3s splutter past Lansdown A

We negotiated a potential banana skin today, winning 4-2 away to bottom of the table Lansdown A. We didn’t seem at the races for the first five minutes, going down to a soft goal when their striker received the ball unmarked on the P-spot – hands-up from yours truly, a bit distracted by the fact that Duncan had given away my face-mask to the team that had just finished! We gradually clawed our way back into the game but our flowing game was missing today and we had to make do with spluttering on three cylinders. The shape that has served us so well in the last two or three months wasn’t as effective, maybe due to the overly-sandy pitch or the (poor) quality of the opposition. After a number of point-blank saves from their keeper from several of our players, Hobbes claimed the equaliser when he robbed the ball outside the D and drove in to score. The second came when Alex jinked into the D and shot into the far corner. A third quickly followed when Blacky slapped into the D, Curt changed the direction of the ball and Winge reacted with a first-time shot. 3-1 at half-time and surely a more comfortable ride in the second half? More three-cylinder pressure from us but it was Lansdown who scored from their only short of the day. After another game of many shorts for us, we finally converted one when Curt deflected in a text-book no. 2. We still contrived to give them a couple of chances before the end to make it interesting but we’ll take the three points. Three Man of the Match votes for each of Winge and James but they were pipped by Blacky for a solid performance at the bottom of the diamond.