A promising start to the week this week in which everyone had checked in by Tuesday! A first to my knowledge. I presume those playing were eager to give Blake a kicking after his midweek prank on WhatsApp. Basically Blake claiming we had lost our Wednesday booking and would have to move to a Friday 9pm slot. Signalling the end of Plus 30 as we know it, it would seem. A half hour of panic ensued in the group before Blake finally admitting he was having us all on. Bastard! :D

Anyway to the match, after giving Neil the picking last week "on his most stressful work week of the year" (mischief/bonfire night), I decided I may as well be captain this week, seen as I had the next few days off work.

I won the toss and had to choose between first choice or extra man. Not a decision I wanted to make but thought sod it, be confident, take first pick and take the game to them.

We progressed through the picking board fairly quickly, until Nick took a ridiculous amount of time deliberating whether to pick Richie or not. Eventually he opted for him, I of course was chuffed to bits with that decision, but Nick had a game plan for his team which would allow Richie to play to his strengths...i.e. not moving and standing 20 yards offside for the whole game!

With their extra man goal hanging up top, pressing forward was very difficult and very risky. We got caught out for their first goal, we had committed players forward in an attack, they countered with Andy down the right. Andy only had a small window of the goal to aim for as Bren was well positioned, but Andy found it, hitting his shot across the goal off the post and in.

The whites got another, with Blake on the scoresheet again for his third consecutive game... a well worked goal saw Richie play a diagonal ball through to Andy, who dummied it, to leave it to unmarked Blake to tap it in. Again, on the counter with men running at us, dragging our defenders all over the place as we try to cover the extra man.

We managed to get one back, I intercepted a pass and broke down the right, Blake came in for the tackle but his sliced challenge had the ball bobble back into my path and I picked out Dave in the box for a classy first-time finish on the half volley.

After that, we hoped with our goal we could push on for the equaliser, but the Whites had a quick reply through Andy and their gap now back to two goals.

Despite our continued efforts to get another goal before the end, which included a goal line clearance, the game remained at 3-1, final whistle.

A buoyant Paul rushed over to Bren at the final whistle and offered him some free goalkeeping lessons after keeping a clean sheet during his time in goal. Very generous of him.

Well done Nick, great tactics, putting Richie up top to distract Bren with talk of wall rendering was a stroke of genius!

Well played Whites, who put in a big effort and really made the extra man count. And thanks to my Yellows for giving it their all, a tough game that required a lot of effort from both sides.

MoM - Harvey; read the game well and disrupted most of our attacks. Also could have had a goal if Richie had opted to pass instead attempting the Gascoigne vs Scotland spectacular himself which went high and wide. 

Those not in attendance for the after match pint missed the free plates of pizza and chips the barman brought over to our tables... but I couldn't stomach it myself after suffering my fourth loss in a row. Richie top of the league and I'm 21st in a relegation scrap...Blake please tell me this is another wind up!!