After picking up a default 10-0 win as Ratcliffe Rangers failed to show, Olympique LMB managed to defrost themselves and come away with a pleasing victory against Inter Fancy Pants FC. After a tight opening, IFC took the lead when they finally broke through the LMB defence. Sweetman momentarily levelled the scores with a precise finish on his debut, before IFC took the lead again to make it 2-1 at half time. Unfortunately the first 25 minutes were soured when Peterson had a minor scuffle with their beanie-headed shot-monster, and was rewarded with a WWF strangling move that saw him spiral through the air like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix. Their man saw yellow, but LMB failed to make the extra man count as IFC kept hold of the ball extremely well, infuriating our yellow-clad heroes who were in the ascendancy, with shots from Griff and Chibbert fizzing beyond the posts.
In the second half LMB began to take control of the game as their opponents started to flag. Peterson played in Patto who levelled the scores once again, but it didn’t last long as IFC ran up the other end and finished well beyond Paul into the bottom right corner. Slowly LMB turned the screw, and Patto squared the ball for Crozier, who finished easily beyond their in-form keeper, before Spencer produced a strong run, tumble and through-ball to set up Patto for a dinked finish to finally give LMB the lead. Peterson then ran down the left and squared for Patto to complete his hat-trick on his second attempt beyond the exposed keeper. IFC got a goal back from the restart (putting away a rebound from shot-monster’s thunder drive), and then Patto was denied a beautiful solo goal from Sweetman’s centre as he was deemed to be in the opposition half (I personally think the ref had his angles wrong) before seeing a second identical effort smash the crossbar and bounce off the line. Paul kept any other chances at bay with quick flashes of his cultured knees, while LMB continued to create chances at the other end as Sweetman, Chibbert and Peterson all could have scored (and Spencer fizzed a shot off the bar), before Patto upstaged them all with the last kick of the game, passing wide of an open goal from 4 yards after Crozier’s mazy dribble down the left!
I really felt like the last 15 minutes of the match were like the LMB days of old, with some simple but quick passing, and great movement off the ball. For his continual movement and passing, Sweetman picked up Man of the Match but I thought we all did well to continue fighting, defend strongly and create plenty of chances.
Cheers also to Kieran and Swithers for coming down for the first match, freezing their balls off, and then going home!
