The Hampton Walking Football team turned up at the Nene Valley Community Centre on the 25/11/2022 in bright sunshine ready for another set of league fixtures against Glinton and Netherton.
So the teams rolled up ready for the pre-match warm up. The summer recruitment drive, led by the local wardens at the rest homes, had paid off. Our scouting system meant that we turned up with an ‘old squad’ of 10 players with 7 shirts! There was going to be a little bit of the ‘full monty’ going on when we made substitutions on the sidelines. I advised all to look away when told!
Being the month of November ‘fireworks’ were the order of the day.
And Glinton did not disappoint!
So we started confidently, two great saves from the Glinton keeper followed by Mark ‘Catherine Wheel-Crook’ hitting the bar. What we did not realise is that Glinton had brought their version of Guy Fawkes to what we thought was our bonfire night and hit us with ‘Rockets’. Big ones, small ones, the type that scream and the ones with a Big Bang and before we had time to stop looking at the pretty colours in the sky we were 4-0 down.
We came back with our own little box of sparklers and scored a consolation goal through Mark Hotdog-Crook however, Glinton hit back with another to make the final score 5-1 to Glinton.
It was time for a tearful bacon roll and coffee as we picked ourselves up, re-organised and prepared to face Netherton who went on to draw with Glinton in the following game (GULP!)
However, with 10 players in our ‘Old Squad”, with an average age of 57, we had about 570 years of experience and a few firework displays behind us.
So we re-organised our own display and dug in ready to face Netherton. This was a tight game with a number of chances for both sides. The keepers were in good form with Matthew ‘the cat’ Bliszscak excelling, pushing and catching the rockets, bombs and blasts sent his way.
This time we did not retreat into the warm to watch the display from the kitchen. A single goal from Richard ‘let’s end with a big bang’ Talby scrambled the winning goal meaning we finished our own display with a 1-0 win.
The morale of these games is that not every firework display lives up to expectations however, come back again and you may see another one that makes you smile.
So we move forward with our 2022-2023 campaign with Tortoise Property contributing another £20 into the goals for charity pot. We all hope you enjoyed fireworks night.
As watched by Mike ‘Bob Wilson’ Matthews from Tortoise Property.
#walkingfootball #charity #estateagency #hampton #peterborough #tortoiseproperty #property #community #football #football