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Sunday, October 12, 2008

Knackered in extra time

It had already been a hard match, what with being watched by an assessor, which always forces the ref to concentrate that little harder and try a bit harder. There was a time when assessors would hide behind trees at out of the way municipal fields to avoid being spotted by a ref, but fortunately that no longer seems to be the case.
So when the away team equalized with two minutes to go of the cup tie, I groaned inwardly. We were going to have another half hour of extra time. Luckily for me, the players were about as fit as I was, apart from one substitute speedster who caused havoc to the home team's defence and played a key part in three more goals.
Like many matches, this one had been peaceful but suddenly turned on me. Complaints about the linesmen turned nasty, one linesman (a substitute, not an official linesman) decided to start having a go back and the mood spread to the match. Three yellow cards were produced within 5 minutes as I tried to regain control and the last 10 minutes passed reasonably peaecfully.
Extra time passed off peacefully as the two teams concentrated on conserving their energy. That evening I didn't move far from the settee at home, I can assure you.

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