MATCH REPORT by Andy Clyde - Athletico Cowley - Two on the trot

ACFC (0)2 - 0(0) Blackwell Boys
Goals: Tom x2

League Table

ow this is the sort of result that makes me happy. Two pretty evenly-matched teams and a hard fought win. We started poorly and for the first few minutes we were under pressure but we started to get our game together and for the rest of the first half there was only one team in it. Still, 0-0 at half time and it could have gone either way. It was a good test of our patience and our robustness but the second half proved that we are improving every game this season. At the whistle, two sharp finishes following some good team moves was the difference between the teams. We lost our shape at times in the second half but despite numerous shots everything our opponents got on target Graeme was more than able to deal with in goal.

Good performances all round, no-one had a bad game, but then again we were a
shade off the sharpness we had last week albeit against a better side. It certainly helped only making one change from the previous week's team. We're
starting to form some good partnerships all over the pitch and, in general,
we dealt with our substitutions well. It was a humid night and we made full
use of the squad of 9.

COME ON THE COWLEY!!!!!!

Dave’s Stag Do in Devon - Friday 21st May to Sunday 23rd May

Well, everyone had been looking forward to it for a long time and when Dave’s stag do finally came along it didn’t disappoint. Never in the history of humankind has such a bunch of complete colonels amassed in once place.

The location for the chaos was beautiful, sunny Devon with 20 of us staying in one large farmhouse. First up, for those of us lucky enough to get the Friday off, was a top afternoon of paintballing. Here we see the stag looking particularly elegant in his camouflage outfit…

Highlights of the game were the vicious (and extremely painful) stag and best man hunt, a firing squad for badly-behaved Sheppard and an unfortunate, if rather comedy, incident involving Nash shooting the main man in the knackers.

After a great Barbie and quick kickaround the rest of the gang joined us that night and we reminded ourselves how excellently beer, jagermeister and tequila go together…

Saturday was an early start for the Big Day Out, with a nice coach (and rather confused driver) taking us off to go-karting. After an amusing intro talk from possibly the oddest girl in the county, we got underway. Would you let these men anywhere near a fast go-kart? I wouldn't.



Given the extent of hangovers and general lack of concentration the boys did well, with Si and Matty both making it to the overall final from a group of over 40. Nash was on a heroic all out bid to come last but even failed at that.

Next it was off into nearby Exeter for the day's real action and en route Dave was magically transformed into Ming the Merciless (or should that be Minger the Confused?). The rest of the boys donned their speciality Dave t-shirts and Exeter town was definitely in for a surprise...



The afternoon was beery, the sun shone, and as well as leaping off the edge of the quayside into oblivion, Ming made an excellent impression with the locals who were more than happy to kiss his nice pink ring.

After some large pizza action and a very bizarre incident involving Patterson and somebody pissing on somebody else's salad (or was that child?), it was off clubbing to one of Exeter's many upstanding and classy late night establishments. Unfortunately we couldn't find that so we ended up in Rococo's which seem to contain some of Devon's rarest moonbeasts.

The left-hand photo below shows Ming strutting his funky stuff. The right-hand one, however, shows him caught up in the sort of two-girl manoeuvre which is banned in most countries.



After a rowdy journey home and some fairly absurd late night vodka consumption it was off to bed for a few hours kip before the big game on Sunday morning, with the legendary Malvern FC taking on the Rest of the World.

It was a vibrant, competitive game and Malvern totally dominated the first half, but the World came back in the second to win 3-1 with Andy reaching around all over the midfield and Grinner scoring a cracker.



And so ended a top weekend. Thanks to all the boys for making it so amusing and most of all to Dave... for just, well being Dave really. Good luck with the wedding mate it's going to be a superb day.



For more visual entertainment from the weekend check out Mark's Photos or Sheff's Photos.

Nice.

MATCH REPORT by Andy Clyde - Athletico Cowley - Well, it was coming...

ACFC 5(1) - (0)1 Blazepoint Chalgrove
Goals: Maz x3, Tom x2

League Table

It had to happen soon and it did last night in style. We won and we fully deserved the 3 points. In all honesty, they couldn't have complained if we had won by more - the shot count must have been about 20/5 in our favour. It was the sort of performance that gave us some success last season and the sort of performance we need to repeat every week to move up the league. Individually, everyone played well, we managed our substitutions well and only lost our shape towards the end when we were 5-0 up. Better than that, the performance of the team as a whole was excellent. We passed and moved well up front and we covered well at the back. The first half was tight but we got the goal and defended well. It was always going to be a case of wearing them down and the goals would flow and the second half proved just that. We stayed patient and kept playing the game our way, and we got our reward in a scintillating second half. Shame we couldn't keep a clean sheet but at 5-0 we just lost our concentration for a minute. We'll have to work on that for next time. Looking at the table, our opponents were above us and have already won a game this season so it's a good win and shows we can do well in this league. It also means that our goal difference is in the plus column after a poor first few games.
More of the same please Cowley!

Magic moments:
- Bob's shot heading for the top corner before their keeper tipped it over, would have been a classic,
- Tom's volleyed second, the second best volleyed goal for ACFC.

Golden boot is shaping up to be a classic this season since both Maz and Tom are on a goal a game. Tom has played one match less so Maz has a one goal lead. (dave - DON'T FORGET ME BOYS)

COME ON THE COWLEY!!!!!!

It's Finished - The Athens 2004 Football Stadium

Football's first Chant Laureate

This is great not only is there a new Chant Laureate but he is a Shity fan and won the competition singing about how good Juan Pablo Angel and the mighty Villa is. The ditty is good, I take it back, not all shity fans are as thick as two short planks, well at least one isn't.

To the tune of Barry Manilow's Copacabana,

His name is Angel,
And he's a show boy,
An Alice band keeps up his hair,
Juan Pablo from Col-om-bi-air

He came to Villa,
To be a winner,
He succeeded overnight,
Our very own Angel Delight

Just hear the Villa roar,
With each Juan Pablo score,
We've got him on a four-year deal,
But we still want more

At the Villa, at Aston Villa,
The greatest club west of Manila,
At the Villa, at Aston Vi-lla,
Football and passion

All ranges of fashion,
At the Villa, we have it all,
La-la, Aston Vil-la-la,
Aston Vil-la-la-la,
Vil-la-la-la

MATCH REPORT by Faraz - Athletico Cowley start to work as a team again!!!

Athletico Cowley 2 (1) vs (3) 3 Macmillan

Goals: Tom, Maz

League Table

The game had its ups and downs, positives and negatives, in and outs... but most importantly we started playing like a team and started to score a few goals. Out of the 3 teams that we have played so far, Macmillan in my opinion were the weakest and a team that we should have beaten. We got of to a great start, Tom putting away a good move in the first few minutes and the whole team working as one. One nil up. Our first goal in this league and confidence was starting to grow. Unfortunately, a bizarre 3 man substitute straight after that goal changed our momentum and we ended up conceding 3 lucky goals that they managed to score with their first 3 shots, all in a 9 minute period in the first half! The score stayed 3-1 at half time and coming out in the second half we all knew that we could score another 2 past this team to at least get a draw, if not more for the win. Again we started well, passing and moving and making them chase the ball. Credit is due to Macmillan though, they still had chances to put more past us but didn't capitalise on our momentary lapses in concentration. We kept on at 'em and eventually broke through, Maz scoring mid half to give us some belief that we are better than how we have played recently. 3-2, we can do this. It then ended. The ref's whistle went and another loss for Athletico. Overall, a good performance by ourselves, still work to be done but we have DEFINITELY improved and DEFINITELY need to keep that confidence flowing...."


COME ON THE COWLEY!!!!!!

Shef's 30th Birthday at 'The Social' - Islington

Well the Sheffers is 30 and as a sign of his old age instead of the normal mental birthday celebrations we have grown accustomed to, which takes weeks of recovering and a few sessions at your local therapist, we went to a very nice pub (am I allowed to call a posh Islington drinking establishment a pub or am I showing my working class background?) had a bit of food, a few beers (spiced rum and ginger beer is the don!!!) and talked absolute rubbish.

It was generally a top day, very chilled and I think as you can see from the picture taken by Mister Sheppard, Shef was extremely welcoming.

Nice