{"id":45,"date":"2006-05-31T17:24:06","date_gmt":"2006-05-31T17:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritoffootball.com\/2006\/blog\/2006\/05\/31\/battersea-park-match-report"},"modified":"2012-12-13T15:27:28","modified_gmt":"2012-12-13T15:27:28","slug":"battersea-park-match-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2006\/blog\/2006\/05\/31\/battersea-park-match-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Battersea Park Match Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2006\/batt_park\/uk_batt_the_ball.jpg\" alt=\"The Ball 2006 (photo by Stanley)\" style=\"width:320px;height:240px\" \/><br \/>\n<em>The Ball 2006<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>They gathered at the Peace Pagoda, Battersea Park at 2pm to do battle. For some, it invoked memories of Passchendaele, Monte Cassino, Stalingrad, Trafalgar. For others it was merely a game of football. Jumpers for goalposts.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[<em>You can watch the video of the game in <a href=\"https:\/\/spiritoffootball.com\/2006\/blog\/2006\/05\/30\/the-ball-is-underway\">the previous entry<\/a><\/em>]<\/p>\n<p>There were some old faces and some new, an interesting variety of footware and &#8220;football kit&#8221;\u009d and some shockingly white legs but the spirit and belief were high. After the necessary delays to greet the assembled worlds&#8217; press (well&#8230;CNN) teams were picked and lined up Lights vs Darks.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2006\/batt_park\/uk_batt_shake_hands.jpg\" alt=\"Let the game begin (photo by Stanley)\" style=\"width:360px;height:240px\" \/><br \/>\nLet the game begin<\/p>\n<p>The Lights sprinted off to an early lead thanks to some excellent play by Phil down the wings and Chas, Shilton-esque, in goal by half time they were easily in front at 5-1.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2006\/batt_park\/uk_batt_andy_brian.jpg\" alt=\"The music of the fans - provided by Andy on sax and Brian on flute (photo by Stanley)\" style=\"width:360px;height:240px\" \/><br \/>\n<em>The music of the fans<\/em> provided by Andy on sax and Brian on flute<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the Darks were drinking during the break (I believe it was Champagne) they came out a team transformed for the second half.<\/p>\n<p>It was nip and tuck in the midfield with the Darks adding three goals to be answered only by one from the Lights. Phil then switched teams playing for the Darks and the introduction of doggy Maisie to harry the Lights attack saw the Darks draw level in the very last minute with a stunning effort on the half volley by Einar.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2006\/batt_park\/uk_batt_chris_scores.jpg\" alt=\"Gooooooooal! (photo by Stanley)\" style=\"width:360px;height:240px\" \/><br \/>\nGooooooooal!<\/p>\n<p>So, to penalties and it was and Chas in goal for the Lights using the old Grobbelaar wobbly to great effect, saving three penalties. This just left Tom to score which he duly did, giving victory to the Lights. The post match analysis in the pub afterwards concluded that everyone had a very enjoyable day and it was a fitting send off for Phil and Christian on their journey to the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best of luck guys!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2006\/batt_park\/uk_batt_kick_off_to_germany.jpg\" alt=\"Kickoff for Germany (photo by Stanley)\" style=\"width:360px;height:240px\" \/><br \/>\nKickoff for Germany<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ball 2006 They gathered at the Peace Pagoda, Battersea Park at 2pm to do battle. For some, it invoked memories of Passchendaele, Monte Cassino, Stalingrad, Trafalgar. For others it was merely a game of football. Jumpers for goalposts. [You can watch the video of the game in the previous entry] There were some old [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-england"],"geo":{"latitude":51.47802730000000082100086729042232036590576171875,"longitude":-0.160943300000000011351630746503360569477081298828125,"description":null},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2006\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2006\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2006\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2006\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2006\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2006\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2006\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2006\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2006\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2006\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}