Nothing Doing at Imber Court
On Saturday 21st March 2015, Kingstonian travelled to Imber Court to play Metropolitan Police FC. The sides kicked a football around for two 45 minute periods. Their stated intent was to get said ball into the opposition net, but there was no real danger of that happening. Yes, the Police had a goal disallowed for offside, but it went in a while after the Kingston defence had stopped caring. They also had a couple of scrambles from set pieces near Rob Tolfrey. At the other end Jesse Darko screwed a 25 yard shot wide when through on goal.
That was it. No penalty appeals, no good saves, no standout performances, nothing. But that’s the nature of football isn’t it? Sometimes, very little happens in a game of football. And that’s why so much of the hyperbole that surrounds the game is such nonsense - it’s not entertainment: it’s something harder to pin down than that. If you go to the theatre and the actors spend the whole time sitting around doing very little, then you’d ask for your money back, but that’s not the case in football (though perhaps some Premier League punters would expect the same had they seen the fare offered up at the weekend). The joy of football is knowing what you don’t know - that you’ve no idea what the two hours you that form the meat in your Saturday sandwich have to offer. But here’s the thing – the reason the ecstatic moments are so visceral is because we’ve all sat through non-events of game like this one. The function of these match reports is often to present these non-events as, conversely, events, but some non-events are so uneventful that they need to be shown for the uneventful, non-events that they are.
So in lieu of being able to report anything that did happen, here’s a list of things that didn’t happen during Met Police 0-0 Kingstonian: a goal, a red card, a penalty, a good save, a threatening attack, Alan Inns having a shave, Sam Page putting a foot wrong, any Met Police fans made any noise, any visible Met Police fans, Alan Dowson keeping a settled side, AFC Wimbledon moving out of Kingston, Jose Mourinho praising anyone other than himself, Tim Sherwood wearing a gilet, Harry Kane failing to score, a pitch invasion, anything in any way notable.
To be fair, I’m doing the game a disservice, there was a cracking penalty shootout at half time between the two sides’ under-7s teams. Perhaps the most notable thing about the encounter was the passage of time – the two sides saw out a solid two hours of our collective lives. If nothing else, the game definitely happened.
Match report by Jamie Cutteridge.
