First game of the season and hope springs eternal. In this case hope was a little grumpy given the 8am start time, but it was hard to remain too miserable on a gorgeous morning in not so deepest Brooklyn. Despite having a solid 15 yes on the evite, previous experience had shown that the Mike D potential for no shows or latecomers was high, and so it was that at game time it was a bare bones 11 that was ready to go. The Brooklyn Gunners were annoyingly chipper for such an early start time, grouped together in their Arsenal kits and fully warmed up. However, also based on previous experience looking organized did not necessarily have any correlation with playing well.

	The field was so long you need a Metrocard to get from one end to the other.

Fifteen minutes into the game and 3-0 up, the correlation between organization and playing the game was well and truly shattered. Good news came within the first 2 minutes as Gallagher bullied his way through the feeble defence to score the first goal, while almost simultaneously several of the opposition were recognized as belonging to the now defunct (with good reason) RTG, perennial league whipping boys. Despite the already warm morning, huge field and persistent alcohol Gallagher appeared alert and hungry, driving through the gossamer defence for a second goal. CPR sensed blood in the water and kicked up the defensive intensity. Casanova harried the defence into a mistake and then charged down the keeper, who decided to charge out himself. Making a rare save he only succeeded in popping the ball up in the air for Casanova to head home and commit the inevitable exuberant celebration.

	’He puts in an awful goalie, you take hard shots at goal. He puts in a dodgy defence, you ramp your defensive aggressiveness. THAT’S the CPR way, and that’s how you get the Brooklyn Gunners!’

Complacency looked like it was going to be more of an opponent than the sad Gunners, but knowing your enemy and combating him are two different things entirely. The simple balls that were required were erratic, and sometimes over ambitious balls were executed when a simple pass would have been more dangerous. Blind back passes and a little unfamiliarity were causing self-made problems, and one of these manifested itself when a rare corner for Brooklyn resulted in a handball. Although it was a borderline call it wasn’t egregious by the standards of the league. Comedy ensued when 2 Gunners started arguing over the right to take the penalty, and as soon as it was clear the Englishman was taking it CPR spread around the penalty area to clear away the expected rebound (assuming the ball was on target). Unfortunately although Becker made the expected save it trickled back to the feet of the striker who made no mistake from point blank.

CPR were irritated at the loss of the shut out and ready to discuss this at half time, but although there was only a minute or two left it was enough for them to stretch the lead back up to 3. More confusion at the back saw 2 defenders go for the ball at the same time. Venkataraman dove in but the heavy pass to Casanova was reached by another defender. With Casanova hot on his heels he made a simple pass back to the goalie only to look on in horror as the goalie completely missed his kick at the ball. It was difficult to decide which was more egregious, the missed kick or that the goalie stood grinning at his foible as a possibly savable ball trickled slowly back the 15+ feet to eventually make it for the score.

The Gunners were only able to make one pass from the kickoff before the referee blew for half-time, insult to injury. CPR reiterated to each other the need to communicate fully and make the simple passes as well as to shoot on sight at the goal. The target of 10 was set given the unknowable of how goal difference might make an impact at the end of the season. With substitutes now available there was no excuse for not playing hard, and CPR certainly started off brightly. The ball was switched from one side to the other and the players tried to concentrate on the simple balls. Mistakes that were made were sins of execution, not of making the wrong play.

One way traffic was the name of the game for the whole half. One felt sorry for the Gunners, and the frustration pouring from the few good players was palpable. A seemingly decent bunch of guys, it did feel somewhat churlish to pour it on and continually play at a high tempo, but after the 8-1 thrashing in the last game of the season dropped the Old Boyz all the way to the middle of the table mercy was not in abundance, and to their credit Brooklyn took their whipping like men. Next in line to score was new boy Luke, putting away a chance deftly that was set up for him by Conboy. Casanova was in oceans of space on the left hand side, and after performing some trickery in the box was clumsily taken down for a blatant penalty despite the curious protestations of some of the Gunners.

Last week’s controversial penalty practice had somehow resulted in Gallagher being chosen to take penalties pre-match due to the absence of Nizam and late arrival of Mershon. With only the worst goalie in the league to beat, Gallagher conspired to hit the post, not only missing a chance to record his hat-trick but also putting himself at the bottom of the queue behind Casanova for team penalty takers.

	’As a Polish guy Adi Gallagher does an excellent job of imitating an English National penalty taker at a knock out competition

Gallagher did make up for it by roaming down the left hand side and pulling back a dangerous cross that was cheekily directed goalwards with his inside step by Steve Morse. Finally even Venkataraman entered the scoring parade, reaching a deep cross by Casanova just ahead of the inevitably late arriving goalie to one touch the ball into the goal. Although 7-1 was a fair result, the Old Boyz are under no illusion regarding the season ahead of them. Fortunately starting against a couple of weak teams will help them build confidence and points as well as get into proper game shape.

Competition: Brooklyn Gunners, League Opposition

Location: McCarren Park, Brooklyn

Conditions: Beautiful playing weather although it started getting a little too warm by the end of the game.

Fans: 1 (Lars Murray, although I’m sure he would have preferred to play)

Result: 7-1 (4-1 at H/T)

Goals:

1-0: Gallagher

2-0: Gallagher, Assist Conboy

3-0: Casanova

4-1: OG

5-1: Luke, Assist Conboy

6-1: Morse, Assist Gallagher

7-1: Venkataraman, Assist Casanova

Yellow Cards: Conboy

Red Card: None

Mike D’s aka No Shows: None.

Conboy’s aka Reverse Mike D’s: None

Old Man of the Match: A pretty good performance by all, with Becker doing well to save a penalty although unfortunately straight back at the penalty taker. Had Gallagher buried his penalty he would have been a shoo-in, but that blot on the record was enough to have the Tankard unused until next week.

Old Man of the Bar: No Man of the Bar, partly because people were tired from the early start and partly because the ending of the premiership match telecast in the 85th minute despite people watching it left a bad taste in the mouth.

Team Bar Showing: out of 14 (%)

Team Bar Night: 2 out of 5 – A large group to start with at Nevada Smiths (since Central Bar wasn’t open when we got there), but the group started to fade quickly.

Team (No new profiles this week): Mark Becker (GK), Steve Teesdale (DF), Jake Beeman (DF), Gavin Hamilton (DF), Mark Resnik (DF) , Mark Edmunds (DF), Steve Morse, Manohar Venkataraman , Mike Conboy , Adi Gallagher, Creighton Mershon, Manuel Casanova , Luke, Ernesto Teran,

Scouting Report: Brooklyn Gunners are comprised of the backbone of the old RTG, not necessarily a good thing. They have 3 talented players, with the rest ranging from mediocre to execrable. If the basic team remains the same then anything less than a 4 goal margin of victory for CPR will be a disgrace.

Goalie: Awful. Among the many blunders, the favourite was the miskick on the backpass that still might have been saved if the goalie was laughing so hard at his mistake. If he was my goalie, I’d take him around the back, punch him in the face and put a rubbish bin in goal. Grade: F.

Defenders: Lucky for them the goalie was so horrible or they’d be the weakness of the team. Whatever the opposite of a well oiled machine is, this is it. All the stoutness of the French Army, the matador defence and susceptibility to any type of pressure made CPR strikers salivate. Grade: F.

Midfielders: Two decent players helped the unit, but it was hard to tell if their constant dribbling was because they were unaccustomed to playing organized football or were merely afraid to pass it to their other teammates. This made them predictable as all that was needed was to stand them up and not provide them with any options. Grade: D+

Strikers: One English striker had decent skill (although if he was the one who took the penalty, he merely confirmed his accent wasn’t a fake). Since the strikers might as well have pulled up a chair and made themselves a pot of tea on the pitch for all the service they received it was hard to tell whether they were any good or not. Grade: Incomplete.