31/07/2025
Tuesday 29th July 2025
***Match report out sourced to visiting journalist Joe bloggs***
Teams
Reds. V. Yellows
Maskell. Ben
Jez. Stu
Ronny John
Ganty. Bobby
Dane. Lewis
Scoreline 30 - 15
Believe it or not this is the scoreline from a Tuesday nights vikings vets match. And not a super league game. This reporter has seen some sporting annihilations in his time but this one has taken a few days to digest. The sheer torture and humiliation inflicted on Ben Chatfield and his team has sent shockwaves throughout the 5 a side world. Never in the history of vikings vets 5 a side get togethers has the score been this wide and quite frankly humbling.
I noted a bit of tension pre match when Chatfield tried making Liam maskell wear a captain's arm band for first choice in picking teams as the previous man of the match. Everyone else was laughing it off but maskell looked disgusted and quite frankly looked as if he wanted to punch Chatfield. Upon closer inspection the arm band was branded with the badge of the biggest English side ever Manchester United and with Liam being a die hard Liverpool fan the stand off was tense.
So no uneven numbers this week 5 v 5, the match kicked off with the usual 1 or 2 touch passing. Great movement. But no goal in the first 3 minutes which is very unheard of!! but this was the calm before the storm. The yellow team burst into life with 3 quick fire goals to storm ahead into a 3-0 lead. But with the experience of Jez Hartley and Liam maskell back on the same side the reds rallied to grab a goal back and from there the match took an almighty turn. After the first ever yellow card for ronnie Russell for a disgraceful deliberate handball to stop an attack developing for the opposition, The yellows looked to have gassed out and the quick passing of lee Gant, Ronnie Russell and the evergreen Dane Morgan started to put the yellows to the sword. Despite some great link up play between bobby hartley Stuart Johnson and Lewis Seymour. Chatfield missed some absolute sitters and drew good saves from the man mountain Lee Gant. Due to the missed chances by the yellows and the prolific mood of maskell, Russell and Hartley the red team roared away to open up a scoreline of 17-8 by half time, which could have been a lot worse but for some solid defending from John watts and some saves from Chatfield when in goal.
So half time and the yellows frantically taking on board water and words of encouragement from Stuart Johnson fresh from his holiday in turkey to celebrate hitting the big 40!! The words where stern and Chatfield was reminded that he needs to step it up in the second half along with his team mates if this game was to get any better. The second half started like the first and the yellows struck first with some neat determined play from Chatfield and Johnson who combined with Seymour and bobby to add 3 goals. Was the comeback on the yellows had hit double figures but this was a false dawn. The reds took the initiative once again and started to slam in goals at an alarming rate once more with Russell, Hartley and maskell the most prolific this editor could not keep up with the tallys of each player.
But the clicker in the red goal looked to be glowing hot. It started to get silly. Chatfield was throwing the excuses out and kept mentioning he had just completed his 5th consecutive 12 hour shift at work. Falling on deaf ears, nobody cares for his excuses and moaning. Seymour commenting he needs to concentrate more on scoring and not polls and stats. Maskell joining in aswell in the ribbing but all in good humour. You can clearly see this vikings vets lot and guests are obviously mostly of a mature age, some slightly out of shape, lacking in cardio endurance. But the quality of play and camaraderie is still there. Special mention to Dane Morgan for an audacious attempt at a side on bicycle kick after a lofted ball over the top. The poise and technique was there and the whole field held it's breath as the ball looked to be dropping perfectly onto the right peg of Morgan. But he had misjudged the flight and completely missed the ball and landed heavily on the surface. Roars of laughter erupted and Dane went as red as his Bib.
This experienced journalist Joe bloggs has watched some of this lot play since the mid 90s when I inexplicably threw a ball at a fat spotty referee at one match, Or that's what the ref thought. It was actually Liam Maskell and I took the blame so he would avoid a definite red card. The dark arts are still amongst this lot of Scandinavian hoodlum vikings. I will be back down on Saturday 30th August for the inaugural hessle vikings fundraising tournament.
Until then I hope the lads enjoyed there after game drinks of moretti. And to remind you the final score was 30! V 15 unbelievable Geoff!
Next fixture is Tuesday 12th August 2025
Joe Bloggs
