News

ISS ON THE VERGE OF GREATNESS…
NO NOT STAYING UP BUT GOING UP AS CHAMPIONS :-O

9:10am 29/04/10

COME ON ISS:

Hi ISS Readers, sufferers, Fans, supporters, groupies - Erh Sorry ladies getting carried away there :. The words of the above title is TRUE I kid you NOT, as I'm not ready to give you kids (where the hell did that comment come from?!), ISS have been on a 12 (TWELVE) GAME League unbeaten run since after Thursday 22nd October 2009. With 9 Wins 3 draws, usually in the past I'll be talking about un-winning runs and in house fighting etc etc. They are now Top by 1pt ahead of 2nd place Dover Castle after winning their 2nd to last match 2-0 at home to Prince Edward with a solid performance and 3rd clean sheet shut out since 24th September 2009.

ISS have cemented a guaranteed 2nd place Promotion (if Niyi - ISS Manager decides to take that offer if we don't finish as champions) and have now set up a GRAND FINALE Finish with ISS Final match against 2nd team Dover Castle in a Winner takes all Match on Wednesday 5th May 2010 8pm Kick-up. ISS win this match they become champions with an unattainable 4pt lead regardless of what Dover Castle do in their final game the following Week. But it should also be noted that Dover Castle have a awkward tough last match against I.D.S who have not lost a match by more than two clear goals. Hence a draw won't be a bad result for ISS, but then winning the championship would be out of ISS hands :-O.

So Yes Long suffering ISS Fans is ISS finally going to bring Home the bacon & not possible relegation? Is Niyi going to out Do his mentor AW (Arsene Wenger) and delivery a trophy to a very Dusty ISS trophy Cabinet? We have to wait and see.

Next week's match will be Blood, Guts & possible Tears (depending on how much a man or woman you are!) and every ISS player must Stand up and be accountable for the match against Dover Castle…I call out as a rally cry to all ISS Players, past and present and readers etc to attend the match next week (details below)

Venue:- Market Road Football Pitches, Market Road N7 9PL
Time: - 8pm Kick off
Date:- Wednesday 5th May 2010
Reason/s:- ISS Needs YOU! (Yes YOU!)

Whatever happens it will be a major milestone for ISS and God willing if the Squad can stay together then without doubt it will get Stronger.

Written by
KELECHI NWACHUKU AKA THE MIGHTY APOCALYPSE
Edited by
NIYI AJAYI

News Finished time - 10:21am
Total Draft Time - 1hr 11mnins
Press Release to Niyi - 10:25am Thursday 29th April 2010.

ISS NEWS WRITER IS BACK LIKE
SOL CAMPBELL, BUT IS THAT GOOD
NEWS OR BAD NEWS!

12:15am 19/02/10

It has been while since there has been any ISS News a bit like back in the Day when you had the evening FREE Paper of 'LITE' & 'The London Paper' that have now gone bust and with 'The Evening Standard' now free, who would have imagine it. But rest assured ISS (Islington shooting stars - For those who don't know, shame on you, you don't know who we are? Well you soon will) have not gone Bust or Bankrupted, but as usual no news is good news when you are dealing with ISS :-)

LOOKING BACK - CATCH-UP:

ISS had their Annual XMAS football Do activities last year (D-err can't be in the future) with the usual Nandos (chicken restaurant) meal GONE IN 60secs, by the craven-raven-vulture ISS Players…When it comes to food they definitely "Show No Mercy" …Do that in the league and ISS would be champions easy.

The usual Ten Pin Bowling was won by Mat aka Danny Mills lookalike but 10 times a better player :-). Who now holds the ISS Ten Pin bowling crown/Title, but I swear I see him play on sky sports 3/extra when they show professional Ten Pin Bowling. Or watching all those Flintstones episodes have really paid off…Talking about Fred Flintstone, Niyi (ISS Manager) wanted everyone to do a funky Dance Move towards the bowling alley before doing their bowl…There was many a Moonwalk; funky chicken; shaking Steven; Fred Flintstone tip-toe bowling move. But some continued such moves when they actually bowled with many a STOMP move and many thought they were suppose to gutter out the Drains - ROLLING (That is me while writing, Slang for too funny, LOL - Laugh out loud) , pardon the PUN :-). But in all, an enjoyable night out of camaraderie.

TO DATE:

Training is once every two weeks with more players available for selection on match day. This leaves with healthy competition within the ranks.

Like SAF (Sir Alex Ferguson) Niyi has brought back an assistant in John-B, who has been with ISS before but took a break away ISS like the Portuguese Assistant (Carlos Queiroz) that SAF brought back and WON the Double for MANU clean. Let's hope this move will rub off on ISS this Season. But so far training has been vibrant and positive. No Man can do it alone (depending what you are doing :-O) and the combination is working well.

MATCHES:

At the time of this news release ISS have only lost two games in the league and are now Top playing two games more than their nearest rivals after the 4-1 (ISS must have recorded the most times being caught offside ever) win against Edexcel on Thursday 18th February 2010 (is it just me but putting 10 instead of 2010, looks wrong!) and in the league ISS are unbeaten in 6 games since October 2009.

Unfortunately ISS have been unlucky in the cup losing on sudden death penalties in their last cup game. And who missed the decisive penalty for ISS??? Who's that Guy again who writes the ISS NEWS??? Damn my mind fails me now, damn writers BLOCK can strike at anytime, even when writing :-O (open mouthed) it will come back to me as in NEVER!...But word in the ISS dressing room state that Mat-Voodoo-Motondo, said that person will hit the crossbar before taking the sudden death penalty…AND OMG (Oh my Gosh…For those who are not on an Online Chat site or facebook/twitter - Social network site TIP) the player hit the bar and is still baffled till this day…Not knowing the indirect curse placed by Mat-Voodoo-Motondo LOL.

ISS have some tough games coming up that will make or break their season and with the big freeze over December 09 & Jan 2010 (Still can't put Jan 10!) there are still many games left before the season ends and titles are decided!

INJURIES:

Zenon got badly injured (11th Feb 2010) in the 2-1 Win against IDS damaged ankle…It is reported he might be out for 6weeks :-(. ISS wish him a speedy recovery. As for Tunde he is always bloody injured…Hence why Niyi has put him on a pay as you play contract. But he should be available for the next game.

Written by

KELECHI NWACHUKU AKA THE MIGHTY APOCALYPSE

Edited by
NIYI AJAYI

News Finished time - 1:50am
Total Draft Time - 1hr 35mnins
Press Release to Niyi - 12:30pm Friday 19th February 2010.

Finally the season is over and I am sitting here thinking about how I am going to start the end of season news - the reason being, there's a lot for me to cover and I am looking for the best way to lay everything bare for you guys, so you can appreciate all the agonies, joy, cries, laughers, pains, reliefs (to mention a few) that we went through throughout another adventurous season at ISS. Please check "match reports" for more details.

EVENING OUT WITH THE BOYS

The whole squad had an evening out on the 3rd of June, for some Nandos and Bowling. It was a night to show off some our wonderful table manners (as if to say we had any!) and great bowling styles on display - needless to say, both went down a treat! The plan was to meet at Nandos at 7pm and head off to bowling at around 20mins to 9pm (bowling slot was booked for 9pm). I (as usual) sent a reminder text, asking everyone to be at Nandos by 6.50pm.

I was few seconds from Nandos, when I got a call from Luca asking me where I was?, I told him I will be there in a sec - I arrived to see him and Conrad……… Where is everybody? They asked me, I told them 'don't have a clue' - while we were sitting having a chat, in came Alex (the teacher), not long after Bob strolled in. After about a 15mins wait, we started giving people a call to check where they were and the response varied from "Am on the way…. I lost my bike's lock" to "am just a sec away", meanwhile, I was trying to keep the increasingly moaning Alex in check (as he wanted to leave early).

We finally made the order, 30mins after arrival! We ordered three 'jumbo platters' for about 15 of us - I think seeing the location we were seated was too small for us and how noisy we were becoming, the manager decided to move us inside where there was more room. Not long after we settled down at our new location, the first of the three platters arrived and it was duly high-jacked by one end of the table and the items on the tray were vanishing rapidly. As soon as the same guys at the end of the table where the first tray went saw it coming, they wanted it to come to their side of the table, I had to quickly step in, as I was starting to starve at this time……….lol

The third tray came later, by that time everyone was busy stuffing their face! If you don't know what a Nandos' jumbo platter contains, let me explain: five larger portion of chips, two whole chickens and five fino side, In addition to that I ordered some extras: rice and some corns on cob. Never have I seen something consumed so rapidly, the whole thing went within a blink of an eye! I was still battling with my piece of chicken, while others are busy passing 'refills' to each other over my head………… well, they are still growing, what else can I expect - At that point in time, all I was thinking of is about the amount of food I will have to make available at my BBQ to which they've all been invited.

At around 8.35pm, we started off to the bowling centre - a long slow walk (it was only about 5mins away, but it took 15mins!). At the bowling place everyone was going to play except for me (I can't just do it! I've tried but the bloody thing never seems to want to go straight!).

The bowling was as fun as the Nandos; we did one game of 8 people but a 'last minute dot com' Zenon, who was busy on the phone during payment and in the process missed out...but the kindness by Mat (a.k.a "I-Have-More-Tops-than-underwear") allowed the young Zenon a couple of goes. The bowling match was always going to be an interesting one as only Kelechi (ex ISS Player) was the only one with bowling experience. The match itself was started off by Max with a strike! He did a few dance moves and started running his mouth at the rest of his competitors - (as they say "pride comes before a fall), needless to say that was the highlight of his evening; he knocked a few over, but many of his shots ended up in the gutter to his frustration

There were loads of gamesmanship and football/bowling banter which was started by max who was trying to put-off Kelechi, as he was starting to run away with the lead. During bowling some players were gutted for constantly throwing into the gutter. But I swear mans like Tarzan (more like Mowgli in the jungle book) were lean-off which also cause their bowling to be lean LOL. It was a close game with almost everyone getting a strike except for the original LONG Kelechi; who eventually narrowly won the match but was fuming and hanging his head in shame because he was the only one without any strikes, really the combination of Mat and Zenon should have won. But at the end of the day it was not about who won or lost but a fresh team bonding before pre-season to encourage future events

A BREAK

The players are now going to hang their smelly boots for one Month and rest their lazy asses, before coming back for pre-season training on the 1st of July. For me, the battle has just started; it is usually during this time of the year that I start my fundraising for the club - trust me, writing letters to potential funders and reports for existing funders is not as easy as you think. But some has to do it!........... WHEW! I had to get that off my chest!........LOL

Now back to the beginning of the season. If I was to put the season on a chart; you will notice more lows the peaks at the beginning, but the ending with more peaks - if we were on the stock market, our shares would have risen and we would be towards the top of the FTSE100; all we get is the encouragement that we can do better if we continue the hard work next season, something all the boys seems to be looking forward to, even those of them who are going to university outside of London.

The lows we experienced at the beginning of the season were due to a number of things:

Firstly, we had no goal keeper - so we were shifting silly goals, to counter this problem in the beginning I tried 'speeching' a few of the boys, but this tactics didn't last long as their obvious lack of skill in that area began to show and team mates were less sympathetic and sometimes unforgiving. So I resulted in to bullying them in to doing it for the team (I must say, I am not proud to admit this, but you have to understand that a manager needs to develop and use certain skills, even if they don't like it….. all for the sake of the team), this tactics didn't work for long. So I tried blackmailing, this worked a treat! For a few games there was little or no complaint from those who were asked when this started to lose its power. I played 'smart', this is just me pretending everything was ok before the match and at the very less minute asked one of the substitutes to go in goal as……. Black black sheep, blah blah!……………., I have to admit, this tactics weren't pleasant, but it got the job done!

All these sins came to an end when two friends (Conrad and Tom) who have been coming to our training sessions for a few weeks, while trying to get them to register (as they were thinking of joining a five a side team…… booo!) we mentioned not having a keeper and so casually they replied that they know one who they will bring to the next training; like a bunch of hungry wolves they were immediately swamped by the whole team, although they (Conrad and Tom) were trying to warn us that their friend was not the best, no one cared, all we needed was someone in goal! So that's how Bob Sutton came in to our lives. Bob did have a shaky start, but he was improving each game and our result was getting better. I have to say, Bob is like Fabianski (Arsenal's second choice goal keeper); full of potential and prone to errors, but we still love him like that!.....

Secondly, lack of new blood, don't get scared we are no vampires - when I say "new blood", I am talking about new players. Too many old dogs in the team and their influence was becoming more destructive for the team, they will argue, won't listen, do their own thing on the pitch…………. To deal with this, I used my frustration tactics…… lol with injury helping me to get rid of some, I myself having to ask others not to show their face anymore and coupled with new in flock of good players, we were able to move on in a more positive direction.

The attitude of the squad changed almost immediately and so did our performances both on the training pitch and league matches. The only problem is that I need to learn a few more languages grrrrrrrrr! All these French speaking Africans and white Europeans! Damn! My lessons bill is going to be sooooo high! I can now feel what all the Chelsea's Managers have always felt….lol

GOOD BYES

Tom and Bob (aka Fabianski) are going to university in Liverpool, and Bob told me that it's on "Bosman's!" Anyways, they are both going to remain registered members of the club, also Bob has already secured his replacement for us, I just hope his replacement is more of a Lenman than an Almunia!

Also the one and only "Left Peg" (after the spurs player Darren Anderton), "white boy" as I always called him Jonathan Ackroyd is hanging up his boots. Jo as he is known as, has been playing for ISS for over 10 years; his many years of service Jo gave everything towards the course, broken leg, broken nose, concussion, back injury to name a few! Over the past four years Jo travels all the way from Waltham Cross in order to train and have had to spend most Saturdays (when we were playing Saturday football) with the team and when we returned to Midweek football, he was always there. His decision to hang up his boots came with my full blessing; he will now have more time for his wife, 2 and half years old son and the new member due any time now. Also I am getting tired of visiting hospitals…………lol (joking)

SUMMER TIME!

We are going to start our pre-season training on Wednesday the 1st of July at Finsbury Park (see "grounds" link on the left hand side of this page), in the park itself; training will start at 7pm, but we will meet 6.45pm. We will be training at the park up until the last Wednesday in August, or until early September when we will need to tire reflectors to the balls in order to be able to see them (only joking!). By September (funds willing) we will resume our training at Whittington Park (see "grounds" link on the left hand side of this page).

Written by Niyi Ajayi

Stars' title ambition still on sight

Welcome to another news section - as long-suffering Readers; you would have realised that our news section is produced periodically. It's a shame that there is no particular person for me to nag in to submission - after the man with many names: Mighty Apocalypse, Long-ting (to mention a few), has decided to hang up his boots after many Years of total commitment to ISS's rollercoaster adventure.

To be honest, it was very difficult for me to accept his (Kelechi) rather premature retirement, even though he has been a shadow of himself in the last few seasons. Not having him around was too difficult for me to comprehend - imagine? I would have to find a new name/person to pick on when the defence is messing up………lol. On a more serious note, he is looking much better, after his retirement, unlike mans like Paul Mason (ex Gunners star) - he no longer has the look of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film 'Junior', instead he is looking more fitter than when he was actually playing for us…. Now, I hope that is not trying to tell me how sh*tty ISS is. That concludes my two paragraphs dedicated to one of our most dedicated and interesting characters…….. We all wish him all the best with the 'D.Jing' venture!

Now back to the STARS. This season started in the typical 'Shooting Stars' way; we started preseason training in July instead of June, played one preseason match instead of four, just managed to get 12 players to sort out their registration forms few days before the first league match and……….. oh, to top it all up; we didn't have a keeper, so I spent most of the Summer trying to convince a very unfit player that he will make a good Goal Keeper! we lost our first league match 0 -1; in a game in which we kept creating chances and our strikers keep on missing, they had one chance through a defensive error and we paid the price for school-boy forward play.

In the first few games of the season, we were down to bear-bones in terms of numbers. We started a number of games with 9 or 10 players and in some games we just have enough to play the game, so you can imagine when there is an injury to a player and the whole team is looking at me, as if to say "are you going to do something!" - all I say to the injured player is "just keep walking around" or "go and play upfront!", if the injury is just to bad, I tell them to come off and be my assistant.

All together, the season has been very interesting so far; league-wise, we can still win the league even though we have lost three league games in seven and win four. We've beaten a few of the teams above us and dropped points against teams below us, as usual, we love making life difficult for ourselves. To tell you the truth, sometimes I do believe the boys are trying to pi** me up - they play well against the better team and open their back-side against sh*tty teams, I think they enjoy it when I am really angry. And it may be because they watch too many Arsenal games, as most of the (including me) are Arsenal supporters.

Lately, things have improved - personnel-wise, we now have a lot of cover in most positions, which means there are some competitions for places. Also, the most important recruitment is that of a goal keeper, who has played two games for us so far and I think a few of the players were more relieved than I was, about finally getting a Keeper because I usually pick them to go in goal for us, a order which even the most loyal of players find difficult to comply with.

Going in to December, we have two league games to play before the Christmas break and the two games are both 'win-able', if we win these two matches before we might find ourselves third in the league table and we still got to play some of the top teams in the New year. We will use this as our motivation and push for the league title, something we have never managed to do so far as a Club.

Well, I've tried to stretch the news as far as I can. We hope to up date the news section in the near future and hopefully it won't be me doing the writing.

Thanks for reading.

Written by Niyi