Trev is Back

D'OH! 8 Sons of Reg Grundy's 3

The lads are travelling well as the finals approach and now we have won three in a row scoring 24 goals to nine conceded. This was a sound performance and made most enjoyable by Trev's return to the team and an awesome display of finishing by the wizard. In the first half it was the Trev showcase as he found his way to goal and found the net to the dismay of would-be defenders. One turn and shot was particularly well executed as Trev cleverly shielded the ball from his man so that it appeared there was nothing that could have prevented the goal. We also saw the toe-poke used to great effect and it was like Trev had not been away rather than having missed the previous five matches. Lobby was on song as he fed out a stream of effective passes and Plaino covered a lot of ground doing good work up front and in defence. Kev was his usual ebullient self and the Euge was so effective he conceded just three on the night.

The ref did not have such a good game although in the context of a lack of contest, it didn't matter much. At one stage he disappeared into the end section of the pits to fiddle with a troublesome cleaning machine and managed to disengage the hose and cover the area with soapy water. As the game progressed he seemed to become more and more obsessed with the problem of the cleaning machine so that he was distracted and unable to give decisions. After at one stage admitting he was not watching the game, he later tried to defend himself against criticism of slackness, only to concede that we deserved better.

The lads tracked back particularly well on the night to help Euge out and while most of the time he doesn't need us, I know he appreciates us making the effort. On one occasion I found himself in the last line of defence after Euge had made a sprawling save. It appeared that as the ball fell at the attacker's feet he would surely drill straight at me and a certain trepidation came into my mind. I need not have worried. As the shot came in, the space between me and the attacker was magically filled with Euge's torso and his hand beat the shot away with contempt.

As their defence disintegrated Lobby's great pass sent the skipper to the line and his pull back was dispatched by Trev for a clinical goal to add to the tally. At the end the skipper's speculative kick-in was helped into the net by a defender rushing to beat Kev to the ball and they were in disarray and at each other.

Next week's game is against Foosballers and is at the exciting kick off time of 10:40pm. I know how much I we all look forward to those. Then we have a week off before the final round of the season

(15-SEP-2008)

Good for the goal difference

D'OH! 12 Lightning Strikes 3

It was good to get a few regulars back into the engine room and Kev and Lobby marked their returns with hat tricks. The opposition was not up to much and we cruised after half time to our third victory against this opposition and our third comfortable one.

In the early part the skipper and Kev profited most from our forays forward and the skipper had a hat trick before the break while Kev had the other two of our 5 to their 2. Kev's second a stunner whatever way you looked at it. Whether it curved or not, it still found the far top corner just a moment after leaving his boot and Kev was very happy with it as his ecstatic gesture to the non-existent crowd testified. In the second half a bit of a procession was made and everyone had fun. Kev completed his hat trick and Neil bagged a couple. Plaino got on the scoresheet as well before Lobby got in on the act and picked up his three as the life ebbed from the game.

In the end, the talking point of the second half came at the death when Euge conceded an unlikely goal at his near post direct from a corner to spoil his effort to keep a clean sheet for the half.

This week's game is at 7.20pm against Sons of Reg Grundy's. We are in fourth spot with just four rounds to go and one of those a bye. So not many chances to cement our spot in the finals. Let's make it count tonight.

(08-SEP-2008)

Better than Perfect

D'OH! 4 Perfecto 3

In the end we wore them down and the fact that they only had 4 players and we had 6 began to tell. Even their superior skill level could not keep them ahead of us after we nibbled away at their 2-0 half time lead. You always fancy your chances playing against a team a man short. On our side we lined up with no Euge, no Lobby, no Trev and no Kev which evened things up a bit. The good news was that we had Sadds back to play his first game since late April and he buzzed around with his usual enthusiasm. Neil had done some great recruiting during the day and showed up with Dave and Matt who both made excellent first up contributions. So it turned out that after a shaky start and with no regular keeper, we could hold them, then match them and finally beat them when they got bored of trying to chase us.

They are top of the table and when they had the ball at their feet you could see why. They did some tricky things (like beating two of us at once) which meant that they made plenty of chances and stuck two away. Their keeper was flinging himself about and we were finding him very hard to beat. Sadds lined them up from distance quite a few times as we struggled to breakdown their zone defence but with no luck. We stuck at it and in the second half it was Dave who was the one who finally broke our duck. Then Matt scored with a sharp first time shot after the skipper's shot came back off a post. Dave was the scorer again when he hit it sweetly from outside the D and we had worked out how to profit against them.

Plaino latched on to a cross and his shot beat the keeper but slammed against the underside of the crossbar and out to keep it at 3-3. Then Sadds menaced their keeper into an error and the keeper's clearance deflected off Sadd's right boot into the net for the winner.

Next week's game is at 8.40pm against the Lightning Strikes. Get your reply in early if you want to play as the squad is growing and there are a lot of keen players around!

(01-SEP-2008)