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Established in the tail end of 2003, TFC Dynamo was originally comprised almost
entirely of players from a regular 5-a-side fixture. Having dabbled in
7-a-sides for a bit of variety we decided that it wasn't really our scene - it
had absolutely nothing to do with never being able to get a pitch before 10pm,
no no, that'd make us quitters.
Having discussed the prospects of an elevens game for the best part of 6 months
we finally got our first match organised against the BBC - one of the two teams
we'd end up playing probably more often than we ought to have done. The match
had been arranged by one of our players who worked at the beeb and so bragging
rights were at stake. Unfortunately, we ended up deserved losers 5-2.
Next up came a team who we were to play against almost every other game for the
next 6 months, Queens Park Supporters Club. Still being rookies at this
malarkey, we didn't know what to expect but we did figure that there couldn't
be too many of them- after all, it was Queens Park they supported. The
way we saw it, if you took away all the elderly, young, female and all those
unable to play for whatever reason away from a typical home support, you'd
surely be lucky to scrape a team together from what's left. As it turned out,
some of the elderly got a game anyway and they beat us 4-2. We were beginning
to get to know what we were up against, and it could have been worse. Not only
were they gentle with us in their match report, for which I am grateful, we
(more importantly) avoided being the team to whom they had their heaviest ever
victory. OK, they're over 500 games old so it was unlikely to happen, but we
had no idea what to expect from them. Cricket scores would not have been a
surprise.
Back to face the BBC again it was. Determined not to make the same mistakes as
last time, the team quickly lost any shape it had and proceeded to make exactly
the same mistakes as it had the last time, and were well beaten 7-1.
This was going to be harder than we thought.
So we tried again (and I do apologise if this bit is getting repetitive), off
back to Glasgow Green to take on Queens Park again. Surely this was going to be
our first victory. After all, we knew what to expect and had played one whole
game since the last time we met and it was Bob's birthday and were were 4-1 up
at one point and..... would you believe it? Beaten 7-4, with a broken jaw for
Ross Oliver for his troubles.
At this point we felt we were beginning to understand what the game was all
about but were still struggling a little to apply the concepts in real life and
to field a balanced team. But as we all know, Rome wasn't built in a day and
improvements were definitely being made. Players who had seldom or never played
elevens before were getting better by the the game, and before long we were
able to send our orange bibs worn for matches back to the 5's arena and bear
the dashing- if we do say so ourselves- navy and gold of TFC Dynamo. A fine
example of retail therapy if ever there was one.
More money than sense for a team that were yet to win a game, you'd be forgiven
for thinking, but we did look pretty and we got a decent deal from our friends
at footballteamwear.com, who we'd
come to play after our next routine lamping. This time at the hands of a team
organised, and I use the term loosely, by Colin Miller- who a few of us had
played for in the past. The game ended up in a 5-1 reverse.
As I mentioned, next up were a team organised by Dermid from football teamwear.
Now, we had it on good authority that these boys weren't too great. At least
that's what their gaffer told us. That's the last time we indulge in any of
these high profile managerial mind games, I can tell you! Man for man this team
tore us a new one and systematically scored goal after goal, and that's with
some decent keeping on our part to keep the score down to a mere nine goals to
four.
P6 W0 D0 L6
F14 A37 Hypothetical Points 0. East Stirlingshire eat
your hearts out.
Thank goodness lucky number seven came along when it did. The opposition took
the form of Golds Solicitors and Dynamo started to play the kind of football we
knew we could, although the match itself was a bit on the gritty side we
finally came good, triumphing 4 goals to 2.
Once again we then found ourselves lined up against the BBC where old
habits died hard and we ended up again on the losing side, albeit having put in
a much better account of ourselves. We lost three goals to two, with a clean
sheet for both teams in the second half.
I think its apt to stop this increasingly boring account to mention the rare
result we had against out old muckers at Queens Park. Ninety minutes without a
goal. Thats the sort of thing a proper team does, you know. It was about this
point we stopped being embarrassed about each and every result, and thought we
might actually want to try to remember some of our games and write our own
match reports.
So there you have it. Great credit goes to the teams that we've faced in our
first few months. They deserve more of a write-up than they've received here,
with most of the teams having taught us a right good lesson in the game, but
unfortunately at the time of writing the memories and the scars have faded a
bit too much for us to give you their full dues.
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