The Old Bordenian Association

Having re-read the last football report (presented to the OBA committee and included in the minutes of the meeting of 6 March 2009 – to be found in ‘The Boring Bits’ section of this site) which was uncharacteristically optimistic and ventured to suggest that we had the very real prospect of finishing 3^rd of the Sittingbourne 5-a-side League (Div 2) I have to report, and this will come as no surprise to the many avid readers of past football reports, that in fact we finished 6^th or to the more unfeeling, last.

However, statistics do not tell the whole story. The team that finished a mere 2 points ahead of us and on which we had inflicted a couple of drubbings during the season, dropped out of the league four weeks from the end of the season (due we are told to some HELLO/OK style problem involving the WAGs) to be replaced by an entirely different team which then went on a bit of a winning spree allowing them to move off of bottom spot on the last day of the league fixtures. To rub salt into the wound, two members of this new team had left Borden two years ago and played for the Old Bordenians until last season.

We did manage a little more success in a couple of the cup competitions where we managed to progress beyond the first round but in both competitions we were then unlucky to be drawn against the team that won the first division for the third year running. Even then we went down fighting and in one game we were beating them at half time.

But despite our final position we are not too downhearted. We have picked up points against all the teams in our division apart from the team that eventually finished top and we have performed well against teams from the top division in the cups, so we are capable of playing well and if we can become more consistent then we (to borrow a phrase used in most of my school reports) can do better.

Our demise from the euphoria of the last football report was due partly to our inability to field the same goalkeeper from one week to the next, but for the coming season we have a volunteer. After just three pints and a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape at the OBA Dinner, Dave Palmer declared an infinitesimal but nevertheless detectable interest in the goalkeeping position and before the Real Madrid representatives sitting at the next table could react we had secured his signature on a gravy-stained menu. Despite this aged acquisition we are at last managing to attract younger players to the team and this has allowed some of the Old Guard to retire gracefully from 5-a-side football and will ensure that the Old Bordenians Football Team will continue for the foreseeable future.

The Sittingbourne 5-a-side league is now being run by a larger and more enthusiastic committee and our progress can be followed in the local press from next season when it prints results and tables and on www.soccerweekend.com/league/index.asp?LeagueID=3867 .

As for the OB Veterans 11-a- side team, whose members show no sign of retiring gracefully or indeed at all (Peter Lusted has even come back out of retirement!), we look forward to playing the next in our series of extremely occasional fixtures in September.  

Keith Shea.

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