Middle Park Football Club

Altona City Vets 2 - 9 Middle Park Vets

What a difference two weeks makes!!  Or was it just that Strati wasn’t there? 

With pre-match rumours that top of the league Altona City were an ex state league team, headed up by a centre forward that played 26 games for Australia proving to be somewhat exaggerated.  MP delivered a resounding victory, redressing the 9-0 result from 2 weeks ago, now almost breaking even on goal difference. 

Despite the late arrival of the stand in coach Mr Wallace, no pre-match warm up and a pre-match team talk that went like this “by eck, no need for a team talk, just pass th’ ball onth’ ground”.  MP delivered a solid result, backed up by a strong performance and in contrast to last weeks missed chances, the ball hit the net some nine times. 

Scott MacGreggor, who confused the opponents by cleverly disguising his head as the ball, led the scoring with five goals, taking his tally for the season to six and streaking away at the top of the leading goal scorer table.  Henrik Steenberg on his return to MP after a long injury/rest break, showed that the only thing that had changed is that his goatee is now grey and bagged an impressive hatrick and Goran broke his duck with a good first half goal. 

With a half time score at 5-0 and Adrian Pender in defence looking a little bored to say the least, MP didn’t look like conceding a goal.  Step in coach Wallace (AKA McLaren), a few inspired changes later and they had scored two goals, there’s nothing like good coaching to make a game more exciting! 

It’s hard to single out a player of the day with excellent performances from Scott MacGreggor, Richard Cook (both upfront and in midfield), Henrik Steenberg, Richie Lynch, Adrian Pender, Bob Franklin and Dom Moran (finally returning to form).  So we will wait until the vote tally is counted, but 5 goals will probably leave Scott in pretty good shape. 

Some interesting incidents from the day; Pete Widdows finally broke the 10kph barrier…admittedly while being chased by a dog and promptly retired from the game with a strained groin.  The referee re-invented the rules of the game by playing a 42 minute first half and then noting to team official Mr Dibbs that because he had made this mistake in the first half, he had to do the same thing in the second half and play 42 minutes…Hmm, I wonder if FIFA thought of that one? And Adrian Pender gave away a penalty for deliberate handball with his arm so close to his side you couldn’t fit Mark Seznov’s wallet under it. 

All in all a good day for the Parkers and with two wins from three games, is silverware on the cards in the opening season for the vets?...Bring on South Park…