RaW

Whilst the players were warming up they were constantly pestered by Dermot, the fourteen year old brother of one of our players, who was intent on participating in the match somehow.
“Can I play, go on. It’s only a friendly”?
“No, go away Dermot, you’re not going to play”.
“Aw, go on. I’m just as good as all of you lot”.

This was actually true, he was far more skilful than anyone on the pitch and he was also faster and fitter, by virtue of the fact that unlike the players he hadn’t as yet discovered beer. In fact the only reason that he wasn’t selected was that he was small for his age and our opponents from the White Hart pub were not the type of blokes to take that into consideration.

This request turned down Dermot then asked if he could referee and when this was denied him he then asked if he could run the line. This final request was agreed upon and Dermot rummaged through my kit back to find the linesman’s flag, even though kick-off was still twenty minutes away.

About ten minutes later he arrived back at the ground and made a bee-line for Dermot whilst all of the players gathered around, eager to hear the news.
“Dermot, did you meet Danny Moran this week”?
“Yeh, I saw him on Monday”.
“And did he give you a message for me”?
“Yeh”.
“Well, what was it”?
“He said the game’s off cause they can’t raise a team”.

As the penny dropped, Dermot dropped the linesman’s flag and turned to leg it for the gate as fifteen blokes just stood in silence in their football kit, too stunned, and if truth be known, too shattered from the warm up to even give chase.