I’m pretty sure Danny Baker isn’t knocking out new VHS cassettes at Christmas anymore. If he were, Bowers & Pitsea would be earning a tidy sum off the royalties for this Christmas’s Non-League Goals and Gaffs.
We “scored” two of the most extraordinary goals I’ve ever seen last night. The first a cast-iron own-goal, when Mitchell Nelson tribute act, Dexter Peter, played a blind back pass to his goalkeeper and ended up curling it into the bottom corner. It was a proper own-goal, with the goalkeeper scrambling like a greyhound across a wet kitchen floor but unable to keep it out.
But if the big number 5 was embarrassed by his sixth-minute OG, he had the heat taken off him for our second goal on the stroke of half-time. Danny Bassett took charge of a Rooks free-kick, slap bang in the middle of the pitch, about 30 yards out. With all due disrespect to Danny, he fluffed it. It skidded harmlessly past the wall and into the keeper’s hands at about 10mph.
Except, well, it didn’t. Because even though the keeper had enough time to wallpaper his bedroom before making the save, and even though he’d actually dived down to collect the ball, he inexplicably decided to leave it. The ball itself looked almost embarrassed as it trickled into the net, much to the stunned amusement of the 22 travelling Rooks fans behind the goal.
Now, unless the Pitsea branch of Ladbrokes took a £40,000 bet on Lewes winning 2-0 last night, you have to have sympathy for the young keeper. His head went his to his hands immediately. Thankfully, he managed to catch that. But one can only imagine the scale of the bollocking he got in the dressing-room at half-time.
If the keeper was having a bad night, the Youth Wing were on top form. They’d clearly spent the pre-match tucking into Bower’s Malibu slushies (welcome to Essex) and workshopping new chants. For when Tolu Ladapo emerged from the bench just past the hour, he was serenaded on to the pitch with their latest composition, sung to the tune of Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.
Like a modern-day Smash Hits (ask your mum, Youth Wing), we’re going to print the lyrics, so you can join in on Saturday:
La, la, la, la, la, Ladapo
La, la, la, la, la, Ladapo
(There were some verses being scripted towards the end of the match, but I’m middle-aged. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast, let alone what the lads were singing last night.)
Youth Wing chants aside, there was distinctly less to laugh about in the second half, as Bowers laid siege to our goal, using every opportunity to bang a hoofed ball, a deep free-kick or long throw into our box. With Jerry Puemo still suffering back knack and Big Ben Mundele required at right-back to fill in for the absent Matty Warren, that meant Parish Muirhead had to slot in at centre-back alongside The Kaiser. I imagine the pair of them are chugging the Neurofen this morning due to all the headers they had to deal with.
We rode our luck at times, but we defended magnificently, as we have done all season. And we relied on a couple of monster saves from Toby Bull, too.
Finally, I’d like to end on a complaint. Pitts has barely put a foot wrong since the ink dried on his signature this summer. But to cover for injuries last night, he unveiled a new signing: Maliq Morris.
Hasn’t he been with us all season, I hear you ask? No, that’s his twin brother, Malachi Morris. Who not only sounds quite like his brother, but now he’s had his hair cut, looks like him too.
Now, come on, fellas. It doesn’t take much to confuse an idiot, but signing identical sounding/looking brothers is taking the piss out of the match reporters/commentators, and you know it. Behave yourselves.
In the meantime, Maliq Morris, by dint of arriving later than his brother, shall henceforth be known in these match reports as Morris Minor (ask your nans, Youth Wing).
Lewes: Bull, Mundele, Muirhead, Kaiser, Enkh, Allen, Sablier, Ghannam (Ladapo), Allsopp (Morris), Williams (Hutchinson), Bassett (Morris Minor)
Unused sub: Olds
Supporters Club man of the match: Toby Bull, for a couple of top saves and coming to collect corners more often than I’ve collected my kids from school.