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Guts frozen in their Tracks

King George 4 Guts FC 0
Hachioji Park, Sunday January 29th. 

KGFC warm up consisting of Iain attempting to touch his toes, Adz licking goal posts and Manager John looking like ET!

Hachioji Koen isn’t the pleasantest of places at the best of times with it’s draconian rules and electric meter controlled floodlighting but when it’s zero degrees,” feels like -3” according to my weather app, and the wind is howling it becomes even less so. This was compounded by the fact that only a few hours before kick-off devil-bearded goalkeeper Elbow had mailed John to let him know he couldn’t play due to a “family function” he had forgotten about. Whether this meant he had forgotten he had children, had discovered he had even more or had just remembered who he actually was is still unclear. John asked James to use his vast network of soccer contacts to get an emergency keeper but this was a fruitless request as Bates spent the next 2 hours trying to find the “family” function on his iPhone. Without the stocky resilience of Tomoki to deputise, the gloves were given to Sean to tend nets and the team lined up thus: continue reading…

Slate Pumas 2 RW Clash 2
Hachioji Park, Saturday January 28th.

8 players all desperate to get the final touch.

In their previous encounters, there has seldom been more than a single goal separating the Clash and the Pumas, with the Clash typically claiming a narrow victory.  When it looked like the Pumas would finally win the fixture, the last attack of the match saw Clash captain Ian Webster arrive at the back-post, his glancing header nestling into the bottom right-hand corner of the net.  To add to the drama, the linesman stood with his flag raised, only for the referee to overrule and point to the centre spot. Emotions ran high on both sides as the end-of-game handshakes took place, although any animosity appeared to subside as adrenalin wore off.

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Sala FC 6   Shane FC 5
Fukuda Denshi, Sunday January 22nd.

The all American hero Jeff Jordan celebrates after scoring the winner

Sala and Shane served up an 11 goal thrills n spills cup tie bonanza in this topsy turvy David vs Goldilocks  battle in deepest darkest Chiba.

3-0 at halftime to Sala the game seemed over before a characteristic Sala collapse saw Shane storm back into the match, and with the scores tied at 5 each, the headline writers were ready to pen another dramatic upset when Jeff Jordan aka Goldilocks scored Sala’s winner with 5 mins left!!  Great stuff all round and congrats to both teams for a good ol’ ding donger of a match.

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Weekender FJ cupFJ Weekender Cup – Round 2 round up
Round 2 of the FJ Weekender Cup had a little of everything. A Giant killing, A hiding and a penalty shoot amongst other things. Albion Old Boys caused yet another upset by defeating BFC Tokyo 1 – 0. Current  FJ Cup Holders Kanto Celts were held 0-0 by Lions FC after 80 minutes. Celts held their nerve and won 3-1 on Penalties. New boys Fussa were beaten by an impressive Zion 4-0. The Hibs steam rolled yet another lower ranked opposition, beating Real Celts 12 goals to nil. Vagabonds played a highly competitive match against Stoneds which saw Stoneds come out on top with a 3-1 victory. British Embassy also booked their place into the ¼ finals with a 5-3 win over Division 3 pace setters Barbarians. Four more teams are still looking to book their place into the next round. Imperio will face current Division 1 leaders Panache Panthers this weekend and YC&AC 1st team and Saitama Jets whose match was rained off.
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Slate Pumas  2 King George 0
Oi Futo Dustbowl, Sunday January 15th.
Photos from the match click here 

Ryosuke was a constant threat all afternoon

Having teamed up for a creditable effort in the New Year Sevens, Pumas and King George assumed their usual allegiances to face up in the Footy Japan Plate. The venue, that perennial graveyard of slick passing football, Oi-Futo Dai Ichi. On arriving at the ground however, it was clear that a significant up-grading operation has been carried out since my last visit. No expense has been spared in the dumping of a good 6 inches of extra grit, transforming what was a treacherous hard surface into, well, a perfect facility for beach volleyball. A quick warm up confirmed that the pitch would comfortably take a moulded stud, or better still, a 4WD! continue reading…