The league table does not lie. Woodford Wanderers, Played 5, Won 0, Drawn 0, Lost 5, Goals scored 4, Goals conceded 15. The close defeat against The Cock Inn was followed by two 1-0 losses and then a 6-1 thumping at home by Heston United. I'd missed the last three games: first through my cousin's wedding in Scotland and then work commitments overshadowing my Saturdays.
So much so, the coach was on the phone on Sunday morning, begging me to return to the team: the league had seen a number of teams losing players and he feared that the run of five losses would cause others in our team to drift too.
It wasn't my intention. I longed to get back onto the football pitch and in the three weeks I had been away I would be a liar if I said I hadn't missed the thrill of the danger and jeopardy the penalties caused.
There had been some fallout from the league's decision to allow victorious teams to sodomise the losing players in the dressing room. A couple of teams, in the second tier, had lost access to their ground: for "immoral and shameful" acts and Terry, our ex-left winger had gone to the newspapers, along with a couple of ex-players from the other teams. Attendance swelled at the games however, the Internet was awash with the story and, possibly in part due to our losing streak making us notorious, we were now sponsored by ManLube, who had provided two new football strips to the team containing their logo.
The new navy shirt with bright golden shorts looked fantastic, the heraldic colours of our village, and at training I was told several other teams had landed sponsorship deals too. The big news was that the coach had managed to find a couple of new players, include Dmitri, a playmaker from Sofia who had an impressive eye for a pass!
I would have thought that the near certainty to being fucked by testosterone-filled football players on Saturday, especially given our reputation, would be an obstacle to further recruitment but Dmitri wasn't bothered by the prospect. The day before the match, the nervous graduate student admitted to me that he was bisexual. The punishments for failure were strange, he wouldn't have chosen them, but it didn't faze him.
In many ways, I was delighted that Dmitri had joined us with his attitude. I didn't dislike the sensations of being sodomised and my girlfriend and I were playing with her strap-on much more. I just would rather not be buggered by another guy. The protestations from my team-mates about the league's plan meant I couldn't discuss my thoughts with them and Dmitri quietly listened to my predicament.
"Let's just win," he suggested in his Bulgarian accent, and I thought that was a great idea. The league had decided that the match would fall on the first of their "special weekends" and planned to take full advantage of the fame and interest by conducting the victory fuck in public and not in the dressing rooms.
The sixth match of our league campaign was the home match against The Cock Inn. The league had rescheduled some matches at the request of a team whose ground was flooded. It was quite an intriguing thought to think that we would be able to seek revenge for the raw fucking we had been on the end of only three weeks previous.
It didn't start well: they scored within sixty seconds when their cocky striker volleyed the ball past our defence, and at half-time they were leading 1-0. Their captain snarled as we walked off the pitch, rubbing his crotch suggestively. "I'm going to fuck you so hard you won't be sitting down for a week." It was all part of the mind games.
We needed a lucky break, and we got two. Dmitri came on at half time, playing in front of me in our midfield, and his first shot on goal bulged the back of the net after it clipped the heels of a defender for a big deflection. The second goal was scored by our goalkeeper: a wind assisted punt down field embarrassingly bouncing over their stopper. And as they attacked, we defended with our lives: the first victory was in sight and as the ninetieth minute edged closer and they threw everyone forward, our Bulgarian playmaker clipped the ball into the box for our striker to head home.