Blunham 4 Knobs 1 - Report by Gavin Simpson

To be honest, we could have probably won it. Looking back, if we had converted some of our chances in the first half the game could have been radically different. Talking of radical, the curse of Mothers’ Day struck again and the team on Sunday compared no comparison to the team the week before. Some would argue that the ageing side was the reason we lost but as I’ve already written, we could have won it. But before people criticise the team, a lot of the time it is said that we win as a team and we lost as a team but I think it is important to point out that we win as a squad and we lose as a squad. All eleven players featured for the 90 minutes. That’s tough against a team who knock it around like Blunham do. It was okay in the first half but it became more difficult in the second half and as the game got stretched we became more vulnerable and hence the goals they scored. Now…onto the game. Twiggy had a difficult selection dilemma as we had a lot of defenders but that didn’t stop us attacking well in the first half. Gavin had one tipped round the post and dreadfully dallied at a second opportunity when clear through. New player Gary hit a barn-stormer that just went narrowly wide and there were a few other scrambled attempts. Paul didn’t have much to do in goal until the last few minutes when a long ball over the top led to a one-on-one. We were all willing him to come off his line to close the striker down but alas, he went the other way back on to his line and that meant 1-0 to Blunham. In the second half they came out strongly with a new formation and we couldn’t cope. We were starved of possession and soon found ourselves down 4-0, with their 4th goal being particularly good. We still had chances, Brendan had a header saved, Gavin blazed one over and saw a weak header go wide. Finally we did get a goal as Des rampaged forward with Tony on his outside. He chose not to pass to him and it somehow ended up ricocheting off a defender, Gavin passed it back to Brendan who unleashed a ripper of a shot from 40 yards (divided by 4) past their keeper. Only days before he had scored a goal for a Rest of the World XI vs Latin America XI – he’s on a roll!!!! I forgot that minutes before that a blatant penalty had not been given and in the final seconds Martin (our other new player) headed just over from a corner. It was a tough game, played in good spirit and for a while in that first half, we played some lovely passing football with Bully, Ali, Tony and Martin being particularly effective. We were pretty solid at the back with Chris and Bill in the back four and like I said, Paul rarely had a save to make. So…our league run has ended and the fight for 3rd place continues. Well done to all those who turned up and put in lots of energy. It was disappointing not to come away with something. Anyway, onwards and upwards!!!