With Sharpy and Nathan (retired), Ryan (broken wrist) and Alan (unavailable) all missing Alec had suddenly gone from having almost two teams to choose from to wondering if we could scrape a team together. The fact that Conor, Dale and Foggy were also carrying injuries and Bunny is still finding his way back after a long lay-off meant the omens were not good. Still this is no excuse for rolling over against a team who may have appeared physically intimidating, but could have been easily unsettled if we had got stuck in and shown some balls and team spirit. It was telling that from the numerous corners we defended I was conscious of the fact that our voices were drown out by the chorus of bird song on this warm Spring morning. This is all I really want to say about the first half; the clocks going forward meant we lost an hour, and I would be happy if this 45 minutes of football was also lost from memory.
An emphasis on defence had done us no favours in the first half, so it made sense to change to a more attacking formation in the second half, with Bunny volunteering to make way for H, who partnered Liam up top. Harry 'I always score on mother's day' Judge had been staking his claim for being involved from the moment he turned up. Although he didn't manage to maintain his record (but then there are other ways of scoring...) H's introduction definitely made an impact as it helped to exploit the cumbersome physiques of some of our opponents.
Having attacking players in more advanced positions led to our first goal. Dale caught the left-back in possession before turning inside and placing the ball calming in the bottom corner with his left foot: 5-1.
Liam is giving Dale a run for his money in to goal scoring stakes this season, and kept a hold on his coat tails when he latched onto a good through ball from Foggy to beat the keeper and end a good passing move from Clements with the reward it deserved: 5-2.
The celebrations were still quite subdued, as I think the aim was more about restoring pride rather than thinking we could overhaul the deficit. The fact that we then conceded a sixth was seen as irrelevant, and thankfully did not diffuse the positive way we were approaching the game in the second half. We managed a third before the end when Liam played Dale in, who deflected the ball into the net on the second attempt: 6-3.
When we look back on this season, this game will not conjure up the fondest memories, but the nature of Sunday league football means that there are going to be weeks where injuries, player absence, too many beers the night before or just having a bad day can leave you wondering why you bothered dragging yourself out of bed. Things never seem so bad when you are having a laugh about it in the pub afterwards, and there is always next week!
Eye-Ball
Goal scoring chart
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