Mark Quinn's Blog

Well I have said if I have the time I would write my blog, bearing in mind I won’t be able to do this every week but if it’s an interesting week i'll try my best. This week certainly was interesting as it was the biggest p.p.v weekend in 5starsports history. Although I didn’t play on Friday I was heavily involved on Sunday...
Sunday morning I was having a kick around in a park with a few people and I received a text from Terry of City Rejects. I had told him some time ago that now I don’t have a club I would happily help him out if he was ever short of players. He told me of the times and I said I’d be there, it seems I’ve gone full circle since season 04 and have returned home to the club I was probably most happy at on a Sunday. I have reminisced about how good a season we had in season 04 which we only lost 2 league games but still couldn’t topple the Old Boys. The majority of the old players are still there so I was looking forward to the games. I also had 2 games for GSH and one of them was a big cup semi final so I had my work cut out.
For Rejects there were two tasty fixtures, first up we had Cov Legion. Legion had just run N.Enough very close in a game and only just lost 4-3. Rejects were missing Macca, Gaz, Sam and Moggi. The omens didn’t seem good. With Rob and Jase being very attack minded and only Danny to sit at the back I was asked to play defense, I said yes but was a bit worried about remembering to stay there! This game went totally against expectations and we ran out 6-0 winners, keeping a clean sheet is hard but when you’re facing the likes of Peden etc it’s even harder. Rob was in fantastic form as was Jase, it was a formidable strike force. Myself and Danny just sat back and soaked up pressure whilst keeping it simple. Rob I think got 2 goals, Jase got 2, I got 1 and Danny got 1. Everyone managed to score bar the keeper so it was a real fantastic team performance. On a sadder note at some point during the match I had a shot and it was closed down by one of the Legion players and he immediately went down in pain, I couldn’t work out what had occurred but it was obvious he had hurt his hand. He couldn’t play on and left the field. I’m told he has apparently broken his hand in 4 places, although the ball is what hit him and it’s an unfortunate accident I can’t help but feel guilty so I whole heartedly apologies’ and wish him the best of luck. Hope to see him back soon.
After this match it was a case of watching Never Enough vs Allstars. Rejects needed an Allstars win and for the majority of the game it looked like this would be the case, Allstars held a 2 goal lead for the majority of the game, the funniest thing of the night was when Hamed scored for Allstars and went mental, nearly knocking himself out by running backwards into the wall… hilarious! Anyway all Allstars had to do at this point was slow the game down and kill it off, I was saying to Terry on the balcony they were not doing this and they kept going on the attack. They did it 3 times and 3 times it cost them a goal, it was just schoolboy errors and this cost them the title. In the end they lost 5-4 and handed the title to N.Enough. Congratulations to them for back to back league titles.
Our next match was against the Pudlians and it was a cup semi final first leg. I expected a physical encounter as that’s how these boys play. I knew I had to try and match that and again as I was playing in defense I had to shield the ball often. Again this was a brilliant game to be a part of, it was wave after
wave of attacks at both ends and for the majority of the match it was played really fairly and in a great manner. Now let’s bring me to the talking points, I’m not a dirty player in any shape or form, I’ll never go out to hurt anybody and I play the game fairly. During the game I had to shield the ball and at times when going shoulder to shoulder with players I’ve had to give a little nudge and get myself between them and the ball. This is something I have added to my game as I had been a little lightweight, in the majority of games I have had players shoulder barge me and put me on my arse in games, even in this match I had one of their players being overly physical but I was ok with that. What went down in the final 5 minutes of this game ruined it. Firstly I went shoulders with Dec and got the ball, this was right by the pull out seating and he blatantly went through my shoulders and put me into the seating, had I not put my hands up I could have had a nasty injury. A few minutes later I was going past Daz and he just clawed at me which bought me down. Both players were sin binned. Now I have nothing against the Pudlians, for one they are massive Liverpool fans as am I. I could not hate fellow “Pudlians”. I’m disappointed with it as I always say hello to them when I see them too. As I said ill only play fair and give what I get. I’m hoping this won’t be an issue between us and that it can be forgotten. I hold no grudges and just hope it isn’t going to be a case of kick Quinny in our next game. So yeah I offer an olive branch to these guys…
Straight after this game I had a league game for GSH, in all fairness I was fooked and told Dennis id come on if it was necessary, I managed 4-5 minutes but needed a breather before the “bigger” game in our later semi final. Unfortunately GSH lost 5-2 to Butterbean but are looking like they are getting to grips with the big pitch which is fantastic.
So onto our big semi final, again I started on the bench which I don’t mind too much as I’m not playing as well as I could for GSH currently, with Hayden and the others on the pitch they had the potential to score especially against an out of sorts keeper in Chris. I’m not going to lie to you, this was a SNOOZEFEST! The game never really got going, the flair players including myself never stepped up and made much of an impact on the game. I beat players a few times but Chris shut me out 3 times with good saves, my passing was accurate but I didn’t perform brilliantly. Maybe the fact id played most the day was having an adverse effect. Thank God we had Mark in our team, he was the match winner with 2 goals which won us the game. This was a game on a knife edge and was at 1-1 for a period of time, had Nick Janda had his shooting boots on the Barnets could have went through, with that said some questionable substitutions were taking place, Johnny Wilkinson who looked the only real goal threat on the night was kept on the bench for periods of the game when it was calling for an out and out striker. Unlucky on the Barnets, on that performance neither we nor they deserved to go through but on the night it was us. My message to Luke Maslin is “see you there, GSH are gunning for you”

The Grapevine

Excelsior look to Part Company with their manager and heart and soul of the team Gavin Lee, the rumor is that Danny Bell is looking to step in as manager, certainly a combustible management set up! The rumors of Never Enough folding are still circling, Matty Gee looks to step down which will leave 4-5 outstanding players needing clubs, with Danny T rumored to be heading Rejects way the other clubs better step up the chase for the others much quicker. Cov Rangers are being banded around in media circles as a team which will reform next season. As a former player I can neither confirm nor unconfirm the rumor but I do know Mr. Pickup is looking into a few things.