“Oh, how I hate writing match reports several hours after the event. It's bad enough trying to remember everything anyway, but already - after just a couple of hours - all the details are turning into a pile of confusing goo. Thank goodness for the dice stats.

The fact was, real life called me away. Actually, it called me away about twenty minutes before the end of the match, but I was having so much fun in-game that I might just have told a little white lie to the rest of my family in order to give myself some precious spare minutes. Shocking behaviour, and you should never do such a thing just to play computer games.

Anyway, onto the match itself.

Awesome, from the very first kick-off to the very last TD. It was fast and furious, but also fun and that's exactly the way I like to play.

50 passes in 1 game. The name says it all. It's a challenge I would love to see gamelsetlmatch achieve, but sadly I probably never will, especially now the new passing rules are just around the corner and will no doubt ruin this aspect of the game. (Maybe not. I'll wait and see, but I suspect my long bomb game will certainly suffer anyway).

So this was always going to be an epic passing game. I would be hurling my long bombs, and gamelsetlmatch would be dumping off as often as possible. Fun, fun, fun...

...except that some thug in the crowd threw a rock at kick-off and it sailed right into the centre of my team and hit my thrower. Only a KO fortunately, but I was less than amused.

After that we got down to business. gamelsetlmatch kept his players in a tight knot to facilitate the dumping off, and I crowded around and drove them towards one of the sidelines. And so the dump offs began. The way we were all squashed together, I was able to make about three or four blocks a turn against the elves, and each time I tried, the victim dumped off first, so that the ball was wandering all over the place - except, sadly, into my hands.

But the defence was holding, and gamelsetlmatch struggled to find an opening for several turns. Then finally the defence faltered, the tree took root and gaps began to appear. But just when it seemed the union were on their way to the endzone, disaster struck with a double 1 on a simple dodge and the woodies were able to get back into the fight. We even intercepted one of the dump-offs at one point, before having the ball stripped away again on the following turn.

And that was the story of the entire first half. No score. No offence for the wood elves, but plenty of throwing the ball between the union players.

Fortunately my thrower returned for the second half, and I quickly set about making use of him while I had the opportunity - he had a lot of catching up to do after sitting out the entire first half. So I threw a long bomb just to get some stats on the board, and then worried about protecting the catcher afterwards.

gamelsetlmatch then casually slipped in past my ropey offence and stripped the ball away from me, then picked it up and found some cover as well. So it looked like it was going to be a repeat of the first half. I blitzed and blocked to get the ball back, and it flew from one elf to the next because they nearly all have dump off. But then the last of them dropped the catch and it was just sitting there, one square out of reach from my thrower whichever way I tried it. So I had to humiliate myself by making a quick pass with a catcher in order to score.

At the start of the union's next drive, that same thug in the crowd hurled another rock at my team, and sure enough, this one was bang on target for my thrower again. I watched in horror as it sailed ever closer, only to have one of my catchers hurl themselves into its path at the last second and take the hit himself. (No, he didn't really dive, he was standing next to the thrower. It's poetic license!)

So then we really did begin a repeat of the first half. More bunching up of players, more dump offs, and now the casualties were starting to take their toll as well. It was at about this point that I started to play a lot quicker, thanks to my guilt at putting FUMBBL ahead of a family Hang Out, but thankfully gamelsetlmatch is a fast player and was happy to score as soon as the opportunity arose.

On my following drive I had the pleasure of returning the favour by throwing a rock myself, and then I threw a long bomb as well, because I still had a lot of catching up to do. Again, poor dice from the union (this time a failed block) allowed me to get into a position to score. But why score with a dodge and run when you can run the ball-carrier all the way back (including going for it twice) and hand off to the thrower for the chance of another long bomb? This is grandstanding at its most extreme and I loved every second of it...mostly because it all worked...this time!

And that just left a final-turn one-turn attempt from the union. I had too few players to mount a serious defence and I thought I would leave it in the hands of the dice (odd metaphor there). They didn't disappoint. Well, they didn't disappoint gamelsetlmatch anyway, who scored a faultless TD to end one of the finest and most fun games I've had in a very long time. Okay, so I haven't actually played much recently, but you know what I mean.

So the all-important question...DON'T LOOK AT THE GAME STATS, LET ME HAVE MY MOMENT OF SUSPENSE! How many passes. Up until now, the team's record was 19 so did we beat that? YES WE DID! gamelsetlmatch managed a colossal 22 passes all on his own, and I supplied a modest 4 as well, giving us a final total of 26 for the match. Now that really is impressive.

Honestly, I doubt gamelsetlmatch will ever make it to the grand total of 50, because he really needs such a lot of support from his opponent. And let's face it, very few of his opponents are going to be anywhere near as furiously passing-obsessed as me! But 26 passes in total in a single game is awesome. It even beats my previous record of 25 (in a ludicrous game I won 13-12 - but it was in L so it's unofficial) and 22 from one team is just unbeatable (possibly). It definitely deserves a mention in the Encyclopaedia.

As for the rest of the post-match stuff...

The fans were pathetic. Having thrown all their rocks they abandoned us in droves. Well, good luck trying to find more excitement somewhere else, losers! Cash was very nice. And Spiderplant got a kill, even if he didn't get the MVP. So all in all, it was an excellent use of my Saturday afternoon.

And it was a slightly less excellent use of my entire Saturday evening writing this match report.

But it had to be done. ”