OK so, admittedly, the guys who
got the goals when the First Team beat Tetbury Town, 2-0,
at home on Saturday, November 22nd, don’t score very often. In
fact, in the case of Steve Bermingham, the current holder of the club’s “Couldn’t Score in a Brothel”
award, they hardly ever score at all, as was highlighted by the considered opinion after the match (oh, alright then, Steve’s
brother Neil), which estimated that it had been 6 years since he had notched a goal for anyone!!! So, perhaps, the antics of both Steve and the scorer of the first goal of the afternoon, Chris Peach, immediately
after the ball hit the back of the net could, in fairness, be regarded in a forgiving light as the perpetrators were out of
practice and unfamiliar with such triumphant circumstances. But, then again,
when has ASIB on the WEB ever been interested in being fair.
For the sake of chronology,
let’s take Peachy first. Annoyingly for the First Team’s management,
three home team players were cautioned in the match against Tetbury, all of whom received their yellow cards for venturing
their opinions about decisions made by the referee. Naturally, in venturing these
opinions, there was an implicit invitation to the referee to both admit that he was wholly, and completely, wrong in the ruling
that he had made and, also, to change his mind and award the throw in, or whatever it was, to Star. One of the players so cautioned was Chris Peach. Chris was
having a good game wide on the right and, although he will have been disappointed to have been booked after an hour of the
action, he capped his performance with an excellent goal after 68 minutes, flicking the ball over the head of a defender on
the edge of the area and then burying the half-volley into the roof of the net.
And then he took his shirt off!!!!!!!!!!
Not a great idea, for a number
of equally valid reasons. Firstly, he had just been booked and this was another
yellow card offence just waiting to happen. Secondly, the ambient temperature
was 5 degrees Centigrade and, with the wind chill, it was below freezing! Thirdly
– with that physique????? Fortunately, the referee was not one for brandishing red cards in such circumstances and most
other people were too cold to notice that the Peach torso was about as attractive as a corner post, so he got away with it.
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| Steve Bermingham - 1st goal of the 3rd Millenium!! |
Which brings us to Steve Bermingham. Up until the 85th minute of the match against Tetbury, Steve had never
scored for the club, a record that covered approximately 75 matches over the last three seasons. And then, along with another
Star defensive legend, Garth Powell, he was brought on upfront as the team clung on to the lead provided courtesy of Chris
Peach, immediately prior to his Captain Oates impersonation. It was easy to tell
that Steve couldn’t believe his luck and that, to all intents and purposes, the festive season had come early for the
rearguard stalwart as, wide-eyed with excitement and anticipation, he took his place in the forward line for the last 20 minutes
or so. Determined to make the most of it, he tried to “run into the channels”,
“sit on the last man”, “fight for the second ball” and do all those other things that he had only
ever heard mentioned on “Match of the Day”. It was then, however,
that his moment came! Wide on the left, Andy Jinks took another long throw, only
this time he had Garth to aim at. This meant, pretty much, that we were absolutely
guaranteed to win the header, because, after 70 minutes on the side lines with the weather reminding Garth of what November
was like in Bishops Cleeve rather than on Bondi Beach, he was up for this big time, as he had shown with one barnstorming
run that had left 7 Tetbury players in his wake and a hole in the side of the changing room where he had failed to stop. The flick, when it came, was perfect, and it found Steve Bermingham at the near
post. Now, being a defender just pretending to be an attacker, Steve didn’t
really know what he was doing at the near post!! It just seemed like a good idea,
a forward-player type thing to do, so that was where he was. He had lost sight
of the ball when Andy Jinks had picked it up and didn’t have a clue what was going on now because he was concentrating
on “losing his man”, or “taking a gamble” or something else that he had heard Alan Shearer warble
on about on “Football Focus”. Then Garth won it and, before he had
time to “attack the space”, or something, the ball smacked onto his forehead as he turned to check on the position
of the goalkeeper. Subsequently, the ball rippled into the roof of the net and,
for what seemed like an eternity, everything stopped. Steve, for his part, had
still not registered the consequence of these actions and was, very obviously, entirely absorbed by the thought processes
that were trying to make sense of it all. “Ball – Head – Ball
– Net” seemed to run through his mind over and over again until, from somewhere in the depths of his sub-conscious,
he dredged up a memory from an under-6 game, all those years ago, that matched the scenario.
HE’D SCORED!!!!
HE HAD SCORED A GOAL!!!!!! Steve Bermingham, holder of the brothel award, without a goal to his name this millennium, had scored!!!! The full realisation of the enormity of the achievement finally took hold and Steve
nearly exploded. But what to do? Last
time Steve scored, it was customary for players to shake hands and slap backs heartily whilst using the steel toe caps on
their boots to scrap the mud off their ankle length shorts. What happened now!!!
Fortunately, all those hours watching “Match of the Day” came to Steve’s rescue again and, wild with delight,
he sprinted – yes, really – towards the corner flag and copulated with it until he was dragged away by a Tetbury
player who wanted the game to finish so that he could have a shower.
All of which should serve as a further
warning to Chris Peach. If you have a torso like a corner post, don’t take
your shirt off if Steve Bermingham is around!!
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