The darkness of the skies and impending storm seem a fitting backdrop to Recreativo's day of destiny in deepest Clapham. We go into the game standing adrift at the bottom of the table, the gap between us and Barking Mad opening wide like the abyss of Hades, self-destruction, doom, despair and desperation dragging us down. It begins to rain so hard that we can not actually see through the car windscreen. However we make it to Clapham Common and huddle in possibly the worst dressing room we've ever been in. Mud and shit and rubbish and old tracksuit
bottoms. It's like the Fritzl's basement that they never found. However, a kind of Dunkirk spirit begins to spread through the team as Jimmy L and Adam show, having cycled miles from north London in the most atrocious conditions and everyone readies themselves for the slosh-fest conditions on the pitch. Before a ball is kicked we're already wondering which poor sod is going to have to wash the kit this week. The first half is uneventful, save for the poor non-clearance three minutes before half time that gifts Clapham an easy goal. We have one shot on target in the first 45 minutes, inexplicable when you realise how many decent footballers have turned out for Reccy today. Adam urges everyone to be "solid for the first ten minutes of the second half" and we have a chance. Two minutes in and we're picking the ball out of our net, another set-piece that we fail to defend. Another two goals for Clapham, a bust up between Lee and Ivan, a biting wind and finally, a Recreativo goal (nice one Bilal!) sees us finish the game 4-1 down. Despite the cold, mud and rain, despite another loss and despite the fact that some of us nearly packed it all in last week, we pull through to leave the pitch in fairly good spirits. We're still getting really good turn-outs every week, we're still managing to have a laugh on the way home and after our chocolate stop at the Esso garage heading back north, everything seems to feel fine. We've got a fantastic group of lads in this team and one day when we're sat in some old people's home, we'll look back on these sunday afternoons on the muddy fields of South London and realise they were
some of the best days of our lives. Sort of.
Team: Ivan Murillo Ortiz, Mario Pisano (James Humphreys), Jimmy Lloyd, Gregg Morgan, Nick Candy (John Megaughin), Aaron, Adam Bradbury, Lee Walsh, Stefan Garcias Fernandez, Max Bland, Bilal Talib Ali.
Sick notes: Marcus (arm), Jimmie G (knee), Joe (toe), Joao (AWOL),
Kali (pub), Russell (Thailand), Chris (knee).