You sheep. You guileless fools. You clueless morons.
It takes one idiot (me) to see someone wishing supporters club legend, David Arnold, a happy birthday on Facebook for me to innocently relay birthday greetings, and you’re all piling in with your best wishes and likes.
No fewer than 38 likes on Facebook, 16 more on Twitter, and guess what?
It’s not actually his birthday. His birthday is in July. It’s fake news. Does anyone bother to do any basic fact checking these days? To do a casual search on Facebook and find, yes, only 18 months ago on July 1, 2022, we were all wishing him happy birthday then too?
There’s an election this year, people. This wanton desire to believe everything you read on social media is how we ended up in this mess! Let this be a lesson to you all.
I discovered it wasn’t actually Dave’s birthday when I strolled up to him at the top of the Philcox yesterday to find him somewhat bemused by all the birthday greetings and pints being shoved in his hand by wellwishers.
To cover my own arse for fuelling the birthday rumours, I suggested that – like the King – Dave should have an actual birthday (1 July) and an official birthday (now 17 Feb).
Dave replied that this could have actually come to pass, given that he once met Princess Diana. Now, I hate to break it to Dave, but that’s not how monarchy works. Even if the silver-tongued old fox had managed to convince Princess Di to marry him, he wouldn’t have knocked Charles off the throne. But Dave’s 142 now, what with the two birthdays a year, and easily confused…
Still, Dave’s dalliance with Princess Di did set my mind racing about how things could have worked out very differently at The Pan. Now, don’t get me wrong, the Pan would be a far worse place without Dave’s lovely wife, Barbara, but imagine if Di had become the new Mrs Arnold. This would be how you got your raffle tickets:
And this would be karaoke night in the Rook Inn:
What could have been, eh?
All of this fluff and nonsense is, of course, a diversion tactic to avoid talking about the football. But a game was played and so we must.
To be fair, we gave it a good go in the first half. Ola Ogunwamide was on fire in the opening 15 minutes, giving former Rook Jamie Mascoll a torrid old time with his bursts down the right wing. And if KLK had buried the header that Ola put on a plate for him in those early exchanges, it might, might have been a different game.
But Chatham had good chances of their own in the first half too. Only a smashing Nathan Harvey save kept out a low blast from Scarlett, and then Chris Dickson put a free header wide just as thoughts were turning to the half-time Bovril.
The second half was largely dominated by the visitors, however. It took until the 79th minute for the wall to be breached, but it felt like it had been coming for some time.
There was certainly an element of fortune about the opener. The towering Jamie Yilla turned the game, first by muscling Ming out of the way and bursting down the left, pulling the ball back for Jordy Robins to strike at goal. His low shot deflected off Arthur Penney’s undercarriage and into the net to give the visitors the lead.
The second was a penalty, but having seen the replay, it should never have been. Jake Elliott makes a great rescuing tackle after Kareem Isiaka bursts past him into the box, and he clearly wins the ball. Yilla applied the finish touch from the spot.
And it was the towering Yilla who got the third in insult-to-injury time too. Earlier in the half, he’d got on the end of a corner at the near post, but Harvey managed to save it. We didn’t heed the warning, and let him win a free header at the near post to make it three.
Three-nil was certainly hard on the Rooks, but only Donald Trump’s lawyers could make a case we deserved anything from the game. All told, a bit of a damp squib for Dave Arnold’s official birthday.
Lewes: Harvey, Ming, Elliott, Penney, Oguntayo, Whelpdale, Sablier, Olukoga, Ogunwamide, Lumbombo-Kalala, Murtagh
Subs: Tamplin, Wood, Gondoh, Leahy, Pritchard
Supporters Club man of the match: The fact it’s Nathan Harvey, who made at least two cracking saves, tells you everything about the game
Video highlights from Your Instant Replay:
Boyesy’s brilliant photos:
