky seeds of injustice in the heat-stroke suffering player’s minds. With Shuttleworth moved to referee, the game restarted and the roll-on roll-off policy caused a lack of cohesion and quite a bit of confusion throughout the team, culminating in McAlan gifting the ball to the opposition’s best player who duly crashed the ball home from twenty-five yards. Calamity Matt Houghton was a having a fine game up until the moment he let the ball through his buttered fingers!  One-one. Game on. But more importantly, where was the Everton Wally Wallet Award going? McAlan was clearly now the hot favourite but in his Smiegal-like way, tried to blame Matt the sterling stand-in keeper for flapping, like one of those guys with two tennis bats at parking jets on an aircraft-carrier, at the ball. With a deserved victory still beckoning, positional play went out the window as HK Reds went for a win they really deserved, but it was not to be, the nearest they came in the lacklustre latter stages of the game was when Shuttleworth rattled the post with a vicious, in-swinging corner. Final score, an unjust 1-1. Everton Wally Wallet Award roll of honor Roger Shuttleworth Ian McAlan Jason Li Roger Shuttleworth Match Awards Man of the Match Tony Bratsanos for a commanding performance as centre-half. What a cultured footballing brain he has! Face-off-award Tony Stringer who is currently undergoing reconstructive surgery on what’s left of his nose. Everton Wally Wallet award The one and only Roger Shuttleworth Butter fingers award Matt Houghton for offering to play goalie Worst pass award Ian McAlan Whitest body award Ian McAlan who looked so much like a Hungry Ghost the Chinese opposition initially fled the field upon seeing him getting stripped and had to be called back. Most unorthodox attire award Duncan Micalef “the cap.” Next Game “Sometime soon” using Benitez Oh’s exact words |
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