Scorers: Wood (pen), M. Smith
A good performance against a team that finished comfortably mid-table in division one last season.
Due to the usual spate of cry-offs and unavailability’s – a damning indictment upon us as a club, and probably what cost the 1st and 2nd XI promotion last season, we had 12 players, thanks to some wheeler dealer skills by skipper McLoughlin to get his semi-pro mate Tolo to play.
We started brightly, and made the better chances. Sly and Pete were keeping their defenders busy, and trying to make space for wingers Ben and Jed to get in behind. We took the lead when smart play by Pete set Jed away on goal, and he was ruthlessly pulled down by the keeper, and then calmly struck the penalty home. 1-0 AP. We then let in a goal when an EBOG was left unmarked at the far post from a corner – 1-1.
Halftime came and we introduced Matt Smith. We went 2-1 down with some shocking marking from a cross allowed another EBOG to head home. We looked really ragged in the second half, much less like our slick first half performance. We equalised however when Matt poked home from a goal mouth scramble.
We had several chances to win the game, but could not convert – Sly and Fabb coming close. Tempers were flaring and it was left to our self-proclaimed most intelligent and qualified person to lighten the mood – two quotes will go down in history – the first came after his handbags with a 12 year old – “I do not need this, I am Middle Class” (Do you not know that John Prescott said that “we are all middle class now”? Surely a pre-eminent academic such as Farhad should know this [seeing as Prescott is no one to make such a statement, I’d have been more impressed if you had quoted the Economist which proclaimed more than half the world’s population as being middle class – Ed.]? The second quote was even better – an attempt to ‘Sledge’ an oppo striker led “my law firm owns your law firm” – that told him [you’ll find the actual statement was a general one (i.e. not aimed at anyone in particular) and was merely bemoaning the amount of effort and money spent by the state keeping people like said 12 year old out of jail, but why let the truth get in the way of a good yarn? – Ed.]!
On the whole a solid base to build on.
Team: Shahidi, McLoughlin, Fabb, Simpson, Scarlett, Taylor, Wootten, Wood, Carter, Cornibert, Chiltern, Smith.
