A very bad day at the office for the Blackham boys. They produced the worst half an hour of football we have seen all season and were made to pay the price. The game had barely even started when last week’s MOM Bayley Woggles went down awkwardly on his knee. It was immediately evident that it was bad. He had to be carried from the pitch. Luckily Hobbit had some crutches handy so Tommy was able to hobble to the subs bench. Zac came off the bench with Fergy shifting to centre back and Gandhi moving back in to the left back position. With Blackham all at sea Casuals scored from the resulting corner. Minutes later Hamish decided that he likes losing so much he put the High Brooms striker clean through with a defence splitting pass. But Big Huggy bear was quickly off his line to narrow the angle. Hamish 'ock eye the noo' Warnock was happy to see the shot go wide......OR WAS HE!!
High Brooms were buoyed by this and were capitalizing on the confusion in the B&A ranks. They were 2-0 up before long a well worked move was finished well from close range. The truth is that it could have been 3 or 4 but then Latts, 2Gun and Co suddenly remembered how to play football and the boys in Black and red began to batter the High Brooms goal. The Beigon Fresse had a number of chances, Zac was taking the royal piss out of their right back and even Junior got in on the act and overlapped well but his shot was high and wide. The High Brooms keeper was in inspired form and pulled off a string of fantastic saves. One in particular when Gandhi's Ghost had slipped Latts in, the crowd were on their feet just waiting for the ball to nestle neatly in the onion bag but the big keeper dived well to his right and tipped it round the post. Latts eventually got his goal. Zac was in the process of leaving his man for dead when he whipped out an early ball across goal. It evaded everyone but came back in to Hamish who composed himself before picking out Latts at the far stick with a masterful pin point pass. It definitely wasn't a scuffed shot!
We went in at half time 2-1 down but in the ascendency and everyone was 100% confident we were taking home all three points. The second half started a lot better for Blackham but the defensive frailties were still there and High Brooms scored a third on the break to restore their cushion. At this point the Mantis was introduced to the fray and added some much needed pace and energy on the right side of midfield. Zac was still terrorising the Casuals back four so it was no surprise that he was instrumental in the second goal. He picked the ball up wide on the right, beat one man, turned inside and beat a second before rolling the ball back for Latts to smash home his 15th goal of the season.
Although there were chances late on Blackham couldn't find the final breakthrough and the game finished 2-3. Missed opportunities and a slow start were to blame although losing the Woggler in the early stages definitely did not help. No game next week so we have to wait until December 4th for a chance to stop the rot.
