Isandlwana

Atlantic Bridge 3 – 5 Shoot to Score

Bridge push league leaders all the way, but narrowly miss out on play-off glory.

In the late-nineteenth century, as the British Empress, Queen Victoria ruled over a quarter of the surface of the globe. Allegedly, the sun never set on her Empire, and in Africa it stretched from Cairo in the north, to the Cape in the south. But it was here in the land that we know today as South Africa, that the Anglo-Zulu War shook the British Empire to its very foundations. I am sure that The Elbow understands much better than I do the causes of the war, but what I do know is that at the Battle of Isandlwana, an army of Zulus, armed with nothing more than particularly sharp slices of mango and lukewarm bowls of sour coconut milk, vanquished a garrison of British soldiers, armed to the teeth with the latest military technology and tactics.

Last Sunday, the Bridge played like the Zulus. Having killed his first lion with his bare hands the week before, Bryan “Mango” Robson made his debut for the Bridge, and everyone was delighted by administrative error in Monrovia, which enabled The Elbow to assume his usual role between the sticks. But despite these boo (which I really want to be the plural of the word boon) our coconut-milk-skills seemed set to be no match for the military might of our opponents. Based on their ruthless efficiency on the pitch, I am pretty sure that their name “Shoot to Score” had something to do with a Gattling Gun.

But the Bridge’s backs-to-the-wall heroics matched the Zulus’ at Isandlwana. In defence, wave after wave of our enemy’s attacks were repelled by the talismanic Terrier and the Girlfriend. While at the other end, Laurent Blanc and Casanova flowed forward like sweet Tiptree preserves flowing over the sides of a lightly crimped crumpet. The Engine opened up her account for the season with a clinically taken finish, Laurent Blanc scored a deserved thunderbolt, and the Blunderbuss capitalized on an incisive through-ball from Born to Be, to put real pressure on the evil British / Shoot to Score.

But in the Anglo-Zulu War, after their scare at Isandlwana, the British Army called up significant reinforcements, and finally re-established their military superiority. And last Sunday, although with only 1 minute left on the clock, the Bridge were within 1 goal of the most famous upset since Sarah Palin won a high-school geography competition, Shoot to Score eventually mustered their forces, and stamped out the impudent uprising, with a final, fifth and decisive goal in the game’s dying embers.

It was a cruel, playoff-dream-shattering blow for the Bridge Zulus, but it was one from which they quickly bounced back, with the post-game barbecue, graciously organized by the newly-appointed (perhaps unwittingly) triumvirate of Social Secretaries: the Terrier, Mango and Casanova. The bitter taste of defeat was soon subsumed by the exquisite aroma of Laurent Blanc’s garlic-infused guacamole, and the ever-Narcissistic Blunderbuss soon forgot about the recent loss, when he learned that his goal put him only one behind Casanova in the race for the Golden Boot.

But Sunday will always be remembered by the Zulu people as the day on which the Atlantic Bridge gave the military might of the British Empire the fright of its life. (Well, that, and also the day that we invented an awesome new game called “Trolley Tennis” in the Safeway car park).

The North Korea Democratically-Elected Player of the Match Award: Jessie Wild