Goal of the Season from Blackburn in easy win

Playing a morning match for the 1st time since more than 10 years ago, ARFC walloped the ST Engineering team 10-3 at Tampines SAFRA on the back of a Man-of-the-Match performance from Blackburn who scored the goal of the season so far.

As the match was played at 9 am, no WAGS were around to support this ARFC’s easy win. However, the 77,777 supporters were treated to a feast of goals from the team. The bonus was that they got to see sublime Khim play as he made a last-min appearance.

On behalf of ARFC, Sebastian officially welcomed 3 new recruits into the team – Wayne, Norman and Tze Ern.

ARFC started with this line-up:

Keeper: Talisman Derrick
Right-back: Hard-running Guoxiong
Sweeper: Towering Toh
Stopper: Wayne
Left-back: Unbeatable Darren
Right-mid: Dynamic Soon
Centre-mid: Influential Sebastian
Centre-mid: Hard-man Tjioe
Left-mid: Sublime Khim
Striker: Unpredictable Blackburn
Striker: Powerful Alvin

Subs:

Combative Ron
Tze Ern
Norman
Yeong

The ST Engineering team started well but was quickly pegged back by the irrepressible ARFC warriors with Alvin and Blackburn particularly impressive at closing down the opponents.

It was from such pressing that ARFC opened the flood-gates in the 7th min. Their keeper cleared the ball after some pressure from both Blackburn and Alvin. The ball was cleared to about 37 metres from his goal and was picked up by Tjioe. Despite being spotted drunk with 3 PRC ladies at Dragonfly just hours before the match, Tjioe showed no signed of drunkness when he side-footed the ball which sailed over their entire defence including their keeper for his 56th ARFC goal. 1-0

Immediately after his Xabi Alonso-like goal, Tjioe screamed “I want to be a Liverpool supporter from now on!”

ARFC doubled its lead moments later. Sebastian chipped in a long ball down the left flank for Alvin to latch on. Powering into the box and could have scored himself, Alvin was not selfish when he squared the ball across for Blackburn to tap in his 90th ARFC goal. 2-0

Guoxiong then exchanged one-two with Blackburn and embarked on a lung-bursting run down the right flank. His precise cross was gleefully side-footed home by Alvin for his 128th ARFC goal. 3-0

Blackburn then created another goal when his delicate chip found Khim moving in from deep. Khim got ahead of their on-rushing keeper and lifted the ball over him for his 44th ARFC goal. 4-0. However, Khim suffered a kick on his chest ala Nigel De Jong’s karate-kid kick on Xabi Alonso in the recent World Cup final, and had 3 stud marks to show his lovely wife and children at home.

ARFC then turned complacent and conceded a goal. 4-1

Soon was next to get into the scoring act when he picked up a loose ball 27 metres from goal. Looking up, Soon executed a shot that flew over their keeper for his 33rd ARFC goal. 5-1

Thereafter, Yeong replaced Alvin and staged his own hat-trick show with 3 world-class strikes that gave any keeper in the world no chance at all! These 3 goals were his 4th, 5th and 6th ARFC goal. With the hat-trick, Yeong joined a selective band of hat-trick heroes in ARFC.

Half-time 8-1

In the break, Sebastian did the craziest thing when he offered 3 power players, Norman, Tze Ern and Yeong, to the opponents as they were short of players and fitness. The gesture immediately balanced the match in the 2nd half as the opponents scored 2 more goals.

It was then that Alvin and Derrick began their “circus act” when they tried to out-do each other on entering the “Hall of Flame of Missed Chances”. Derrick had at least 3 one-on-one opportunities spurned while Alvin missed from just 0.77 metres from goal ala Yakubu in Nigeria’s match against South Korea.

Seeing the host of missed chances, Blackburn decided to show them how to score instead of his usual scolding by netting the goal of the season. From his right-back position, Blackburn brought the ball up and exchanged wall-passes with Sebastian at the centre mid area. Continuing, Blackburn then one-two with Derrick outside the penalty box, and brought the ball all the way right up to just outside the 6-yard area. Seeing the keeper off rushing out, Blackburn delivered the deftest of touches and the ball rolled past the keeper and rolled into the empty net at 7 km/hr for his 91st ARFC goal. 9-3

After seeing the goal, Derrick finally re-discovered his scoring touch when he was put through by Khim and duly planted the ball past their keeper for his 27th ARFC goal. 10-3

Once again, good turnout which was good considering the scorching sun. Also, special credit to both Derrick and Darren for volunteering to be keeper in each half.

As mentioned earlier, Man-of-the-Match is clearly Blackburn.