So on Friday night, we here at Penn’s Army reversed roles- I took over drumming duties and Jim handled flagging.  He did a decent enough job, although I’m sure my drumming annoyed some of those sitting around us.  Oddly enough, no one got up and left.  Most were embroiled in conversations about Joshua’s day camp or how Baby Hayley is teething.  Oh, and look, there’s a soccer game, too.  GO WHITE TEAM!

The Keith Moon of NPSL was in fine form Friday night

As someone said to me recently, either this league really sucks or the Stoners are a really good team.  I tend to think the latter.  Who would have imagined 8 months ago that the squad would be sitting all alone atop the NE division, having thoroughly dominated the competition in both their division and the Mid-Atlantic.  With one match remaining (@ Lancaster on the 15th), the boys will enter the playoffs with home-field advantage.  As a long-suffering Philadelphia sports fan, supporting a winning side seems a little alien to me.  I’m not sure how to react.

As for the match, for all the pre-season hype (whatever that means in NPSL) about Queen City being the ‘team to beat’, they have been anything but impressive.  They do have some players with individual talent, but as a team they were sloppy.  How they beat the A-League Rochester Rhinos, I’ll never know.  Like Buffalo, Rochester is also a strange place.  See my earlier post for some context.

As the match progressed, their frustration showed and they got pretty chippy.  The guy in the shorts on the bench, whom I think was the coach, whined to the refs all night.  It didn’t help, and in the end it was no contest – The Stoners prevailed 3-1.  Their supporters were a no-show as well, despite talk of “showing them how it’s done” on the QCFC boards.  In the end, I guess it’s a 7-hour drive to watch a losing NPSL side.  So the “O-Block” stays locked up for now.  HA!  I am so witty.

The rest of Friday evening was spent watching “Hellboy II”.  Awesome!  Go see that.