Knobs 1 Buntingford Town Vets 0

It was nearly 180 minutes without a goal between the two sides but a late penalty clinched a hard fought victory for the Knebworth Old Boys.

In beautiful sunshine, with a bare 11, the KNOBS started slowly and gave Buntingford the early initiative but they failed to capitalise thanks to some good defending.  In fact despite the hot weather, the energy shown by the KNOBS team was impressive and this started from the front through the tireless running of Richard, who was well supported by Gerry on the right hand side.  There were few chances…in fact, so few I can’t remember any in the first half.  Oh…I forgot, Phil hit a beautiful shot that was easily gathered by their keeper but he did strike it well.

In the second half, both teams battled valiantly and it was dominated by both defences.  Ian was particularly impressive clearing his lines and being strong and powerful in the air but the whole back four showed good defensive skills, with Darren B contributing well at left back, Tony showing his ball skills in the middle and John B doing both his defensive work, as well as helping Gerry where he could.  Although they were dominating territorially, they created few chances, with the returning Trevor having few saves to make, although he did do a marvellous fisting job to clear a corner when we were under pressure.

Chris Wilson had our closest chance before the goal after being played through by Bully but he clipped the bar with a long range strike.  The goal finally came with ten minutes to go when Richard was scythed down in the box.  Even though their central defender didn’t agree with the decision, there was little complaint from their side which suggests it was a close call but probably the right decision.  Bully tucked the penalty away with aplomb in the bottom left hand corner.

Vinny came on for a late cameo and although they huffed and puffed, looking for a goal, we actually looked livelier on the break but the game rather fizzled out in the end.  A couple of moments to mention were Gerry’s marvellous heading technique that saw him collapse like Tommy Cooper at the Palladium and John B rampaging forward with a minute to go and being berated by Ian.  We all had fun though, didn’t we?

We certainly did in the pub.  Oh it’s good to be back at our spiritual home and there was much merriment.  There was even a coup…sort of.  Darren A is to blame.  He’s a troublemaker that one.  Thanks must go to our opponents today who were very supporting and it was good to seem all at the pub after the game.

Four games unbeaten, three wins on the bounce, two clean sheets amongst them…as they say on Masterchef - ‘Football doesn’t get better than this!’