It was fairly awful. Endless pushing and shoving. Ankle taps, elbowing, and the long balls up the pitch. And a ref who really couldn’t grasp that this was not how football was supposed to be.
Yup – the Hoofs (also known as as Liverpool FC) were back in town for another boring, horrible exposition of something that got them a point, but had nothing much to do with football.
What was particularly amazing was the fact the fact that Hoof FC not only do play the long ball game popularised by Wimbledon FC in the 20th century, they now also play the time-wasting game that was brought to the game by Bolton Wanderers FC and Blackburn Rovers FC. Here we see the goalkeeper pick up the ball at one side of the goal, look carefully around as if seeing the box for the first time, consider the issues, and then slowly walk across the penalty area to the far side, carefully placing the ball, before walking back, looking around, waiting for the ref to insist that he should speed up, and then eventually kick the ball back into play.
That’s how it goes – before he hoofs it up the pitch.
Arsenal v The Hoof last saturday was terrible – but the fact remains one team wanted to play, and the other had no intention of letting any football emerge.
