A team cobbled together with Old Tiffs stalwarts took to the field on Saturday afternoon against RBS in the second league game of the season. Knowing that 180 minutes lay ahead over the course of the day members of the team were careful not to expend any energy in unnecessary means and so the warm up was restricted to gossiping about the vast numbers of players that had let the club down that week. Dave Harry even insisted that his pants and socks were put on for him, though this had little to do with energy use, and more to do with the sensation of another man’s hands on his thighs.

Things started brightly, the sun was out.

RBS have enjoyed a series of victories over the past few years against Old Tiffs and unfortunately nothing indicated that this trend would be ceased.

The RBS tactics were not subtle, a huge boot from defence, over ours and into the path of two extremely quick forwards. It worked well. RBS took the lead early into the game. Keiran, still exhausted from a successful Tinder date Thursday evening, and Luke, knackered from chasing his barber in an act of vengeance, could do nothing against the quick forwards. The ball was easily slotted past a rather portly looking Tom Ridgeway.

It remained 1-0 for a period of time. Bettis and Harry were linking well down the right yet a goal was still out of sight.

It would require a feat of super human skill to drag Tiffs back into the game, and a super human feat was provided.

Collecting the ball from a throw-in provided by Graham the left back, Tom Wightwick controlled the ball with his chest. With deltoids, pectorals, abdominals and obliques tensing and working together, the man resembled an ancient Spartan ready for battle. Wightwick shrugged off his marker. The defender had foolishly been sucked into moving out of his defensive line in order to shut Wightwick down and the ball was flicked into the open space. Pirouetting into a sprint Wightwick composed himself and from 30 – 50 yards Wightwick blasted the ball into the top right corner. Mayhem ensued. Local residents flooded the pitch to join in the celebrations, many even insisting that the Mayor be called.

Two games in and goal of the season had been decided. Those that commented that it was at that point the only goal of the season were quickly hushed. From that instance the result was of no importance, which was just as well as RBS went on to score another 3. Final result 1 – 4.

A tough week for the Ts but many thanks to those that turned up and battled on for 180 minutes!

Hurrah the Ts!