Anchor Tilbury 3 - 1 Oaks Athletic & Oaks Athletic 1 - 4 Anchor Tilbury (League games 15 & 16)

You'll have to excuse the briefness of this report, but recalling the events of this double header brings back the sort dark and disturbing images that I can only imagine would be comparable to waking up to find Parker laying naked next to you smoothered in strawberry flavoured Angel Delight.

To get that awful image out of your mind I will describe the one bright moment before breezing over the other 119 minutes and 50 seconds of misery. The Oaks kicked off, passed the ball around the midfield and worked the ball to Jordan on the edge of area. Weeeeed then unleashed a dipping shot which sailed over the keeper and into the net off the underside of the crossbar. Only 10 seconds had been player, the opposition hadn't touched the ball, and Jordan had scored one of the goals of the season. Those who think this story surely couldn't have a sad ending obviously haven't seen Bambi.

Although Anchor looked dangerous going forward, Eye-Ball still felt they needed some help and gifted them the equaliser by underhitting a backpass which was easily intercepted and worked into the goal. From here it was all down hill, and the first of the two matches was eventually lost 3-1.

The second match wasn't much better, but there was a glimmer of hope that The Oaks might grap a point when Nathan once again found the back of the net when he beat the keeper to the ball and headed over him and into the goal making the score 2-1. However, injuries to Kenny (t.y.) and Scott saw The Oaks reduced to nine men and they ended up losing 4-1.

It's not so much the two defeats that made this such a disappointing 120 minutes, but the manner of the defeats. We may well have played to our best and still lost both games, but as it was this was probably our worst performance of the season. Anchor's enthusiasm and desire to win seemed to intimidate us, and we just rolled over and let them dictate from start to finish. We lacked the hunger and commitment that you can't win a football match without and simply didn't function as a team. This might sound a little melodramatic - it is only the Thurrock Sunday League afterall - but this wasn't a fun experience and to think that we all paid for the privilege must make us some sort of masochists.

Whether we win, lose or draw we can still enjoy ourselves in the process if we can honestly say we have given 100% for each other and the team. Good luck for Sunday, and I hope you have fun.

Eye-Ball

I don't usually mention other results but I just wanted to congratulate my brother's team, Mustang (good team rubbish name), who beat Ockendon Motorspares 3-2 in the Ted Fairchild Cup last week. Apparently they didn't expect a 2nd division side to give them much trouble. That'll teach them.

Scoring chart: