Three Points!

Atlantic Bridge 7 – 5 Netkix

The Bridge come from behind to earn first win of the campaign.

My old P.E. teacher used to say, “You don’t play sport to get fit. You get fit to play sport”. And hence Atlantic Bridge held its first training session of the season last Thursday evening. By which I mean that late drop-outs from The Elbow and Garrincha ensured that Clean Sheets and The Blunderbuss spent most of the session playing keep-ups with a Mexican man called Alejandro. Laurent Blanc’s characteristically laid-back arrival time meant that there was at least a brief flirtation with a 2-on-2 game, but to be honest, most of the time was spent talking about France and England’s slim chances of World Cup glory.

On the back of such an intense work-out, it is little wonder that the Bridge began yesterday’s game against Netkix in dynamic style, taking an early 2-goal lead through The Blunderbuss and Casanova. A Green-esque moment of goalkeeping on the part of The Elbow saw Netkix draw level, but a clinical finish from the returning Jessie “Born to Be” Wild soon restored the Bridge’s lead.

The match was so exciting that I can’t remember the score at half-time, but I do remember Netkix taking the lead at one point, and thinking “Oh no! Netkix just took the lead”. But then we scored another couple of goals and I thought “Hooray! We are back in the lead against Netkix!” But the most exciting moment of the “match” came when The Elbow launched a ball straight from his own goal-line into a basketball hoop down at the other end of the field – without a shadow of doubt the most exquisite display of skill* I have ever witnessed in any sport ever.

With the scores possibly tied at 5-5, a theatrical and elaborate dive (thanks to Transylvania for the link) from The Blunderbuss earned a controversial penalty, which he rather shakily converted, and a second goal from Casanova gave the Bridge a two goal cushion. 10 minutes of gritty, resolute defending by the female quartet of The Girlfriend, Clean Sheets, Born to Be, and a hungover Wondergoal – who collectively looked as sweet and innocent as you might expect a Bach string quartet to look, but tackled as ferociously as you might expect Destruction, Holy Moses or some other Teutonic Thrash Metal band to tackle – earned the first W of the season.

I have never listened to Teutonic Thrash Metal.

There are more colours [sic.] in our league table than there are teams, and I understand it about as well as I understand every American’s obsession with Chick-Fil-A, but on the surface it does seem that we are now in a rather heroic 5th place out of 9 teams (if you include the two teams Finals and Semis, which I think we should).

The North Korea Democratically-Elected Player of the Match Award: For the most amazing three-pointer that has ever been or will ever be scored: Ben Elberger

* For skill, read luck