Old Challoners v Old Tenisonians

Team: Sunil, Walsh, Rodgers, Gardner (Cawley 70), Redpath, Fallon, Lowes, Powell, Croucher, Fuz, Baker

Score: 3:2
Croucher, Fuz & Bake

This week's game saw us travel to Tenisonians. With the fixtures piling up we knew this would be a must win in order to keep our title challenge going. Mr Lowes took over the reigns in the absence on Weisz who had decided to give himself a weeks high altitude training, the whippet-like Redpath had to fill in at right back. Without the inspirational Weisz it was left to our caretaker gaffa to deliver the 'complacency speech'.

The speech was delivered with aplomb and we kicked off feeling confident we would get the result. The game was fairly scrappy to begin with due to the hard, bobbly pitch and the ball was in the air a lot. On any other day this would have suited us but not today, despite having five 6 footers in the team we were second to most high balls, most notably to their 6'8" striker!

Apart from the odd set piece the game was mainly played in the middle of the park for the first 10 minutes with both teams finding their feet. Then from nowhere Tenisonians opened the scoring with a speculative effort from the edge of the box, driven through a number of players Sunil caught it late and the pace beat him. This was nothing unusual for old Cs, having conceded first a number of times recently. Anyway we set about our business and we were obviously the better team but Tenisonians were battling hard and wouldn't let us settle.

A corner was won on about 25 minutes; Walshy rose like a salmon to flick it in at the near post. OUR near post! Oh shit!, 2 - 0 down and Lowes was wondering who exactly was listening to him before the game.

Apart from these two incidents the first half was largely uneventful. The speech was again brought out and I think it was finally sinking in. We started the second half brighter, Fuz and Baker were causing more problems and we were now coping with them in the air. Several corners came and went until Croucher was sent though on goal, with the ball bobbling about and the keeper advancing he lifted the ball high over the keeper into the empty net. 2 - 1 and we're back in the game.

The oppo started to panic and the siege started. Efforts from Powell, Baker and Gardner were all cleared off the line and we just couldn't seem to break them down. That was until a great flick on from Baker sent Fuz bearing down on goal on 80 mins, he had seen croucher do it earlier and was clearly thinking 'well if HE can!', with that the ball was sent over the keeper again and into the empty net. 2 - 2.

We carried on attacking and the win seemed inevitable, we were using the flanks better now and Lowes picked up the ball in centre circle and sprayed it left to Walshy in acres, he delivered an excellent outswinging cross that after several ricochets landed at the feet of Baker who had his back to goal, pirouetting like a ballerina, Baker turned and slammed the ball into the bottom corner. 3 - 2 with only a few minutes left.

With the clock ticking away we had one final scare, they had their 2nd effort on goal when their Peter Crouch impersonator struck from the edge of the area only for the ball to hit the base of the right hand post and rebound to safety. Next up - the sound of the final whistle.

To be fair, the score didn't reflect the game, on another day we could have had 5 or 6 but all credit to them, they battled well and made it tough for us. This result had an extra shine to it with Sinjuns Grammerians losing only their second league game of the season! That puts us 3rd the league, 6 points behind the leaders with 6 games in hand

MOM: Not sure - you decide!
Fallon MOM: Fallon Obviously