_Monkey_
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Offline, last online: Oct 7 2008, 22:02 PM

As vintage as a Chateau Latour red it most certainly was not, but even still, KC Milan are finally off the mark this season.

It has been a long time coming, well, three games, but that is light years in a 14-game five-a-side season.

Defeats to Real Pelicano and Quay Management had hit confidence levels hard and question marks were no doubt raised in our own minds, as well as those of our rivals. However, a bit of togetherness, faith in our ability and some damn good goalkeeping from yours truly, if I do say so myself, helped yield our first win of the season.

The staunch seven were down to six this week, such was the typical desire of Jonathan Corbett to take his summer sabbatical in, well, autumn, and without so much as an adios, au revoir or, more aptly, hosca kal (he’s gone to Turkey).

Anyway, playing with six has sometimes galvanised the team in the past, so we were anything but concerned by the absence of Mr Corbett, or so we made out.

The Great Escape seemed to be younger in years than ourselves and, as their fast and frantic start to the match suggested, we perhaps slightly less experienced in the boozing department.

Regardless, they were rewarded for their energetic beginning by scoring the first goal of the match. A cross-goal shot was saved low to the ground by my right hand, but I could only parry into the on-coming traffic – a Great Escape forward – who tucked the ball away as I scrambled but failed to make a double save. (0-1)

“Oh-oooh, three defeats in three” could have easily plagued our minds and numbed our enthusiasm at this point, but not Oliver Woodward, on no.

As The Great Escape players were high-fiving, waving to the gallery and looking damn right smug with themselves, Woodward saw the chance to take a shot straight from the re-start, which resulted in the ball nestling into the corner of the net and helped restore parity before you could say, “Steve McQueen”. (1-1)

It was just the boost we needed and no sooner had we drawn level were we 2-1 up. The Great Escape were holding a particularly high line throughout much of the first half, pressuring our defenders, so I was always looking for the defence-splitting long ball and, after a few failed attempts, finally found it. The ball bundled out of my right hand like a rolling bomb before finding Woodward, whose explosive shot proved no match for the keeper.

I was getting a taste for this assist malarkey by this point and wished I could have included myself in my Fantasy Football team as I turned provider once again, slipping in Woodward for his hat-trick and my second route-one assist of the match (3-1).

Jeff the ref blew up, not literally, for half time soon after and allowed us our 60 seconds of rest which, despite the two-goal lead, was most welcome, as they were doing anything but making life easy.

We stuck to our usual game plan during the second half and initially resisted the temptation to sit back and invite them on. We were soon rewarded by our fourth of the match and Craig Cartmell’s first, as Woodward’s neat pass from the edge of the back wall left the keeper exposed and allowed Cartmell to tuck home his opening goal of the campaign. (4-1)

The resistance to sit back subsided somewhat after the goal, or maybe it was just tiredness, but The Great Escape came back into the game during the last 10 minutes and had a plethora of chances to claw a few goals back. However, some good luck, poor finishing and a modicum of good goalkeeping judgement ensured our net stayed undisturbed until full time.

A few sighs of relief went up from those in blue, white and yellow, as Jeff pierced the air with his final whistle, but a win is a win, as they say in this world of football, and we were grateful for the three points.

A mid-season break for Hull Fair next week gives us the chance to take stock and recharge our batteries, slightly more buoyed than we would have been had it come a week earlier.

Our goal of second place still remains a realistic one, particularly following some surprise results from our rivals in recent weeks. If only we had taken something from our first two games...


 

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