This week, the C's had Pembroke away, in what was likely to be another tough encounter - especially for those of us silly enough to spend the entire morning playing paintball prior to the game (i.e. Tim/Saf).

Yet again the Whites were undermanned - with regular C's players Tomas, Patrick, Kevin, Harry, Manny and Benjamin all out (to name a few). This paved the way for first gamer Tansey (sp) to get a start, in a remodelled line up that included a sick Leo and the return of Peter Ashmore.

Lev directed the Whites to keep the ball, keep the passing game, because in the reverse fixture at the start of the season we'd held Pembroke at bay for long periods, simply by retaining the ball.

Fortunately for Tim - the first half we played in exactly this way. With Leo, Tansey, Jon and Jan getting plenty of the ball in good advanced positions, we spent long periods keeping the ball under control and not giving Pembroke a sniff. Jason was doing an excellent job in the holding role (as well as winning everything in the air) and the back 4 of Cam, Lev, Pete and Saf were making things difficult for the Pembroke forwards and also passing the ball out of defence.

The Pembroke keeper seemed to have a fear of kicking, but this was tempered by an amazing throw - in fact his throw outs were accurate and hard and they caught us off guard a few times.

Late in the half though his poor kicking gave us an opportunity - as the Pembroke keepers clearance only made it as far as Tansey, who with an open goal hit it cleanly from about 40 meters away into the back of the net.

Whilst the chance was fortuitous, the goal was just reward for an excellent first half in which we'd won all the 50/50 balls and had moved the ball with confidence.

In the 2nd half, we knew that the young (fit) Pembroke boys would come back at us hard. Thankfully Somi had arrived from the air-port (collecting his parents) and Tim had talked Pete Bachos and Simon Barnett to play for us (after having both played the earlier games). Pembroke definitely had the better of the 2nd half as we tired. Jonny Wilson came off for Simon to come into a defensive move, Tansey made way for Pete on the left after an excellent first game in white (including 'Pulling a Hilal' - although not a 'proper Hilal'), whilst Leo made way for Somi.

Again these moves seemed to work - Somi definitely caused some difficult times with his size and Pete was his usual niggly self.

Cam and Simon though were doing all the heavy lifting at the back. Matt, who'd had a very quiet first half - was made to work hard in the 2nd, but he was up to every challenge as the Whites fought tooth and nail for the win.

When the final whistle went the boys were relieved as well as excited - a tough 1-0 win in difficult conditions against a very fit Pembroke team.

Matt's first clean sheet of the year and Tansey's goal on debut were the highlights... It's always good to sing the song.

That's it!

SafTop