Okay, sod your semi-pro players - this was one purely for the pride of the jersey. In the aftermath of surviving last season (particularly the getting pi$$ed afterwards part), someone vaguely remembered a rumour about possibly playing our fans' match against Longford at half-time during the senior game. And so we hassled the committee about it, and so it came to pass.
The game was 7-a-side, played from box to box, and UCD very nicely gave Longford a player to make it even. He later said that he was very conscious about not scoring!
UCD were missing a number of players - the influential @ndy, who was our top scorer ever in fans' games with ten goals in three games, the two drunken-16-year-olds, Lefty and Declan, who'd notched three in Longford, and John, the banger and former UCD triallist who we'd brought in especially to beat Cork! :D And so our panel of seven featured two debutants, while the top scorer was goalkeeper Pineapple Stu, courtesy of a brace in Cork when he got pi$$ed off with the way things were going and came out at 0-5 down. Harpo was our only other scorer in the team.
Just before the senior game, John83 and Martinho were seen heading off to Michael, the PA announcer, with a teamsheet. Consequently, the teams walked out onto the pitch with our names ringing out across Belfield Park (the PA annoucer had been asked to "announce the half-time 'entertainment' as serioulsy as possible"!!!), so we knew there was no room for embarrassment. The goals were poles, which I was busy trying to ram into the ground, wrecking our nice pitch, before I found out that there were metal stands for them!
The game started so, and Longford were first to attack with a shot which was waved over by the completely impartial referee, resplendent in his UCD tracksuit. The early stages were tentative, and although the crowd got well behind both teams, the UCD subs warming up behind the UCD goal did let a little snigger out at some of the "close" control. Martinho broke down the left wing and was met by Pineapple Stu coming out of goals, who tried to emulate Rob McAuley in the senior game by walloping the ball off his opponent, but missed him and Longford won a throw five yards from their goal-line.
But UCD did settle first, and took the lead through Harpo, who prodded home a cross from Kevin Ryan (?) past the Longford keeper, who, we had been assured, was better than Pauro. All I can say is I wouldn't have wanted to see Pauro in nets!!!
The game opened up then and, after Longford shot narrowly wide a couple of times, they got the equaliser which was coming after Adrian turned away from a couple of UCD defenders and drilled in a shot which was turned in by a UCD player. Of course, this being Belfield Park, we don't name own goal scorers! But Schumi wasn't very happy with himself...
Longford dominated for the next couple of minutes - Pineapple Stu had to be out twice to save at the feet of Adrian, while he also claimed his first corner since 1997, which probably had Pat Jennings worried! But they did take the lead - Martinho got free down the left again, and he squared for Adrian to tap home into an empty net.
With time running out, UCD pressed for an equaliser to save face. Kevin Ryan was influential in most UCD created - a far cry from his days in Superleague!!! - but the equaliser did arrive, just as the Longford senior team were coming out of the dressing room! A ball from John83 was turned into his own net by a Longford defender under pressure from Harpo, and even as the Cascarino Stand rejoiced, the final whistle was blown on a classic fans' match.
The League table, so, stands as follows (taking Longford 4-4 Cork as a result) -
Cork City 3 1 1 1 19 12 4
UCD 3 1 1 1 10 17 4
Longford Town 2 0 2 0 6 6 2
The next match will hopefully be UCD v. Cork in two weeks' time, while Longford have already challenged us to a rematch in Longford in October as they continue to search for their first ever win! A programme is being produced to commemmorate the event, featuring pen pictures (each written by a team mate!) and not much else really.
