Always Look On The Bright Side of Life...A busy weekend for Recreativo Football Club. Friday evening saw both our Under 9 and Under 11 sides cruising to victory in the Camden & Islington League, the kids telling us it was our turn now to go and win sunday's game and return to Stoke Newington without the sack load of shame we've heaped on Recreativo's good name the past few weeks. They are always eager to know the score and scornful when we tell them! And so another sunday lunch time, we are waiting around at Clissold for latecomers and no show-ers, but at least Nihat turns up as promised and we bundle into the cars, a large nail sticking out of the blue Astra which we decide we have no time to sort out. Every team in our league seems to be here today as the colours of Lyric, Barking, Jeff's Chippy, Ladzio et al emerge from the dressing rooms. The game itself was in truth a struggle, Recreativo having a brief
period in the first half where we managed to string more than a few passes together, but the fact that our first shot on goal came on 44 minutes summed up the reality
that we are struggling to offer much of a threat around our opponent's box. It's not through want of trying, our merry-go-round of strikers all putting in the effort, but to little effect. Almost every goal we've scored this season has come from a set piece or penalty. Still, we're big boys, we're not going to cry over this game. The Llamas are a decent side, have a physical presence on the pitch, faster, fitter, but definitely not as good looking as us. We pull into the Esso garage on Walworth Road on the way home, chocolate and fizzy drinks as always perking us up and making everything
seem all right. We debate the good and bad of the game and after a few mouthfuls of Double Decker and glugs of Lucozade the score is quickly forgotten. Joe volunteers for kit wash duty, the best result of the afternoon and Gregg puts thing into perspective when he says despite losing he really enjoyed the game. And that's what's important to us. Bombing around a football pitch on a sunday afternoon, striving to win and doing your best for the team. We bid our farewells and look forward to our next match. On the positive side we hope to have Ivan, Michael and upcoming raw young talent Max included for our next encounter in two weeks time.
Team : Chris Read, Mario Pisano (John Megaughin), Gregg Morgan, Jimmy Lloyd, Joe Dunthorne, Lee Walsh, Adam Bradbury, Joao Spinola, James Humphreys, Nick Candy, Nihat.