The foul stench of corruption is drifting over the Dripping Pan. And I’m sorry to say, it involves key members of the Supporters Club. We’ll be back shortly, but first…
Do you like curry?
If so, book a table at our fabulous Curry Night at The Shanaz on 5th March. It’s £24 for a set menu and places are going fast.
Last night I received a disturbing message from the Supporters Club’s Fundraising Manager and former Vice Chair, Barry Haffenden.
GG, for those not familiar with the Supporters Club jargon, stands for Golden Goal: a competition where you pluck a random minute out of Ethel or PJ’s buckets, and if that minute is the time of the first goal you win the cash prize.
There are 91 tickets in the Golden Goal bucket – all 90 minutes of the game and a 0-0. The chances of getting the winning ticket two weeks on the spin are 1 in 8,281.
It gets worse.
Now, according to ChatGPT (which as we know, never gets anything wrong), the odds of that occurring are 1 in 753,571.
As ChatGPT (which seems to have been trained in Essex) puts it: “That’s properly rare. Not impossible — but rare enough that if it happened in a small local raffle, people would definitely raise eyebrows (even though it can occur purely by chance).”
It gets worse.
For according to Footballwebpages, the first goals in the past two home games haven’t been scored in the same minute. Danny Bassett’s penalty against St Albans was scored in the 38th minute, not the 37th minute, and here’s the proof:
Yesterday’s first goal was indeed in the 37th minute:
So now, we’re not only dealing with one bad apple, but a whole web of conspiracy likely involving PA announcer Nick Tier, who calls out the time of the first goal.
It gets worse.
For who assists the lovely Ethel with her Golden Goal selling? None other than Barry’s mum, Sharon. And to seal the evidence file, Baz is clearly laundering his ill-gotten gains into new suits for his dad, who shares his deplorable taste in fashion…
Faced with this mountain of evidence, the Supporters Club has no choice but to launch an independent inquiry. Fortunately, an expert in corruption who now has plenty of time on his hands has stepped forward to lead the probe.
Write about the sodding match, you say? OK, if we must, but first a word from our sponsors.
Do you like golf?
If so, book your team into our Golf Day at the magnificent Lewes Golf Club on 15th May. Breakfast, 18 holes and lunch included.
Having been walloped 6-0 at Folkestone in Brad’s final fling back in October, and with the visitors still sitting comfortably at the top of the league, confidence wasn’t exactly brimming over before the match started. And with rumours circulating that some of our players were stranded on the hard shoulder of the M23 before kick-off, what little confidence there was receded even further.
And yet… we started this game really well. Should have been ahead at half-time, not trailing by a scrappy goal.
New boy Taurean Roberts had the best of the first-half chances. He had one goal chalked off for offside and moments later missed a glorious chance to put us ahead when a Bobby Unwin shot was saved and the ball flashed across the face of an unguarded net, but he could only divert it over. Unwin himself passed up another decent chance to score, going through one-on-one, but only managing to jam his shot into the keeper’s feet.
At the other end, Folkestone were creating very little of note. They only looked dangerous from set-pieces, and of course it was a corner from which we came unstuck in the 37th minute, Baz! The ball dropped into a crowded six-yard-box, pinged around a bit, and was eventually scrambled home by Joel Odeniran. We’ll be back after this break…
Do you shop in Waitrose?
If so, you could help Lewes Juniors raise £1,500 by popping those little green tiddlywinks in their box at the supermarket. Thanks in advance.
The second half saw the floodgates open. They came out firing from the start, peppering our goal with chances and it was something of a miracle that it took until the 68th minute for them to double their advantage. Jake Hutchinson (a former Rooks under-18s player, no less) headed home their second, before Jake Piggot slid Hutchinson in with a delightful through ball to score the third minutes later.
A clumsy challenge gave Folkestone a penalty, which Piggot converted to make it four. And then sub Jonathan Lawson scored a brilliant solo effort to make it five in insult-to-injury time.
Folkestone are mustard. I’m not going to say there’s no shame in losing 11-0 on aggregate to them over the course of this season, but they are clearly a class above this league and will likely be promoted by Easter. We, on the other hand, are going to need at least a couple more wins before we can say for certain we won’t be leaving this league either.
Lewes: Rogers, Burchell (Edwards), Watson, Hamstead, Kpakpe, Christian-Law, Allen (Abdsami), Muirhead, Roberts, Unwin (Jenkins), West
Subs not used: Bernal, Ovenden
Supporters Club man of the match: Tyler Christian-Law was doing an awful lot of tidying up in that decent first half
Boyesy’s brilliant photos:
Video highlights… erm…
Haven’t been posted since the end of last year. Is anyone from the club going to explain why only women’s games are getting video highlights these days?