One-Shot (12/02/09)

It's a sorry state of affairs when your football mastermind brother has, to use Jedi parlance, "a bad feeling" about a game against San Marino. All the more reason to take solace in Nigel Worthington's Green and White Army securing a comfortable three-nil win last night against the sky blue minnows.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/international/job-done-as-northern-ireland-beat-san-marino-14183486.html

Better still, said victory takes us to second place in Group 3, just behind leaders Slovakia, and ahead of the Czech Republicians, Polands, Slovenias, and San Marinoeneses. Yes, we shouldn't really be so relieved by yesterday's triumph. Yes, our competitors have a game in hand over us. We've also already played and won both legs against the "*expletive deleted* fishermen", as Neil described them, a feat everyone else will surely match. Still, for now, enjoying the nosebleed is all that matters.

Elsewhere, the night threw up some other noteworthy results. The South saw off Georgia 2-1, Holland drew one-all away at Tunisia, and both Spain & Argentina proved their class with 2-0 wins over England and France, respectively. All of which probably means nothing to anyone reading this in the hope of shenanigans akin to yesterday's One-Shot. If so, lend us yer voice/s in the comments section below and Mon Calimari's favourite son may, just may return...

UPDATE!

Post-match report: tonight's "five-a-side" game from the Valley.

This evening saw a calm, friendly five-a-side match with, of course, not five players on both sides. The teams were as follows:

The End Near the Gate-

Big Phil - tall, temperamental.
Big Dave - wee Paul's older brother. Go figure.
English Mark - dead-on if ball-greedy city fan.
English Arsenal Fan (Ryan?) - dead-on, strong on the ball.
Sticky - dead-on rock enthusiast.

The End Near the Woods-

Neilly Boy - the Bro.
Me - the Bro's wee bro.
Wee Paul - see above.
Stephen - a class act, thoroughly dead-on.
Joe - dead-on if perplexing.
Frasier - poacher extraordinaire, Big Phil's dad.

As is the custom, the exact score of the match has already been forgotten. I think we won by a few, though, after playing some nice stuff. Neil complimented me on my performance, afterwards; high praise indeed. I got a nice wee left foot jab into the far corner and played poor-man's Berbatov for the remainder: tracking back, setting up others and making a nuisance of myself generally. Fun fun fun. Took on Arsenal a few times and lashed what would've been a top corner screamer but for a great save. Typical. Wee Paul gets better all the time. Kinda scary. Neil, Joe, and Stephen were all great and Frasier showed why he'll never lose it. Good game, lads. Good game.*

*Translation for non-football people: "The Reds played the Blues in the Cup. The Reds won."