If last week it was a case of “crisis, what crisis” this week it was “oh yes that crisis, bugger”. In what can only be described as one of the poorest matches of the season, the Shambles could only manage a 5-5 draw with opponents that were a whole 10 places below them. The game swung backwards and forwards with
neither team getting more than one goal ahead at any point. Braces for Paul and Chris and a late equalizer from Captain Carthorse were some of the highlights for the shambles, plus solid performances from Ian and Tom and a performance from Dave which, he assures me, was assist laden. It was a good job that Chris scored two as the rest of his performance was poor at best and he may well have found himself out of the team next week.
The player’s performances weren’t the only poor thing about this match, as the game was also marked by some of the worst refing seen in the 2nd division this season which left the Shambles wondering if it was actually Graham Poll and not Graham Duke doing the decision making. It became apparent early on that the Crown had decided to go into this match using the “Wimbledon philosophy” of kicking lumps out of their opponents. Dave was an early casualty as he took a knock in the opening minute which hampered his “running” for the entire match, not that his team-mates noticed. Next was Chris who made a run down the left wing, only to be shoved into the side several times by his assailant and when finally Chris got the ball away it was all he could do to avoid a wild swing of the boot from the same Hat wearing player, Graham waved play on with the remark of “this isn’t sheep herding lads”, we know it isn’t Mr Duke, so why was no foul given? Moments later, the same hatted thug tried the same on Captain Carthorse. Tim, not being the mildest mannered footballer in the team, retaliated. When eventually the ref spotted the ruckus, both men were squaring up; Graham instantly sin-binned both players, which was harsh on the Shambles Captain as he had only been defending himself. This ruff treatment went on for the rest of the game, as did the poor refereeing. The ref’s poor game was capped of when he failed to spot two blatant over head height decisions, both of which were a good 15 feet in the air.
At the end of the day though, the Shambles only have themselves to blame for the result, after the previous weeks calm and composed team performance, they reverted to the ball chasing, poor passing group of individuals that they have been too many times this season.