Manager's comments

The picture you see here is circa May 2005. Ben Nelson is to my right and Jon Lachman to my left. My hair had bronze highlights. More on this later.

When I woke up Sunday morning, I smelt blood in the water. I was ready for a scrap in our co-ed game, and as a result, I have a bruised shoulder and a high ankle sprain. To be honest, my secret aim was a get a yellow card, and I didn't care what I had to do and to whom. Ah, all that pent up anger, no wonder I have to learn how to shoot guns! Luis called me out after the game, and legitimately so, cause I should have scored twice: once on that half volley in the box and the other on the header from Parham's cross. Lack of game minutes....timing off.

With Justin and Matthew taking the game reports this week, it frees me to talk about other stuff. But first, I'd like to highlight certain aspects of the games we played. Saturday's men's game clearly shows that football is a cruel sport. A mistake can undo a lot of good work. What kind of risks we take is clearly linked to how likely mistakes will happen, and perhaps we can become a bit more savvy about when to be aggressive, and when conservative.

Paul's goal was outstanding, and that salvaged a point for us on Saturday. Just as brilliant was Parham's hat-trick on Sunday. The tenacity we showed on Sunday to pull off the win is very encouraging.

Onto the explanation of the picture above. From Wednesday to Saturday last week, I shared dinner consecutively with Justin, Matthew, Ben Nelson, and Jon Lachman, all of whom at one time or another wore the armband for AC D.C. As most of you know, the latter two are the only players for whom our team has retired their numbers. Without those two, AC D.C. wouldn't exist. And so for the first time in our history, we un-retired a number on Sunday. We have a #9 again! Sir Loxly has decided to re-join the team and gradually work up his fitness level. That's a great thing for us: another attacking option.

Meanwhile, Lord Nelson, "Minister of Defense," made some wild claim on Friday night that he might still be the best defender AC D.C. has had. Pppppfffffffttttt. This, at his decrepit age and with his bionic knee. Jeff and I spent the ensuing afternoon, debating who the AC D.C. Dream XI would be. If you think I'm stupid enough to tell you....well I'm not that dumb. The truth is, of course, that there is no such thing as AC D.C.'s Dream XI. Every player, captain, manager, would have a different version of that list, and then you get into the technicalities of: are you talking about so-and-so before the injury? before age 28? now?

To sum up the weekend: disappointed about the draw on Saturday, but very excited about the win on Sunday. The way we fought back from our opponents' equalizers, again, and again showed quite a bit of fight in us. March on!