The Shambles turned up for this one with a skeleton crew of 5 players, including captain G-Man who was returning from a long term injury, but rather than be given a few minutes at the end of the match just to show the fans he was on his way back, he would be required to play the full match, with no chance of a rest. The other Shamblers were Clint, Worst, H.R.H. and Will-I-Am. G-Man laid out the game plan for the game, Will up front with H.R.H. playing in behind and Ian and himself in a defence that would support from the flanks; as is customary for the Shambles, this talk was forgotten as soon as the whistle went. Unusually though, it was G-Man who led the charge in forgetting his own words and sprinting out of defence on a run, H.R.H. looked confused, obviously worrying that he was going to have to do some defending for a change. It was obvious that the boss was not match fit and was going to struggle getting up and down the pitch for 20 minutes, so the Shambles adjusted their strategy, G-Man up top and the other 3 along the back, making runs and supporting the target man. The rest is history; this reporter can honestly say it was one of the best Shambles performances he has ever played in. Ian, Will, and Chris all worked hard, getting up and down the pitch, with the new formation allowing runners to break from defence, Graham, playing out of position and not 100% never stopped hustling the opposition defenders, pulling them out of position, holding the ball up and James who by his own admission, had a quieter night than usual made some great saves when called upon.

The first five minutes saw the almost organic transition of shape take place, the Shambles were lucky that BBQ were unable to take advantage of this period, after that the Shambles started to play themselves into the match. About 7 minutes in Will was fouled in the opposition half H.R.H. found himself stood over the ball for a direct free kick, the opposition keeper obviously hadn’t heard Dave utter the magic word as he was busy organising marking, H.R.H ruthlessly stroked the ball in to the bottom left hand corner, 1-0 Shambles.

Next it was Will’s turn to score, if this reporter is honest he doesn’t remember the goal, but it was well deserved, 2-0.

BBQ then had the nerve to have a better spell, with a good move resulting in the BBQ forward being through on goal, James came hurtling to the edge of this area and made himself as big as possible smothering the shot and deflecting it to safety. Then BBQ did pull one back, coming down their right, the BBQ forward got a miskicked shot off, which went through Ian’s legs (unheard of) and sent James the wrong way. 2-1.

Enraged by this show of audacity, captain G-Man collected a ball into him knocked it to his right and fired it into the net, 3-1 and half time. It had been a first half where the Shambles had had the better chances with  Ian and Will linking up well and both having some good efforts on goal.

 

The second half was a testimony to the drive and commitment of the Shambles, with their energy levels surly getting low, it was impossible to tell which of the teams had only 5 for most of the half, they never stopped and it was only the occasional misplaced pass that would give any indication that the boys in yellow were getting dangerously close to empty, unfortunately for H.R.H. one of his misplaced passes left a BBQ forward one on one with the keeper, the crew player made no mistake this time and made it 3-2.

The match carried on with still the Shambles playing the better football, in one attack H.R.H popped up on the left wing and receiving a slide rule pass from Will turned his marker ran towards goal and placed it beautifully against the cross bar D’oh. It was only in the last couple of minutes that BBQ looked like the team with 7 and in the dying seconds a BBQ player was up against Graham on the right, the BBQ player hit the shot, but G-Man blocked it, unfortunately the boss had lost track of the ball and the forward hadn’t. What happened next epitomised the performance of the whole team, Will sprinted the width of the pitch and threw himself in the way of the BBQ players goal ward shot taking a blow to his most private area in the process. As Will lay on the floor in agony the final whistle went and the pain turned, slowly, to joy, Joy at a win, joy at 3 points, joy at a great performance but most of all, joy that he had not sacrificed his testicles in vein.

So a 3-2 win that felt better than  the 8-2 win over Upton Glass, much better.