February 09, 2004
CHAMPIONS
I played for the company futsal (5-a-side) football team in a tournament on Saturday, and we won the whole thing! To give you an idea of the level of the tournament, we won one group game 10-2, and the rules of the tournament stated that goals scored by female players were worth 2 goals! One of our female supporters played for a few minutes, stood in front of the opposition goal, and did, in fact, score.
2 things of note about the tournament. Firstly, I scored 10 goals in 6 games, including a hat-trick in the first game which we won 3-2. Secondly, I also picked up 2 yellow cards in the tournament, the first time this has ever happened. One was in the final, for a challenge on the goalkeeper which I deemed merely boisterous, but the referee thought was 'dangerous'.
The first one was the enigma. I was on the sidelines, and joined the game as a substitute. The player going out left the field on the far side, and I moved onto the pitch. The ref then said that the player leaving must leave from the 'correct position'. As we waited for him to trot across to the near side, the ref then brandished a yellow card at me because there were 6 players on the field, and this is illegal (the game had stopped for a throw-in). Quite why it was my fault that our player left the pitch in the wrong place I'm not quite sure. And why the ref felt the need to flourish a yellow card, instead of just saying 'please make the substitution correctly next time' is another mystery.
Oh well, as I said, we won the competition, and played some very nice football.