… extraordinary football match.
Yes, ths afternoon saw me at Terjat to see the AS Terjat 1st XI play Hyds in Division One of the Allier League. But I’ll talk about that in a moment.
First, though, with a fairly early night on Saturday (despite the cups of coffee) and no alarm clock either, I managed to be fully conscious and on my feet at … errrr … 08:26. I haven’t a clue what happened there.
So after an early breakfast and watching a film I mooched around for the morning doing not very much at all, and after lunch went off into the wilderness.
An extraordinary match indeed. The final score was something like 8-6 to Hyds and I’m not talking about the goals but about the yellow cards. I think that the referee must have had a pop-up toaster in his shirt pocket. Every time there was a foul, up popped a yellow card. Amazing!
And not only that, I’m sure that the referee must have been officiating a different match to the one that we were watching, because some of the decisions were, well, bewildering, to say the least.
We had the AS Terjat keeper throw himself on top of a Hyds attacker to stop him scoring (and I do mean exactly that) and the referee blew for … a free kick to AS Terjat.
And then, a few minutes later, an AS Terjat attacker flattened the Hyds centre-half, and the referee blows for … a penalty to AS Terjat (which they miss).
If that’s not enough to be going on with, there’s a foul on an AS Terjat player about 25 yards out but as the ball breaks free to another AS Terjat player in an excellent position, the referee plays a good advantage.
This second AS Terjat player is then scythed down well inside the penalty area by a later Hyds challenge and the referee blows … not for the penalty, but to bring the game back for the first foul.
That’s probably the strangest “advantage” decision I have ever seen.
AS Terjat eventually win 3-2, but both sets of supporters (and I was chatting to both groups) left the ground shaking their heads in disbelief.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I lit the fire to cook my pizza and settle down to watch the gridiron. We were promised a sportfest – three matches consecutively last night.
But the early start clearly had its effect because I fell asleep towards the end of the Eagles – Cowboys match, woke up in the 2nd quarter of the Jets – Seahawks match, fell asleep again later and woke up at 2:30 having missed all of the 49ers – St Louis match.
