NRFC looking for a good 2006...

As we move into 2006 NRFC are in reasonably good shape.
5th in the table - only two wins off 2nd spot - and in the quarter final of the cup, with the chance to meet Lonsdale in the Semis.

The team has a rejuvenated spirit about it now which must be a welcome sight to the new gaffer Timid Mick, as they hit an early low point away to May & Bakers.

A few new faces arrived and a couple of regular players returned to the fold which saw the results turn around too.

NRFC are now looking to kick on in the second half of the season and pick up as many points as they can in their remaining 9 games to boost their final position and even target a top 3 finish. Their first scheduled game of 2006 is away to Lonsdale on the 8th Jan, but this has the potential to be moved due to NRFC's cup game.

In that cup game, they face high flying Racing Club Fantana in a game that has twice been postponed. Should the boys manage to get through that tough tie they can look ahead to a semi-final against Lonsdale, and a possible place in the final against Ladzio or Ascot who play on the 8th of Jan.

2005 Christmas Drinks

The NRFC Christmas drinks were once again an unmissable night.

I guess the writing was on the wall when the frost hit on Saturday night and most games in the area fell victim to a rock hard pitch.
Our game was actually called off as the ref could not get there due to an accident the day before... the drunk-driving, junkie, reckless mug! (this is not confirmed, and could be completely not true)
We decided not to take our hosts up on their offer of a friendly, telling them they would be better off having their legs in tact for Christmas. They looked disappointed especially as they had just finished a 2 hour warm up that consisted of every drill you can think of and lots of shouting "one team one dream"... Mugs!

With so many Sunday league teams and so little playable pitches we thought that Romford was going to be full loads of boozy groups of blokes... and it was, so when in Rome!

We kicked off in The Place, Spice and Smiler got there early doors to secure the VIP lounge, and the Spurs fans amongst us got there shortly after to watch their boys on the box.

By the time the second game (and main event in most peoples eyes) kicked off most of us were in the VIP lounge making bets with each other and passing the ash tray round, to be honest it was all starting to get out of hand early doors. Smiler was relaying his nodding head/keys in hand story, and Waddy sat there doing impressions of a deaf girl, in front of the slow waitress "are they serving food yet?" "what is your name?".
His reason for the impressions... Puff has (allegedly) employed a deaf girl to work on the phones... that company never cease to amaze me!
Spoof was called at half time, Sutton lost, Marky P won and for some reason called Brandy?? Sutton ordered one extra but was saved from doing the double by his little cuz and big skipper Neville who decided to take it for him even though he had only just got there.
Gregg and Spice were snuggled up on the sofa for the rest of the game and as we got more and more boozy we made the decision to head to 131 for the lure of cheap drink.

Spice went straight to the bar and it was skittles all round, Waddy's ex came in and requested F U Right Back, and Sutton called Spoof. Flavoured Zambouca was the drink of choice, and Marky P was the loser this time round.
Hollamby joint up with the group and it was not too long before spoof was called again, Bosh lost and the drink was paint stripper (or that's what it tasted like).

It must have been at this point that the doorman started to think 'how the fuck am i gona get this lot out later if they carry on drinking at this rate', and asked us to start thinking about moving on. Even though it was funny watching Hollamby ask them how they planned to move him and Marky P on, with Rossell just itching to get in on the act as well, we decided to spend our money elsewhere... Edwards the obvious choice.

This is where most of the Sunday sides still standing (use that term loosely) had headed to but there was no hint of it getting ugly.
Apparently Noel Gallagher was in there?? as was Gregg in 10 years (and stones) time.
Sutton was being a menace, making Puff smell Waddys arse was a good example of that!
Nev was networking with some bird and then Waddy the Sniper went over and it all went tits up. Nev was so scared he was gonna ruin his chances that he put his hands over the birds ears and made a la la la la la noise really loud. As it turned out the bird was all over the skip anyway and Nev went over to thank Waddy after as apparently he kept telling the birds that Nev had a cock and half on him.
Spice went to Speak to Gregg at the bar who was talking to a freak (well, being spoken to by her is more accurate) and she tried to get Gregg out the way so Spice could get to the bar?? don't think she fully took the hint until Waddy and Sutton sang the whole 4 and a half minutes of 'Mandy' hanging off his neck and climbing into his t-shirt.
Mark just kept saying "Spicy I want a double vodka Red Bull" (and by the way he took his hangover quite well, sick 3 times the next morning).
Gav didn't talk for about 3 weeks!! Spice and Puff were playing a 'who can spill the most drink on me?' game, it was a close call between Ross and Smiler!! Smiler had earlier thrown Sutton's drink all over the leather sofa (which Waddy then came and sat in) so i think he should win.
Ross turned into the hulk for a little while at the bar, but then he pulled a bird and calmed down a bit.
There was a hint of homo in the air too, Waddy decided to plant kisses on anyone and everyone in an attempt to play gay spoof, but he got caught out when Sutton threw the tongue in! Bosh was seen kissing Hollamby and Hollamby was seen kissing Marky P!!! However they quickly regained their macho image again by seeing off some geezer and making him say sorry to Waddy for no apparent reason. The bloke then went home (what did they say?)


Waddy spent most of the night talking to Katie the temp, who was repeatedly called 'fuck in a tent' by Sutton, and despite lots of sharking Clifton was told that Nev and Sutts youngest cousin and her mates were off limits!
As the lights came on and the music stopped most people went their separate ways, Nev picked off a young ginger girl in the middle of the chippy, he later threw his portion of chips at her as she walked away. His reasoning... she made me drop my fucking sausage in batter, and i really wanted it!
Some bloke fell flat on his back outside on all the slippery chips and that was just about the perfect ending to a great day out!

Astra v North Romford 11/12/2005

Patience was the key for NRFC as they fought back from a 3-1 half-time deficit with a superb 2nd half performance to record an impressive 6-3 victory.

Goals;
Johnson 1
Sutton 2
Neville 3

Timid had no selection problems for this one as there were only 11 fit players to choose from. Ricky slotted in for Smiler at left-back whilst James (aka Orlando Bloom) slotted in at left midfield. With the return of Mr Tony Sutton and Ross, Spicy was returned to his familiar Centre-Half position after his goal scoring exploits last time out. Kev Nev also returned to the side and slotted straight back in to the middle.

The game started with NRFC looking sloppy at the back, a ball over the top left the NRFC back four looking for offside, Smiler didn't bow to the pressure to put his flag up and the on-rushing forward slotted the ball beyond the oncoming Brown.
It was at this point NRFC seemed to wake up a bit, within 5 minutes, the ref gave a dubious hand-ball decision around 25 yards from goal, up stepped Jason Johnson to sublimely curl the ball into the top left hand corner, 1 - 1.
Ross then decided that he wanted to play his own game of kill the opposition left back.
A crunching, yet legal, tackle saw the 1st choice left back off, the shoe bomber's brother came on and Ross then saw him off with another crunching challenge!
Back to the game, and another innocuous ball over the top left the Astra forward with a one on one with Browny, the big man seemed to of done enough and pushed the player away from goal, with the NRFC defenders piling back to the line to protect the goal, the player tried his luck and managed to get a shot away, Spicy had taken up a perfect position on the line, but only managed to head it straight onto the left peg of the oncoming Brown who perfectly volleyed the ball into his own net, 2-1.
Heads seemed to go down at this point, and it wasn't long before some slick passing from the opposition carved open the NRFC back four and the right winger went through on goal, a majestic finish made the score 3-1 to Astra.
Just before the break NRFC believed they had made it 3-2, Johnson with another free-kick (no where near as good as the last one), which was fully wilfed into the net by the Astra keeper, only for the ref to give offside on the basis that 3 NRFC players were running towards the goal, what a pathetic decision!!
Half time came and some much needed tactical changes were required, step forward Assistant Manager, Daniel Wadsworth. After some consultation with Timid, NRFC reverted to a 4-5-1, with Rossell moving to left midfield and James moving to a more central position, Waddy believed that this would release the ever energetic Kev Nev to get forward more, and my god was he right!
The final half hour saw NRFC produce some of their best football of the season. With 60 minutes on the clock they were back in it, a through ball saw Sutton one on one with the keeper, he went for power rather than precision and smashed the ball into the net leaving the keeper with no chance.
Just after that the game looked to be in danger of getting called off due to bad light when a cloud of smog floated over reminding everyone of Independence Day.


The game did go on and it was time for Nev to turn in a captain's performance and score what may well be the quickest hat-trick in NRFC's 20 year history, (someone get the record books out!) His 1st was a complete shank into the bottom right hand corner after some good link play from the NRFC midfield and a neat one-two with Sutton.
Within 3 minutes he had made it 4-3, James went through one on one with the keeper, only to check back, then back again, then back again, before passing to Sutton and his cut back was met by a fierce drive from Neville which the keeper managed to let squirm under his body.
Two minutes later the skipper had completed his hat-trick with the best of his 3 goals, with the Astra back four nowhere to be seen, Skip put in a strong challenge, picked up the lose ball, then calmly chipped the it over the keeper into the net, a quite superb hat-trick!

NRFC stepped off the gas for 5 minutes after going 5-3 up, panic set in the back 4 and Ricky decided that he had had enough of all the game being played in the oppositions half, from an Astra goal-kick, instead of heading the ball forward, he decided that he wanted to enter "50p head of the season" competition and headed the ball in a direction that gratified belief, very amusing but quite possibly the worst header ever seen on a football pitch (nb Smiler - our other left back wrote this report), to be fair though, Ricky put in an impressive display for his left back debut.

As time ticked away, another flowing move from NRFC saw the ball break to Sutton on the edge of the box, and he calmly slotted the ball past the on rushing keeper, 6-3.
The show wasn't over yet though. Another free kick saw Sutton produce what would have not only been the goal of the game, but would of seen him complete his hat-trick, the Ref decided to rule the goal out for the same reason as the earlier one, ridiculous!
There were a few debates in the crowd as to who would of kept the match ball had the goal been allowed to stand, one thing is for sure though, if Nev and Sutton did fight for it, it would have been a buff bout! (nb i would have let him keep it as it was his first ever hat trick).

Back in the dressing room Timid gave his most positive Teamtalk to date claiming every single NRFC player deserved to be man of the match, this prompted the reaction from our hat-trick hero, "What a load of Bollocks!". Whilst most of the credit needs to go to the players some credit is reserved for Waddy for his tactical awareness, there was a lot of talk a while back about Waddy becoming a Football Agent, get him on the coaching staff I say!


Team: Browny, Hollamby, Cordelli, Rabey, Ricky, Bosh, Johnson, Neville, James, Ross, Sutton.

North Romford v Lonsdale 04/12/2005

North Romford, hit by a depleted squad went down 5-1 to their rivals but put in a spirited performance.

Goals;
Rabey

With 5 players not available and four injured, NRFC went into the game with a heavily depleted squad so the battling performance that the team gave has to be commended. It also has to be said that the 5-1 scoreline was a bit of a harsh in the context of the game.

Lonsdale have always been seen as great rivals to NRFC so this defeat is a bitter pill to swallow, especially taken into account that they have had a disastrous start to the season and should have posed no threat at all.
The NRFC goal came when a ball in from the right found Spicy with a defender close by him, and as the ball bounced up he lobbed it over the keepers head and into the back of the net.

A special thanks has to go to the boys who played with injuries and those who came over at the last minute to help us out (Glynno & Tim Cordelli).

Its a shame we never seem to get the luck other teams get in calling games off when we have so few players available, but i guess that's football.
We need to put this one behind us and pick ourselves up for the next game.

Team;
Colin,
Ricky, JJ, Gregg, Smiler,
Gav, James, Tim, Glynno,
Spicy, Waddy,