Malcolm Baggio has been suffering from a nasty case of Football flu and his doctor has prescribed a course of news tablets. After skiving off work to catch up on events at Raydon Atheltic, here he is now feeling much better with a Ramblings stool sample for you to rummage through in order to guage the health of your favourite local football club.

Players and staff at Raydon Athletic have recently been doing their bit for aspiring young footballers in the community by launching a coaching course for 7-15 year olds. Participating youngsters will enjoy two days training with their favourite Raydon stars as well as experience a 15-minute tour of the Clockton Park facilities, all for just £80*.

Over 8 youngsters** have taken up the offer and will undergo their training during the first week of the Christmas holidays. Lionel Stubbs, Raydon’s recently appointed Community Youth Liaison Officer, a role he carries out along with his duties as club Chairman, Physio, Secretary and Groundsman, said, “We thought it was about time that we put something back in the community. We want to get the kids out of the schools off the streets and and onto the football pitch. We instill discipline and hard work, mixed with a healthy social drinking ethos which can only be good for the community.” Manager Roland Peters added, “Kids shouldn’t be out there during the holidays all hours god sends, vandalising old ladies, pissing on cats and swearing like arseholes. They should be playing football if they’re any good.”

Raydon hope that more youngsters will subscribe to the event and that it will attract many of the Raydon players of yester-morrow. “We will certainly be keeping our eye on the decent players and monitor their footballing progress with a fine toothpick,” said Peters in a prepared statement. “We don’t want to let any potential Raydon stars of the future slip through our thighs. That’s our main aim at Raydon. There’s a goldmine of talent out there just waiting to be picked off like wildebeest by a hungry lion. They’re the wilderbeest and we’re the hungry lion and when we’ve pinpointed the juciest, tastiest wilderbeests and isolated them from the rest of the herd, we’ll devour every last drop of footballing talent from their soul and then bask in the hot African sunshine that is Clockton Park.”

Raydon had a three week spell without a competitive fixture during November. The away match against Belstead St Germaine was called off due to an infestation of badgers on the Belstead pitch whilst the game at Tattingstone Argyle was postponed after a 40-megton trace of plutonium was spotted in the local reservoir and the village had to be slightly evacuated. Athletic therefore arranged a friendly against Framlingham Ham United which also gave Roland Peters the chance to check out a trialist who he stumbled across whilst browsing the internet. He entered the phrase “decent available footballers in Suffolk” into his Google search engine and it produced one match: the personal website of 40-year-old defender Timmy Grimeswold.

The website bragged that Grimeswold “caresses the ball around like a sensuous lover caressing some genitals.” Attracted by this promise, Peters was swift to email Grimeswold and invite him to play in the Framlingham friendly, an invitation which Grimeswold accepted. Noticing that his website had chalked up over 8 million hits***, Peters made the friendly a closed doors affair to avoid other managers coming along and swiping him from under his chin.

I was privileged to be only journalist allowed to witness a spectacular performance from Raydon. Trialist Grimeswold had an eventful opening minute. He played a simply stunning 100-yard diagonal ball from one corner of the pitch to the other, which Saul Quan latched onto and fired into the side-netting. Unfortunately his game was cut short after just 40 seconds when, unchallenged and 50-yards from play, he somehow fell awkwardly and jarred his upper body. However, Raydon did not let this dampen their performance as they pulverised Framlingham's defence with wave after wave after wave after wave after wave after wave of attacks during the first half. Framlingham took the lead just before half time when a defender nodded home from a corner.

Raydon upped the bombardment after the break and, with glorious delicacy, beautifully shoe-horned home nine pure goals of effortless simplicity to win 9-1. McManahammond (4), Mnunga, Mackinackie (2), Davonhaddock and Kilkorkey were the scorers. Andy Slipper also got on the scoresheet but for all the wrong reasons as his header was ruled offside by the linesman's assistant’s colleague.

There was some additional entertainment in the form of a naked 80-year old streaker who hobbled onto the pitch mid-way through the second half. Believing her to be an attention seeking troublemaker or maybe a fathers-for-justice campaigner, Lionel Stubbs ran on to the pitch and rugby tackled her to the ground, the old lady making no attempt to run away or offer any resistance. Seconds later two nurses from the local old people's home appeared on the scene. The old lady had gone walkabout from the home and had aimlessly wandered onto the Raydon pitch. Stubbs' un-necessary and over-the-top restraint resulted in the lady breaking both her hips and ankles and suffering concussion from the septum down. She was ambulanced to hospital after Stubbs had taken advantage of her dazed and confused state by paying her £50 from his multi-million pound fortune and making her sign an agreement not to press charges.

The incident meant that Raydon became the first ever club to have a streaker at a behind-closed-doors match. To mark this milestole the league organisiers have arranged a massive but brief ceremony in the Midlands at which Raydon will be presented with a hand carved marble plinth by a Harold Faltermayer imporsonator.

Raydon Athletic 9-1 Framlingham Ham United

Player Ratings

1) Ian Buffalo (6)
One armed wonder. Silenced his critic.

2) Timmy Grimeswold (9) (Off injured after 40 seconds)
Oozed aplomb from every orifice before succombing to injury after 40 seconds

3) Mansley Kilkorkey (8)
Look up Raydon Athletic Football Club in the dictionary and you’ll see a picture of this big-hearted lummox.

4) Saul Quan (7)
His presence added to the overall football vibe.

5) Buster Davonhaddock (7)
A mixture of sexy footall and mad violence from this gentle-giant-cum psycopath.

6) Derek Diffydale (4)
The tangerine shirt is like a second skin to him

7) Sid Chopper (6)
Manager Peters was right not to “chop” Sid from the team. Top marks for “The Choppmeister”

8) Fitzroy Fitzphillips (7)
Some nice kicks.

9) Dougie McManahammond (7)
Graced turf.

10) George Mnunga (8)
Slinky

11) Dave Mackinackie (6)
Drifted in an out of the game like a ghost haunting an ancient Roman Castle. Spooky stuff from big Mac.

Subs

12) Jason Gooseflesh (goalkeeper - unused)
Despite his being unused, contributed to the Raydon cause with a relentless barrage of expletives directed at the referee throughout the entire 90 minutes.

13) Jack Funtingdale (on for Saul Quan, 74 minutes) (5)
Acquitted self well but played badly. Needs to complete a pass to restore his confidence.

14) Les Candlestick (on for Dave Mackinackie, 90 minutes) (6)
Up and down performance for the last 45 seconds of the game.

15) Andy Slipper (on for Timmy Grimeswold, 40 seconds) (7)

No “Slips” from this “Andy” player.

What they said:

Roland Peters: “It was obviously a real chokener to lose the lad Grimeswold after only a few seconds but the pass he played to Quan was the best pass I’ve ever seen at any level in any sport. We’ll sign him up pro-haste and he’ll be the first name on the team sheet – in fact I’ve already asked Stubbsy to type up some new team sheets with his name already on there. Course he’ll be out for the next month after his injury today so I’ve had to ask Stubbsy to get some tipp-ex as well”

Timmy Grimeswold: “I’ve been told by my doctor to lay off any form of activity for the next month. Despite the injury – and believe me I am in absolute bloody agony - this has been the best day of my life and I can’t wait to get back out there with the lads.”

Lionel Stubbs: “I’ve always been a great believer in the adage that if you win every game you’ll be there or thereabouts at the end of the season. That logic applied more today than ever, even though it was just a friendly.”

Buster Davonhaddock: “I’m not kidding, if we keep playing like that we’ll be in the premiership within three years.”

>George Mnunga: “If you took every performance and plotted them on a graph, you’d soon see what we’re about.”

Cecil Abromavic (Framlingham Ham United manager): “It was a game of two halves and we were shit in both of them. If we had taken all our chances we’d have scored three or four. Having said that if Raydon had taken theirs we’d have lost 52-4. As it happened Raydon took nine of theirs and we took one of ours and we lost 9-1 so our ratio of goals to chances was much better than theirs. If it was all about ratios, we’d have run out easy winners today. However, I’ve always said it’s about goals and the one thing you don’t do at this level is concede goals and not score enough goals to exceed the amount scored by your opponent and that’s what we did today.”p>

* £90 for particularly poor players

** 9 to be exact

*** Grimeswold has since admitted that over 7,999,500 of the hits were by either him or his relatives****

**** He has no relatives

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