Saturday 22 November 2014

Horndean v Ascot United

Welcome to Horndean FC...
For various reasons which are too tedious to make you read, I don't have much time to write this latest match report from the FA Vase Second Round tie between Horndean and Ascot United. Instead, YOU can write this report yourself in the style of Hopping Around Hampshire (if you want to). It's okay, I'll give you plenty of guidance...

The bits you have to fill in are in square brackets:

[Write a long, rambling anecdote or flight of fancy about something that appears to have no relevance either to the match in question, or to football in general. For example, go back a few years and remember that time at school, as you walked into biology class, and that dinlo Stephen Mcleod tripped you and you tumbled straight in to the school skeleton (he'd recently drawn nipples on to the skeleton's ribs and had accused you of dobbing him in to Mr Stone...you hadn't, of course). The skeleton toppled in slow motion, with you falling on top of it, arms flailing, satchel flying off to one side, skimming across the floor and hitting Debbie Bonser on her left ankle. You landed in a compromising position, with the skeleton's legs akimbo, just as Mr Stone walked in to the room...]

...who play at Five Heads Park.
Details:
Horndean FC (0) 0 v 1 (0) Ascot United FC
Saturday 22nd November 2014
FA Vase Second Round
Attendance: 60
Admission: £6
Programme: £1
Colours: Red and white hoops / red / red v All yellow
National Grid reference: SU6913 / SU7013

Substitutes' jerseys ready to wear in Horndean's dugout.
[Continue the anecdote. What happened next to you, the skeleton, Mr Stone, Stephen McLeod and Debbie Bonser? Which of them paired up, got married, had children and lived happily ever after? Desperately try to make the anecdote relevant to the match. Perhaps the goal celebration resembled the moment you and the school skeleton got together? Perhaps one of the players got booked for repeating the exact words that Mr Stone uttered that fateful day?]

A park bench ready to be occupied by the corner flag at Horndean.
[Find something in the club history which might bring all the inconsequential nonsense in the first two paragraphs together. For example, you find that Horndean won an obscure cup in 1935 named after local luminary Dr Charles Bone (skeletons, you see, phew). Remember, you could be quoted in Wikipedia as a "trusted source" if you go down the club history route, so don't cock this bit up...]

Taking in the action from underneath the overhanging shelter outside the dressing rooms at Five Heads Park.
[Describe the ground. Pretend you're walking around the pitch in an anti-clockwise direction. Remember to mention the wheelbarrows near the entrance and the various rollers dotted around the ground, but completely forget to talk about the brick stand. And the extraordinary slope. It's okay, nobody will notice, they're only here to look at the photos...]

A typical crunching Vase tackle.
[Precis the first half. Get at least one player's name wrong (not on purpose, it's just something I do all the time by accident). Miss the most important action of the half because you were trying to locate a robin twittering in the bushes behind you. Note down the half-time music. Fail to recognise Happy by Pharrell Williams, but rave about an obscure ska classic by The Ethiopians. Readers won't know what you're talking about, so make sure you link to the obscure song on Youtube (not that anyone is going to click on the link, but do it anyway)...]

Ashley Harris heads just wide.
[Precis the second half. Use arcane language to describe the winning goal. Try to emulate my blogging hero Skif by never describing a goal in the same way twice, but then say that the centre-forward skipped around the hapless centre-half as if he were doing the Disco Duck under a spinning nightclub glitterball for the third time in the last match five reports...]

Horndean's physio attends to a sore head.
[Add links to other match reports and photos. Indicate when your next match report is due. Try to link back to the opening paragraphs, e.g., "It was a real boneshaker of a ride from beginning to end" or "It was a rattling good game". Speculate on the whereabouts of Stephen McLeod and Debbie Bonser these days. Click Publish, then link to Twitter. Forget to add the club names in your tweet, so that only your three regular followers ever see the tweet. Sit back and wait for the comments to come rolling in...]

Good luck with your report! I'll add in the details of the Third Round draw towards the end of the week. Other than Horndean, Folland Sports and United Services Portsmouth also bowed out today. AFC Portchester, Blackfield & Langley and Alresford Town all progressed to the last 64, so I shall be following one of them on December 6th.

Edit (Saturday 29th November): The Third Round draw sees no Hampshire clubs travel outside of the county for the second round running. Thus, I shall be paying a revisit to one of the following:

AFC Portchester v Tunbridge Wells
Alresford Town v Phoenix Sports
Blackfield & Langley v Highworth Town

Ascot United will host Newport (IoW) in a repeat of their tie from two seasons ago.

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