Corinthian Casuals Res 0 – 1 Leatherhead Res

The first noticeable thing about this fixture was the opposition’s kit. Pink and chocolate brown halves (in a Blackburn Rovers styli). This colour scheme looks good in a Neapolitan ice cream tub but on 11 grown men it was ghastly.

Anyway, who would have thought that these two teams had not played for over a month? Well, everybody watching actually. There was plenty of huffing and puffing and an abundance of commitment in the challenge, but the quality of passing from both sides was, to say the least, rusty.

Casuals apparently had a couple of first-teamers playing up front although Johnny said they had six playing. Then he said 5, then 4.

Jamie Cant worked hard, the back four battled well and Elliott Thompson covered so much ground hard in the cold night air that just before half time was calling for an iron lung. But generally the choice of pass let us down when all too often we went for the Beckham ball rather than the Carrick ball when the simple option was the best option. It was frustrating really. 0-0 at half time.

Barry had his Bovril and we were ready for the re-start. We needed to keep it simple. We needed to get it wide. We needed to play on the deck. And we needed John to shut up! (Love you really John).

It was pretty much the same up to half way through the second half when our superior fitness began to tell. We started to play one and two-touch football getting beyond the full backs and behind their back line. But it was the direct route, which provided the breakthrough. A long ball from deep found Julian Thompson pulling off his man (in the football sense of course), he did brilliantly to flick the ball on (as Peter Crouch he isn’t) and his flick found that other tall striker Greg Andrews bombing on in the inside left position.

As the keeper advanced, ‘Bashful’ deftly lobbed him with his left foot leaving him the lonely task of fishing the ball out of the net.

Julian Crouch nearly got on the score sheet himself soon after. Well he would have done if his effort had gone anywhere near the goal, or in fact anywhere need the goal-line. He strode through for a one-on-one and spooned the ball so badly, the referee’s assistant caught it. Guiney applauded enthusiastically.

Last word goes to Asa who fell awkwardly towards the end and was in so much pain (biting his shirt, grimacing) that when his ankle went numb everyone (including me) thought it was broken. Then to everyone’s astonishment he suddenly said, “I can feel it now” and got up. That’s when I saw this bearded man behind the goal with a little stick, which was pointed at Asa. I recognised him immediately as Professor Dumbledore. I’ve asked him to help out with the bag for the rest of the season.

Not a brilliant performance, but a win is a win.