Berowra 1, Lane Cove West 0

It’s kick the cat time again. For the second time in seven weeks a game that we didn’t deserve to lose, and could have won, got away when we conceded the only goal in the dying minutes.

Still more changes to the team (Will we ever have the same squad two weeks running? Have we ever?). Matt was with the As, Dave C is injured & Bob waiting for another call-up. Back came Martin P, Jon, Guy, Bill & (briefly) Mark S.

We started well; passing the ball fluently, as we did all afternoon on the wide, if undulating, space at Foxglove. We found lots of room to run up front but (unless I’ve forgotten through the trauma) never really threatened strongly in the first half. Not sure we even got a corner.

In defence, Steve, Martin P & Eric seemed to have things under control. And at centre-half, first Dave L & then Jon were solid; with Jon even finding strength to surge menacingly upfield. His all-round performance was rewarded with 3^rd place in the MOTM voting.

But we had some scares. In particular, a forward was haring through on goal on our left, when Mark S caught him and took the ball with a perfect crunching tackle. Unfortunately some of the crunching sound came from Mark’s ankle, and he was carried off, to play no further part in the game. It was later agreed (when we were all able to talk again other than in curses – about 10 minutes after the final whistle) that the tackle alone was almost worth a MOTM point, or at least a credit towards one in future games.

Mark’s departure left us with just one sub for most of the game. But – as last week – we seemed more effective for having limited changes.

Charlie, meanwhile, switched from up front to mid-field where he, Peter and Dave L (who met Charlie there on his way in the opposite direction from centre half, eventually to forward) were particularly effective at dispossessing the enemy & laying off the ball. Dave L’s good form and versatility made him second in the MOTM voting.

So 0-0 at half-time, and as the second half wore on, it seemed that we wanted the win more than they did and, as a result, had more and more of the play.

The turning point, in retrospect, came early in the second half when we experienced a rare suspension of the normal laws of gravity. A good move on the right brought the ball to me. I poked it to Guy who poked it back to me just outside their area. I pushed it into a space on the left which (as I will confess I had anticipated) promptly stopped being a space when Ernie arrived in it. Seeing the keeper off his line, he chipped it delicately over him, and it was coming down under the bar. Except that it didn’t; well, it did come down, but not under the bar as gravity would normally have had it: very puzzling.

But on we pressed. I had a shot from just outside the area that whistled across the goal but just past their left-hand post. Then Guy floated over a lovely free-kick from the right that somehow evaded the entire defence, Peter’s head, an outstretched foot, and went out harmlessly. A little later a well-flighted Guy corner found Dave L’s head, but another near-miss was the only result. Bill had a chance close-in, but it found him off-balance, and that moment passed too.

I was running around a lot – the bananas really work! – though was surprised to be MOTM. Perhaps people took to heart a few weeks ago my suggestion that those concerned that John S might miss out whilst away should all vote for me, since I was no chance to catch him!

Meanwhile, though we were having the best of the play, our goal was threatened too.

First another beautifully-timed and fair tackle, this time from Eric who chased a forward deep into our area when a goal seemed odds-on, with a penalty the next most likely outcome.

Then, twice in five minutes point-blank shots cleared Dave W, the bar & the 20-foot fence

But still as time wound down it seemed that we had the better of the game and I, for one, was working my way around to feeling disgruntled with only drawing, and so staying 2 points behind Berowra.

But then the cruel denouement. One of their forwards cut a swath through the defence on our right, and others got pulled over, only for the ball to be crossed to our left where two of their forwards lurked, not far out. Still it seemed that all might not be lost, as they paused to consider the protocol of the moment: who might take the lead in trapping and putting it in (or perhaps they should do one of these each?). But just in time, they stopped standing on ceremony; one of them poked at it, and in it went off the post. Which reminds me of a game I saw at The Hawthorns once, in the now happily distant days when I lived in Birmingham. Early on a hard, low cross hit Cyrille Regis and went in. The man next to me said, “7-0”. “Er 1-0?” I replied. “No you get seven for in off the black!” But there was no such levity today as we trudged off the field two minutes later sick as parrots (as proper footballers always are in such circumstances; whereas the victors are “over the moon”) and wondering what we might have done to offend someone up there (I hope it’s not my earlier references to the Pope or the Biblical 1^st XI).

Thanks to James for being linesman & to Bill for lugging the beer again; and to Guy for filling in for absent friends.

Of whom I shall be one for the next four weeks: global warming will have to move on a bit before we take out European holiday at other times of the year. Still this gives others a chance to test their writing skills (I shall be logging in from my Tuscan café); and to improve the shirt washing. I did, by the way, pass to my wife the helpful remarks about the desirability of more fabric softener. In the sprit of learning and continuous improvement (even after 25 years of LCW shirt washing) she listened attentively, took it all on board, thought a bit, then said, “Tell them to get stuffed”.

MARK BRYANT