8 Players, 2 Own Goals, The Way Shong Jersey Returns, Free Tacos…#SummerLeague

The breeze was glorious. The temperature was fruitful. The sun was nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, most of the Cameron Road United squad was also nowhere to be found as only 8 lonely Honey Badgers were available for the first round of summer ball. No worries, at least everyone had plenty of time on the pitch, plenty of chances to showcase their talents, and plenty of looks at an opponent that wasn’t in Over 30 Premier.

The few, the proud, the Honey Badgers present were: Jefe, Ciro, Derek, Big Dave, Gigi, Jaybone, New Chris and the old bald guy.

Cameron Road tried to strike first blood as Jefe danced down the right side and fired off a long shot that wasn’t far off the mark. But before the first water break, Cameron Road found themselves down half a six-pack of goals, but panic was not an option. Deportivo naturally had a lot of time inside the Cameron Road half, and they popped off some pretty good shots against the 7 outfield players who were trying to cover a lot of ground.

Things settled down though after the break, with Cameron Road catching Deportivo on the break a few times, and the Honey Badgers started to settle into their strange, less-than-ideal lineup.

But with 3 minutes left in the half, the Honey Badgers struck back!! Jaybone let loose a monster punt which Derek gathered on the cutback stumps and slid the ball over to Ciro, who did something very strange…. he completely missed the keeper with his shot. I mean, the ball did manage to hit a defender and the crossbar before going into the back of the net, but we’ll consider that progress. When asked about his new revolutionary shooting technique, Ciro responded that it was all down to his new headband technology, which allowed his eyes to be sweat-free for a clear survey of the entire shooting area.

3-1 at the half and Ciro is back in the Golden Boot mix.

For the second half, Deportivo wasn’t bothering pressing up the pitch with their defense, so Cameron Road actually rode waves of possession and deep counterattacks with Derek, Ciro and Gigi pressing the issue.

At the back end though, CRU found themselves unlucky with a pair of own-goals, but they were quite spectacular in nature.

With about 20 minutes to go, Cameron Road found an unlikely ally as Kevin from Austin Athletic showed up early for this game and kindly squeezed into Way Shong’s old #20 XXXS jersey and checked off one of the items on his bucket list.

The Honey Badger’s final piece of glory came from a tried-and-true recipe. No, not Luke’s Grandmother’s biscuits, but rather a cross to Chappy’s head. Cameron Road won a free kick 25 yards out on left side of Deportivo’s box. Big Dave thumped a cross to the far post where the Bald Dome of Power was waiting with a low dive to grab the Honey Badger’s second goal of the game.

Two goals! One in each half! That hasn’t happened for many moons. Despite the lack of numbers, a jolly good time was had by all and the fact that there wasn’t an Over 30 Premier team on the other side of the pitch was a welcome sight.

Hopefully this was the lowest turnout of the summer season and Badger Town will be back to a hive of bustling, beer-drinking, ice-dumping, hamburger-shinguard wearing activity in the near future.

Men-of-the-Match: The 8 who showed up.