Match report 21 September 2009

A 9 versus 8 cracker tonight.

Dickon, Nick, Tim, Chris, Andrew, Yusuf, Henry, Lionel and later Francesco would be considered a mighty force by many a sane man and a few insane ones, but they were up against an organised and disciplined side in David, Danny, Martin, John, Rory, Tomas, Ben, and Paul.

Dickon, Nick, Henry, and Lionel worked like tigers at the back prowling their perimeter and snarling at any potential attacks and were largely successful at preventing the opposition making headway; Tim, Chris, and Francesco plied their trade in midfield like eagles swooping on loose ball and carving their way elegantly through any space they could find; whilst Andrew and Yusuf were like foxes, jinxing this way and that, losing their markers and causing havoc with their opponents.

But it wasn't enough, David had shrewdly organised the 8 men in advance. They worked like a well oiled machine, a compact unit, a precision mechanism.

Martin was invaluable at the back, closing down the opposition and breaking down attacks, David, after an assured stint in goal, pulled the opposition defence apart up front, Ben and Paul won 50:50 balls all over the park and once they won the ball distributed the ball with class and ease; Tom once more was lethal up front and proved a highly effective outlet (as David O'Leary once said of Robbie Fowler but he could have been talking about Tomas "You could run a university course on how to score goals based on his finishing"); meanwhile Rory once more combined dogged and determined defence with acute and astute attack; but man of the match goes to John, who was a human dynamo and in spite of some tough tackles soldiered on to stamp his mark on the game - as Lizarazu said of Zinedine Zidane "When we don't know what to do, we give it to him and he works something out."