Leslie: Your storyteller this week
Returning to the grounds where Duncan hit his legendary Carlos Alberto bullet goal with a near full-strength squad, the omens for a victory against newly-promoted Cyrus were good. In the changing room, the gaffer asked if anyone had any injuries that might necessitate him pulling on a shirt. Everyone was fine so Jade rounded off by saying ‘Thank youâ€. To which Vilem’s lightning response was “No. Thank YOUâ€. Cue booming laughter all round. And as usual, Don, Stew and Jindy were insistent that a combo of tape, tiger balm and smelling salts would act as lucky charms. Word has it that the Slaternator’s Saturday night Kazbag has similar contents. And sweets too.
Onto the game, we started brightly enough on a big firm pitch. We passed the ball around crisply, with Nick M and Vilem giving us real penetration down the flanks. After 10 minutes, Vilem charged into the area and the oppo’s midfileld bruiser bundled him over clumsily. Penalty. Harley’s Angel duly converted with a gently stroked strike into the corner. Thereafter, we continued to dominate possession for a while but rarely threatened goal due to a lack of directness.
In the last quarter of the half Cyrus started to get some forward momentum, with their lively midfielders and strikers pulling our defence around, forcing Bill to pull out a couple of great saves. Unfortunately, Vilem got hacked down by one of the midfield brutes and, after howling and rolling around like a coyote being tortured by Jack Bauer, left the field to be replaced by James.
In the second half, James was moved to join Rich up front and Steve switched to the left. Nick was a threat on the right again, Rich was dropping deeper in search of the ball, and Ralph replaced Simon in the centre mid. We had the upper hand for a little while but then Cyrus got a corner, the ball was only half cleared and dropped kindly to one of their midfielders who looped a volley over a cluster of players into the net.
Palac: Harley's Angel notched from the spot
This seemed to get the pulses of both teams racing, the pace of the game speeded up and became very end-to-end. 10 minutes later, after some questionable defending on our left flank, one of Cyrus’ midfielders barrelled through and smacked a shot from the edge of the box that rippled the net. This sparked a frenzy of all-hands-to-the-pump play from Albion and we kept pounding the Cyrus box, with Jindy continually whipping in great balls from set pieces. They defended admirably – their big keeper was particularly adept at punching the ball away – but started fouling us more often as the pressure told.
Then the moment we’d all been waiting for: Jade came on for the injured Stew. Five minutes later, aided by his dining table shin pads, he smashed the ball against the post from 10 yards out and Don hit the same post again as he manfully struggled to convert the rebound. With a minute to go, we won a free kick 40 yards out. The Cyrus midfielder who’d given it away was furious and unwisely proceeded to loudly question the referee’s judgment. He wouldn’t let it lie and eventually forced the ref to send him off. Jindy swung in another dangerous free kick but they cleared their lines again and that, as they say, was that.