WWWWW Speranza 3-6 IUE

Cerreti, Tuesday 18th March, 2008. Scorers: Dave H, Irial (2), Dave M (2), Luke

Now, there are some bad haircuts in the world. Just go to Spain. Or Germany. I remember being terrified of getting my haircut when I lived in Spain, that I put it off for so long that I couldn't see through my fringe any more. Then when I did finally get it cut they confirmed all my fears by telling me that he had left my hair 'just a little bit longer at the back'. I was at risk of looking like Chris Waddle in 1990. Google it. Anyway, the ref from last night, an incompetent of the highest calibre, also obviously goes to Spain to get his hair cut. The moments of hilarity shared with Speranza between their chiama and ours were at risk of putting us off the match: there is a great lyric from a great song, by a group I have cited several times on this blog, which goes: 'First of all, who's your A&R?/A mountain climber who plays an electric guitar'. (Name the song anyone? Without googling it, Jen!). I always imagined that A&R to look just like the man reffing our game last night, with a wisp of hair left on the top of his head, long abandoned by the rest of his hair, and flowing but greasy locks of numerous shades of grey (gray for the American readers, Hi Frat Buddies), tied together beautifully in a dank ponytail.

He also had no clue how to ref. No clue. Abysmal. Truly incompetent. Four deliberate violent fouls on our men who were through. Only two bookings. One when Irial was right in front of goal about 10 yards out with no-one else within 20 yards. It was a foul in a fifty-fifty he said. He also sent Davie Horan off after Dave was hacked down and got up and slightly pushed their wanker of a number 7. At least he sent their man off too, though it wasn't quite clear why. Great. He also booked one of theirs for diving, which I have never seen in our league before. Seemed a touch harsh, but there you go.

Anyway, fifth successive victory. Wow. In newspapers in the UK there is often a current form chart of teams, showing the results of the past five games. Ours now reads WWWWW. Let's keep it up, and keep eating away at Romito's lead. Apart from two minutes of incompetence on our part and some slight over-confidence and lack of discipline that occasionally crept in we did quite well in this game. We scored a few cracking goals, including a real beauty by Irial, and ground out the result when we needed to, having almost thrown it away when we had seemingly already won.

Ernesto came back in for the missing Luis, and David returned in goal. The rest of the team stayed the same. We started off nervously, misplacing passes and on the backfoot, but scored a great goal from our first attack: across the back, down the left across and in. Irial got a second from a Leo corner, and we missed two great chances from two more corners. They should have gone in. They scored after Simon was clearly fouled by their striker. The balls dropped for their nuimber 10 who belted it into the top corner on the volley. We were doing well on the ball but they had some intelligent players with good movement, and we failed to pick their men too often. We got another goal after Dave M nicked the ball off their keeper after I had whacked it upfield. 3-1 at half-time, a deserved lead, but with some negative aspects to our performance.

We had the worst of starts to the second half with them scoring an even better goal than their first -- a volley from 25 yards into the top corner. A terrible goal from our point of view though, as was their equaliser one minute later, where we let the ball bounce in our area, with it then bouncing over me and into into their striker's path. Tap in. 3-3. To be fair, we then started playing again, and dominated for the next five minutes. Irial went through after I dinked into his path. I was already purring at the idea of having two assists from sweeper, as Irial was about to pull the trigger. He was then up-ended in the most blatant of manners. How this is top a red card I have no idea. Fortunately I buried the penalty. 4-3. We then dominated for the rest of the game in all honesty, getting in behind numerous times, with them reduced to hacking us down. How their players stayed on the pitch is beyond me. Dave H became our third player to be sent off in six games. Wow, we are turning into proper bad boys. I blame Leo. We came close a couple of times from crosses from free kicks, but somehow the ball stayed out. Irial then scored a fantastic goal, something between a lob and a curler, over their pink keeper. Excellent. Dave M ran through right at the end and stuck it under the keeper to make it six. I had said I wanted minimum six goals earlier in the day. We showed we could hold firm and grind a result out when it seemed to be getting away from us. Well done. More of the same needed in two weeks, after a one-week easter break.

Team: (1-3-4-1-1): David - Luke - Mate, Simon, Dom (Charles) - Leo (Joel), Ernesto, France (Nate) - Dave H - Irial (Johnny)