After a 100 % start to the season confidence is riding high in camp Blackham, however our last game against Hadlow was a scrappy affair and we knew that we needed to get back to playing the sort of football that gained us a victory over a fairly decent Tonbridge Invicta side to overcome a Hawkenbury Reserves side that you can never be sure will not contain some first team players.
Therefore it was good to see us start the game in exactly the right fashion passing the ball to feet and resisting the temptation to pump it long to our target man Hobbit (the white Trevor Benjamin)….the first half passed by in a rather frustrating fashion however where we were comfortably the better team but just weren’t clinical enough to take our chances and went in at half time 0 – 0 with the Hawkenbury players constant moaning still ringing in our ears. The message from new Gaffer (lets face it - there’s no turning back now) Adam H was basically to keep doing what we were doing and we would receive our booty.
The second started in much the same fashion with us retaining possession well, we were also benefitting from all of Hawkenburys openings falling to their number 9 who was quite fast but had missed out on the vital component of football in that you do actually need to be able to kick the ball with some degree of accuracy!! Or perhaps he got intimidated by Coach Pat telling him he was S##T before the game despite never actually having seen him play before – Good old Pat making friends for the club, someone needs to do it now that Bignose has retired, anyway after around 10 minutes we finally got our breakthrough when Hobbit had a shot that was spilled by their keeper and Ghandi’s Ghost snuck in for his first goal for the club. Our second was to come soon after when Hobbit was brought down in the box by their defender who of course never touched him. Hobbit stepped up to put the penalty down the middle, 2 – 0. For the second time this season we then had the luxury of bringing on Goz for the final 30 odd minutes and it didn’t take him long to get on the scoresheet, coolly slotting home after some good build up play. Goz then made it 4 – 0 with an absolute peach of a strike into the corner from outside the box and 4 – 0 was how it finished.
This weeks MOM was Bert who absolutely bossed proceedings in the middle having a superb game but I thought that everyone had a good game this week, the D - Fence was solid and the distribution was calm which allowed us to play football on the deck rather than rushing and losing the ball, Ghandi’s Ghost has had a really good start to the season in the middle keeping things ticking over and young Zac and young Baggo provided a constant threat with their pace on the wings. Latts (feels weird calling my brother that) held the ball and linked play well but just needs to remember his shooting boots next week, Hobbit showed his class with a header that might have gone on target had he jumped at the right time, connected with the right part of his head and actually jumped with his eyes open – although he did get an assist and a goal so I’ll play nice and give him his tokens. Rich Leeves and Gaffer had a good solid game after they came on and Goz showed us that what we hopefully won’t be missing too much of this season – our strength in depth is really encouraging this season and it’s nice to see the young lads coming into the side but be warned – if Hobbit and Huffers ask you to go to their secret tactics table to eat cotton candy and tell fairytales – JUST SAY NO.
We need to realize that a lot tougher tests will come starting with Rusthall Reserves on Saturday, this could be a bit of a shock to the system if we don’t approach it with the right attitude as with all due respect to the teams we have already played I expect Rusthall Reserves to be a step up in quality from what we have been used to this season but let’s face it…if we can’t get up for a game against Rusthall then we’re not fit to play for the mighty B + A and we might as well sit at home in our pants watching Noddy.
WE HATE RUSTHALL, WE HATE RUSTHALL, WE HATE RUSTHALL.
Shaggy x
