After what could of been described disappointing to say the least the previous week, it was typically turned around quickly with the display of the season so far!

With all our front line attack either laying on a beach or laying down with back problems, we were up against a team that had the best defence & had only dropped points against Usrc so far this season, with pace to burn all over the park.

We started off with a 4.1.4.1 formation with Bertie in goals, back line of Jay,Laurence.Tom & Eash, Nick playing a mixture of defensive midfield & man marker, Rory,Charles,Rob & Ice Ice Mehmet with housewives favourite James leading the line up front by himself, with Tarik & Jens supporting from the bench.

 

We started off well, with a determined streak flowing through the team, to put a few wrongs, right & our confidence grew which showed by our passing being more crisp & precise, keeping possession well & a lot more sharper on the ball, while keeping concentration levels up & defending well to reduce them to efforts only from set pieces.

 

Then from good forward pressure from James closing down the centre back, Charles managed to wriggle through a couple of defenders & the keeper & slipped in a shot to finish inside the post, it was an example of a player being in the right place at the right time and having an eye for the goal as well as the ladies, except don’t ask him what his girlfriend’s mobile number is…he hasn’t got a clue, typical french, although he does like lots of beer with da lads post game, so that kinda makes up for it!

So we found ourselves 1.0 up going into the half time break, with the only real problems of controlling ourselves with venting anger at the referee & trying to stop Mehmet from self combustion to rectify a pleasing half of football.

After 10 minutes of letting Mehmet chew on a corner flag we resumed knowing that they were going to throw everything at us from the off, so we needed to keep discipline & defend well, this was shown by the work rate of the back 4, the energy & awareness of Nick closing down any danger everywhere & both wingers Rory & Mehmet working tirelessly to track back & help out with their pacey wingers, whilst always keeping a threat with their pace & trickery on the counter, we kept them at bay & had somewhat control in the last third to repel their threat, with Bertie as always capable of dealing with any dangerous shots & able to pull off quality saves when needed as well as constructively organising the defence, we looked compact, we looked good, I however didn’t feel that from the sidelines & this feeling was about to be amplified.

Now Laurence may look like a 17 year old boy to shy to talk to girls at his local village swimming pool, but the lads got tusks & unfortunately their players kept on tripping over them, resulting in 2 yellow cards, which after another great 60 minute display of good tusking, one especially last ditch saving one in his own area, he had to leave the field of play.

This was responded immediately with a battle cry from Tom & Eashan, whose latter had his parents over fresh off the boat from the favelas of N17, that tough upbringing was now going to brought to the fore if we were going to get anything from this game, Stevie Y, who is now head technical advisor, shouted "Get the psychos’ off we can’t lose anymore" i’m not sure what he was on about to be honest, but Jay & Mehmet came off after another great display & were replaced with Tarik who had been entirely encased in bubble wrap on the sidelines & Mr sexy himself Jens-er.

The remaining 20 minutes & injury time, which felt like another 20 minutes, saw us practically camped out in our own half repelling corner after corner, apart from Jens using his ‘deilg’ football skills to pass 2 defenders & slip the ball over the line, unfortunately the linesman was busy looking at his flowing locks to realise the ball went in, take a tip from Charles who has apparently been quoted as saying,"if you enter your neighbours vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket", whatever that means your guess is as good as mine?

We showed great discipline, fight & heart for that final period, no more than Rob, who honestly has a heart the size of a football, but that’s probably just the saturated fats to be fair, and we can get that down with a bit of gym work & training no problem!

Then there it was the final whistle & you know you have been in a game when the opposition manager says nothing, the team have doubled their disciplinary points in one game & the linesman tells your players to F*ck off, all very satisfying indeed.

Credit to the whole team, it started with James pressuring & keeping them on their toes with his unpredictable movements, the tirelessly hard working midfield both defensively & going forwards & the solid as ever back 5 doing a great job of shutting out their players,

a very well earned, well fought hard 3 points, were off & running, lets keep it up.