Wednesday night and Gary had elected myself and Paul S as captains for a 1st round tie in the captains cup. I had first pick and picked the league champion Nathan as first pick, sorry Gary, I know you’re my brother, but I had to go with what the stats told me. (P.s. you’re a bastard for scoring!)

Much unlike recent weeks, the teams that were picked seemed to be fairly even, with a good balance of skill, balance and old farts on each team.

The game started with both captains following the unofficial tradition of the club to start in goal. Paul’s Whites put us under immediate pressure with waves of attacks coming from the efforts of Gary P and James. My back 3 of Brian, Blake and guest Andy coped well to keep these at bay and I did have to make some saves myself.

Through sheer determination we managed to get up the other end of the pitch and tuck the ball into the net. Yessss 1-0!!!…or so I thought. There was a shout for handball and it turned out, unbeknownst to me, that “VAR” had ruled the goal offside and remained 0-0. 

The pressure remained from Paul’s team and they found the net through some neat footwork from James to pass Blake and slot past me into the bottom corner. 0-1 (1-1 in my head).

Soon after, the White team had a corner which I managed to get a hand to but couldn’t collect. This turned into a bit of a pinball in the dee, during which I managed to pull off a double-save, leaving Gary P to score his trademark one-yard screamer (Mean machine style). Bastard. 0-2 …(1-2). 

Given it being a cup game, I decided to shake the formation up a bit and, swapping with Brian, it allowed me to push Blake further forward and leave just myself and Andy at the back. This seemed to work well, with goals coming from Mike (a neat back heel) to make it 1-2 (2-2) and Cush to level it at 2-2 (3-2). 

With only a few minutes to go, the ball was fed across the dee to James, who was in behind our defence line, and he managed to net to make it 2-3 (3-3 in my head!).

Full time and I was fully prepared to face a penalty shootout between myself and Paul, only to be told no, you lost Neil. Oh. I’ll have to practice my sums on the abacus before next Wednesday.

Well done Paul, good luck in the next round!

M.O.M. - Would have to be James for proving the haters wrong and scoring two goals, including the winner!