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Misato, Sunday 22nd April. Bob Dylan once sang, "The answers my friend, are blowing in the wind." Well, it was mainly plastic bags and sand that were blowing in Misato on Sunday as Shane FC took on Armanis for a place in the final of the Footy Japan Plate.
The teams took to the field in what footy parlance would be referred to as 'blustery conditions'. Indeed, straight from the kick-off, Armanis rather wisely adopted the Pele tactic of blasting the ball from the half way line, causing no end of problems for the Shane defence. And Shane's inablity to defend in anything other than a style reminiscent of a scene from Benny Hill led directly to Armanis taking an early two goal lead, as firstly a forward was left completely open at the back post, and then a long through ball was missed entirely, allowing Armanis' pacy forward to score with an excellently placed shot.
But normality eventually resumed in the Shane defence, and the skilful running of Satoshi coupled with Ichiro's Roberto Carlos style sojourns from left back saw the Grammarians claw themselves back into the game, with Satoshi twisting past a couple defenders to score two remarkably similar goals to make it 2-2.
At which point, Shane promptly imploded yet again, showing alarming inability to deal with the Lawrence Of Arabia style conditions, as Armanis picked up a loose ball from under the legs of a camel to take a 3-2 lead, though that shouldn't take away from what was another excellent finish, leaving this correspondent no chance.
But conditions were bad for both teams, and the wind caused havoc in the Armanis box, when a defender unluckily swung a boot at a Tom Beakes cross, giving his own keeper no chance.
 The second half saw the polar opposite, with Shane FC dominating possession, and forcing Armanis's influential number 10, Jorge, to drop deep into his own defence. Satoshi's running and close control eventually saw Shane take a deserved 4-3 lead, and Mitchell was on hand to bury an open goal after Satoshi (who else?) had hit the post to complete the scoring. Satoshi was going to be allowed to keep the match ball after his hat-trick, but Shane had to rely on a student to buy them a ball, and clearly it was going nowhere.
With Armanis pushing their full-backs into midfield in an attempt to get back into the game, Shane contrived to miss some easy chances, and Armanis's over-worked goalkeeper pulled of a couple of terrific stops before the game came to an end, with Shane probably deserving of going though to the final.
Report by Aiden Wylie
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