After our winter break we return to the Astroturf with a training friendly involving players from ourselves and Brintons plus a few of Chris's mates.

Our annual xmas 50+ game against Brintons was once again hit by withdrawals, dragging the squad down from 17 on Sunday evening to a pitiful 10 on Monday afternoon. With Brintons permission we were forced to pull a youngster in (well he is only 48) and Des Yarranton rose from his sickbed and proved instrumental in earning us a 2-1 victory after slotting a goal past brother Ray in the Brintons goal.
Team : R.Dalloway,K.Sanders,A.Floyd, M.Crump,C.Reynolds (1), B.Holyman, K.Pritchard, P.Mauger, D.Yarranton(1),B.Strange,D.Locke.

Crown 50+ 2 Brintons 50+ 4

The handicap of losing 3 players just hours before the match was hard to cope with and although we had probably an equal amount of the play we were so depleted at the end that Brintons had to lend us a player for most of the second half.

Pershore 50+ 3 Crown 50+ 7
After starting without a regular keeper and players arriving from all areas and at all times it was no surprise that we trailed 3-1 at the break. However our strength in depth and the fact we had already played a few games game us the chance to dominate the second half and we ended up deserving winners with a 7 goal tally.

Crown Vets 50+ 3 Droitwich Vets 50+ 3
After turning round at halftime a goal down Boca struck twice to give us the lead. Steve Dorrell scored our third which should have made the game safe but slack defending saw Droitwich net twice in the last 3 minutes to rescue a point.

MADRID TRIP MAY 2006

33 intrepid souls arrived in Madrid over the weekend of May 4th to 8th from a variety of UK airports. It was our first foreign trip for 25 years and there were still 4 of the original 1988 Belgium party available for selection. We played our match against Real Maddrid Veterans 2nd eleven (we think it might have been the kitchen staff) in a purpose built stadium on the outskirts of Madrid. Paul Franklin and Bocca were both celebrating their 50th birthdays and both lasted the full 90 minutes in the blazing Madrid sun. Paul capped his weekend by netting our first ever goal on Spanish soil. We led 1-0 at half-time after a fine performance in goals by Tommo but he managed to winge enough to get himself switched to centre-half for the re-start. With our prolific scorer Patty sadly out of sorts many chances went begging and we finished losing 2-1, which was a great result against a side which had far too many players with no grey hair or beer-guts to be classed as true veterans.(We had no problems with either).
Tony Watson made his first appearance for several years, but then spent most of Sunday in bed recovering. Danny had looked forward to the trip for weeks, then managed to sprain his ankle a fortnight before and hobbled about on crutches all weekend, but was still more active than one or two of us.

Team: Tommo, Andy Brown, Duncan Taylor, Nobber Noyes (the ladies man-of-the-match), Nigel Handley, Kevin Franklin, Napper, Carrot, Patty, Paul Franklin, Bokker, Chris Franklin, Kermit, Tony Watson ,Jock Glynn, Phil Smith (Danny)

The after-match evening meal was attended by all 33 of our party and although the menu consisted of just one choice (roast leg of lamb)and they called time on the free beer and wine early a good night was had by all.

An excellent weekend with no-one arrested, most drunk at some part of the 5 days and a visit to the Bernabeu on the Sunday evening to see Zidane's last game for Madrid against Villareal.

Carrot became our official ambassador when he cemented anglo/spanish relationships with a very nice Madrid Senorita.

Patty was in charge of partying until we were all nearly thrown out of the hotel on sunday morning and became very quiet after his meeting with some american guests.