Blackham went into this game knowing a win would put them top of the table. With an injury hit squad it was a pleasure to see the housewives favourites Robbie G & Chris Piper back in the red & black. Many lonely B & A ladies have had a cheeky frappacino about these 2 while the kids are at school.
A good start by the mighty B & A as we set up base camp deep into enemy territory - El Gordo Gozzy leading his troops with passion & hunger.
Bert came the closest to scoring in the early exchanges when he went clean through with only the keeper to beat, but he managed to shoot into the keeper a la Emile Heskey and prod the follow up wide.
An early injury to Gentleman Jim (I believe this to be alcopop related) saw the Slug Mk 2 16v make only his 2nd appearance of the season back up top.
After 25 minutes and a good period of intense pressure on the Invicta goal Blackham took the lead via Gozzy, who slid in with the defender and poked the ball into the top corner after a fantastic ball whipped in by Bert Reynolds.
Lieutenant Bishop making his 2nd competitive start for Blackham looked a man mountain at centre back - I doubt Bish has ever lost a defensive 50/50 header? Even Ralph Loveridge wouldn't get near him! did I mention what a big strong hard man Ralph is - who incidentally plays totally in the spirit of the game.
Blackham continued the first half with some good attacking football, swift passing with a mixture of long and short balls. Very easy on the eye, just like Eugene in the showers.
The 2nd half saw us struggle to kill off the game - At times we didn't fill the box enough when attacking, leaving us 1 against 4 defenders in the area on numerous occasions.
Invicta had been limited to 2 long shots which drifted wide, they managed to draw level with their only real attack into the Blackham box - when a shot was heavily deflected and crept into the bottom corner.
Thom Thumb managed to pick up his 11th booking of the season for arguing with the referee about who the best Wood is (of course we all know its Fran Wood ;) )
Bayley kept crunching in the centre - another solid performance from the little guy.
All in all it was a good team performance - and really on another day we would have got a little more out of this. The last action of note was the return of the former goal Machine Chris ‘Badger’ ‘Retard Face’ Piper who replaced Bert for the last few minutes. He was immediately thrown in to the action winning a towering header deep behind enemy lines, this however took it out of him and as soon as the final whistle blew he was whisked straight to hospital and given oxygen. Good to have you back Scooper.
So far though we are having a cracking season, we are in with a real shot of winning the league - keep up the good work lads.
Hobbit x
