Bramhall Rangers 13 Eat My Goal 9

"Ladies and gentlemen please. Would you bring your attention to me? For a feast for your eyes to see. An explosion of catastrophe.

Like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Watch closely as I open this door. Your jaws will be on the floor. After this you’ll be begging for more.

Ladies and gentlemen good evening. You’ve seen that seeing is believing. Your ears and your eyes will be bleeding. Please check to see if you’re still breathing.

Hold tight cause the show is not over. If you will please move in closer. Your about to be bowled over. By the wonders you’re about to behold here." - Ladies and Gentlemen, by Saliva

Rangers made it two wins in two games (promotion form if there ever was!) and 2 wins out of 3 this season with a great performance against Eat My Goal, despite the fixture list claiming we should have played Thirsty FC!

Nev was absent for this game, the team lined up with Belly in goal and Pie, Mini, Shiz and Peter outfield. They were joined by the second Shirres to play for the Rangers, Shiz’s Scottish cousin Stephen making his debut. He warned us that he hadn’t played football for a while, however as the game wore on he played well and made some timely challenges and some great passes.

I’ll have to admit to being fairly unaware of how the goals went in. I know we started well (as we usually seem to do). Peter crashed a goal in from the tightest of angles and then quickly followed it up with a second. I seem to remember EMG got a goal back, before Peter fired in his third in a quick fire hat trick from another tight angle, this one taking a deflection one the way past the keeper. It was a fantastic start to what would prove to be a great performance from Peter, who not only attacked with purpose but defended well too.

It wasn’t just Peter though, we were all defending well, and Belch was pulling off some saves behind us to keep EMG at bay. After this I have no idea the order of goals scored. Pie fired a long-range effort into the corner of the net, Mini got a couple and Peter got another one. We were up at half time; I think something like 6 or 7 – 4, but playing well.

The second half started, and as is so often the way the Rangers were on the back foot. However this time we defended well and limited to EMG attempted comeback to only one goal. As the half drew on we started pushing out. Mini got another couple of goals, as did Peter, Pie fired another long-range effort into the bottom corner of the net and set about looking for his hat-trick, and Shiz slotted one home after Pie had somehow managed to find him with a pass.

Belly was performing heroically in goal. Seriously I think he gets better and better every game. The EMG players were commenting that “it's not fair for you to be playing a proper Sunday league goal keeper in net”, when told we weren’t they were amazed! "He's too good!". You could hear the shouts of frustration from them when Belch pulled off another unexpected save, and this gave all the players in front of him a lift!

A special mention to Stephen here, who grew in confidence as the game went on. Its always hard to come into a game of 5-a-side and get used to your new team mates, the surface, how the ball bounces, etc., especially so if you haven’t played for a while. But Stephen did well, and in the second half was even pulling out back heels setting up shooting chances. A great debut, and if he is ever back in Stockport he’s more than welcome to have another run out!

At one point, with about 7minutes to go it was 11-9, and was looking fairly precarious. Pie had been denied his hat trick, the keeper making one great save, and just scooping a couple of the line. It wasn’t going to be his day, but it would be the Rangers as Mini and Piggy rounded off their scoring to make the final score 13-9.

A great performance all round, and a great game against a team that battled fairly all the way through.

Peter asked that I include the league table in the match report, well unfortunately Powerleague haven’t updated it since the first game but looking at it we should be no lower than 3rd bottom, and possible higher!

Final score: Bramhall Rangers 13 Eat My Goal 9
Goals: Peter (6), Mini (4), Pie (2), Shiz (1)

And this little Piggy played 100 games for the Rangers...

In keeping with Pies post further down, mention must be made of Peter making his 100th appearance for the Rangers in the 7-6 victory over Torpedo Emissions.

Many will say that this career has seen more low points than high, but Peter picked up the Most Improved Player at the recent awards, and it only took a tonne of games for this to be recognised, and £500 (avr) of his hard earned cash. His 100 games have yielded 144 goals too, so another milestone is not far away.

Still, not matter the abuse of criticism Peter receives he still comes out each week and gives it his all, all of which must be commended.

Congrats Peter, and long may your improvements continue.

Winter 2006 Season Awards

So the awards for the Winter 2006 season were organised by the previous season’s winner of the Anton Lowe Memorial Award, Nev. After an excellent meal at Rainbow 88 in Cheadle Hulme, we ventured to the Cheadle Hulme pub, the site of a number of past award ceremonies, for the awards to take place.

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Golden Boot

Winner: Mini



Mini again won the Golden Boot, with 36 goals to his name.

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Most Improved Player Of The Season

Winner: Piggy



Peter collected this award, however was later overheard to be disappointed with this award, saying he would “chuck it in the bin” when he got home.

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The Chesney Hawks One Hit Wonder Award

Winner: Belly



Belly won this for scoring just the one goal during his short spell outfield.

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Coco The Clown Award

Winner: Russ



Peter collected the award on behalf of Russ, who won it for using the excuse of ironing to miss a game, despite doing nothing for two weeks previously.

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Number One Fan

Winner: Charlotte



Charlotte is an avid fan at most Rangers games, and was delighted to win her own special award.

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Sicknote Of The Season

Winner: Russ



Amy and Charlotte accepting on behalf of Russ, who has missed games through various ailments including dodgy toes, injured backs and even ironing!

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The JFK Where Were You When It Happened Award

Winner: Mini



Mini ‘won’ this award for being the only Rangers player to be sin-binned twice in one game, although perhaps it shouldn’t really warrant an award…

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The Bonnie Tyler Holding Out For A Hero Award

Winner: Belly



Belly has proved time and time again how good a goalkeeper he is, sometimes single handily keeping the Rangers in games.

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Rock Of The Team Award

Winner: Shiz



Regularly immense in defence and starting to add some attacking play to his game.

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Player Of The Season Award

Winner (joint): Nev and Belly



Outstanding seasons for both Nev and Belly made it hard to split them, so they share the Player Of The Season award.

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The Anton Lowe Memorial Award

Winner: Pie





It was expected that Peter, the only Rangers player not to have won the highly prestigious Anton Lowe Memorial Award, would be the winner however Nev shocked the Rangers squad and presented it to Pie, the first ever recipient of it.

Bramhall Rangers 7 Torpedo Emissions 6

"Don't expect to see much total football, but don't expect to see a failure of nerve either, this is a much more determined and hungry group of players."

The Rangers played their second game of the season, against new opposition in the shape of Torpedo Emissions. Shiz returned to the team at the expense of Jim, otherwise the team was as usual. Torpedo Emissions lined up in orange shirts, reminiscent of Holland, and proceeded to play a form of total football not seen since the Dutch in the 1970s!

To be honest after the first 10 minutes of the game I was fully expecting us to get soundly beaten – Torpedo’s players all seemed to be more than capable in both defence and attack, and their constant running and movement looked like it would cause us problems.

However to be fair the Rangers stood firm, despite going 2-0 down, and when Mini rifled home the Rangers first goal hope gleamed! Then Mini scored again, and suddenly it was game on! After this the game never really got away from either side, and it proved to be very close until the final whistle.

I can’t remember the order of goals that followed. I remember it was 3-3 at half time, the Rangers 3rd coming when Pie made a great reverse pass through a defenders legs right into the path of the on running Shiz who poked the ball past the keeper. So half time, and generally the Rangers were pleased with how they were playing, and especially defending.

The second half started, and it was close again, I think one side scored, another equalised. That was 4-4, Peter scoring for the Rangers. Then the Rangers managed to grab a 2 goal lead – Mini and Peter both firing home. Would this be it? Would the Rangers be able to hold on for the win?

Not quite, as Torpedo managed to pull it level again to 6 all. Despite this the Rangers were defending brilliantly, with some great last gasp blocks. Then suddenly the Rangers were back ahead! The Torpedo goalkeeper rolling the ball to one of their defenders who dallied on the ball, and as Shiz closed down, smashed the ball against him and it somehow bobbled into the back of the net. 7-6.

So how long was left? Four and a half minutes said the referee! It was to be the longest 4 and a half minutes, as the Rangers were on the back foot with Torpedo pushing for the equaliser. But again some brilliant defending and the Rangers held on for their first win of the season.

It was a great hard working performance with some fantastic defending, and will hopefully set things up for the rest of the season!

Final score – Bramhall Rangers 7 Torpedo Emissions 6
Goals – Mini (3), Shiz (2), Piggy (2)

Archive

After remembering that the Blog was under my control I have have sorted the archive out and it should now be back up and working.

Pie: 100 and up!

The match against Puss In Boots last week marked a landmark in Rangers history - Pie became the first Rangers player to join the 100 club, and amass 100 appearances during Rangers time at Powerleague, Stockport.

Its a milestone he won't be alone at for long - if Mini's calculations are correct Peter will be joining him assuming he plays in the next game, and both Shiz and Mini are less than a handful of games away from to big 100!

To celebrate this record making landmark, here's a clip of the Rangers mercurial number 5 scoring against Northern Canaries.

Bramhall Rangers 6 - Puss in Boots 9

Just a quick report today, got a busy day ahead...

Today's game was missing stalwart defender Shiz but we had a replacement in Jim. Big Rick was also in attendance but purely as a spectator.

We started well with Pie opening the scoring and then another one quickly following by Mini to make it 2-0.It wasn't to last though as PIB retaliated, although we battled well, and at half-time it was 5-3.In the second half we had begun to lose our composure with some poor marking at times, dodgy keeper throwouts and off-target shots - along with a good dose of shouting at each other.However, further into the second half and we had pulled ourselves together and managed to pull level to 6-6. There were some lovely attacking moves and superb passes into space.But then as we continued to push forward for the winning goal PIB were able to get possession and score themselves. They followed this up quickly with two more as Bramhall heads dropped.

All in all the Rangers played well and with only one sub tiredness was probably a factor in the dying minutes.

Mini (3), Pie (1), Big Pete (1), Jim (1)

Bramhall Rangers 11 Northern Canaries 10

“If we did not take action to solve this crisis, it could indeed threaten the future of human civilization. That sounds shrill. It sounds hard to accept. I believe it's deadly accurate. But again, we can solve it.” – Al Gore, talking recently about some poor defending by the Rangers…or global warming? It was one or the other anyway!

In the last 20 years this great planet has suffered at the hands of man. We have seen the demise of many great species such as the Baiji of the Yangtze River Dolphin, the Western black rhino, the Pyrenean Ibex, the Southern Gastric-brooding Frog and the Miss Waldron's Red Colobus Monkey. Wonderful beings I’m sure you will all agree. This week however, the latest of God’s creatures was laid to rest by the marauding Bramhall Rangers. The lesser spotted Northern Canaries (Latin name - speccius foureyesius) were finally laid to rest.

After last week’s successful destruction of Eat My Goal, (Latin name – chompuis goalius) confidence was higher than Al Gore in a cherry picker. The prime suspects were Peter “The De-Forrester”, Belly “The Bio-Hazard”, Pie “Falling debris in this area”, Shiz “The Eco-warrior”, Mini “The Methane Madman” and Nev “Say No to Nuclear” (Guy’s I’m scraping the barrel with this one, go with it though, it might get better!)

The whole charade started very well for the Ranger's, racing into a lead that really rattled the Canaries. They say that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, but since grassy areas are becoming rarer in the ever expanding concrete metropolis, this artificial stuff was certainly aiding the Rangers. Some sloppy defending allowed Mini to notch two goals, quicker than you can melt the polar ice caps! The Canaries were blaming the pitch, each other but not taking responsibility! They thought it was the fault of the damn Chinese! Take responsibility boys, buy energy saving light bulbs!

Peter, who’s finishing on a whole was more clinical than de-forestation of the Amazonian rainforest, was on fire. His shots were rattled off quickly and with more power than is needed to run a family sized home in Cheshire. It was a wonderful sight!

After such a great start the Canaries were bound to fight back, and did so more because of defending more lax than the American adherence to the Kyoto Protocol. Belly was doing well to repel some efforts but a few crept in. One just before half time, after Mini hadn’t kept up with his man, was unlucky. Diving to his right the ball ricocheted off the post to hit Belly on the back and nestle in the corner.

During the half here had been a running battle between the Canary called East and Mini, both going in strong in the challenge. Mini had been guilty of some illegal sliding tackles, which led to a warning from the referee. “One more and you’ll be sin-binned” was the threat. Luckily, Mini reeled in the slides and avoided such a punishment.

Nev was strong at the back as usual and was unlucky with a long range effort that drifted wide of the post a little more bend and it would have nestled neatly in the net, like a Dolphin caught by a fisherman. Pie was getting in amongst it and somehow managed to leave two Canaries with injuries whilst picking up a blow to his shoulder. A coming together by the boards and a twisted ankle for the keeper were the result of some strong running. There were more bruised and battered bodies than on a baby seal clubbing meet in Newfoundland!

The whistle for half time went and the Rangers were in the lead by 7-4 (IIRC). Whilst Rangers had started well they did ebb away and were probably grateful for the break. The brief rallying call had the desired effect. Rangers were out of the blocks quicker than a tsunami ripping through Asia. Two goals were scored in very quick succession, Peter scoring well after an effort was blocked, and then one of the goals of the game. Pie found Mini with a pass to feet, forced wide towards the side boards, Pie made a darting run behind Mini holding off the defender. With a back heel more delightful than a hot British summer, Pie was through on goal. Still with work to do he held off the defender to fire home. It provided a cushion as valuable as all the oil in central Asia! Had George W. bush been there, he may well have sent in troops to tap into the well of quality!

After this, chances for the Rangers were few and far between. The Canaries started to work their way back into the game and grabbed a couple more goals after yet more defending so poor it could have been straight out o the US Armed forces handbook on friendly fire. Peter’s reluctance to pass back to the keeper or burst forward let to indecision in defence.

However, in attack Peter was still proving a force, pressure on the defence forcing a mix up by the keeper who fell out of the area clutching the ball. An obvious advantage was gained as Peter and Shiz were ready to pounce and Mini was on the edge of the area. Demonstrations from the Canaries were reminiscent of the May Day riots! Despite seemingly wanting a run up longer than the Stern Report on Global Warming, Peter was reeled in for the one-stepper! He dispatched it with all the confidence of a Japanese whaler nailing a humpback!

With the game evenly balanced Rangers had to defend doggedly, as the Canaries were patient in their build up. A heart stopping moment was thankfully ruled in the Ranger’s favour as a goal was disallowed for encroachment into the area. Belly also made a good save, deflecting the ball with his legs. But, being out of position with the goal gaping it seemed like the Canary must score from only yards out. However, they hadn’t banked on the tenacity of Nev who executed one of the best block tackles you will ever be likely to see. He made up so much ground, was fair in the challenge and made sure the points were going to the Rangers. It was determination not seen since Swampy holed up in a tunnel at Manchester Airport for a week!

The final whistle was what finished the Canaries fight back. They had come close, closer than the Rangers would have hoped, but ultimately it was the Rangers sprightly KO’s in both halves that won the game, and some last ditch defending towards the end.

Two wins on the bounce is a welcome change for the Rangers, who were enjoying a reasonably successful season despite only being 2nd bottom. Still, it’s the little things that count and a lot of little things lead to big changes. Take care of yourselves and each other…

Final score – Bramhall Rangers 11 Northern Canaries 10
Goals – Peter (5), Mini (4), Pie (2)

Peter suicide dance - 2