Match Report for Saturday 18th April 2015

5th XI won 3-2 v Alexandra Park 9s (Home)

This was the penultimate game of the season. It was really very good to see Nick and Toone turn up. It sure gave the team a little boost. Before the game team spirit was good. No doubt Nick will claim the plaudit for this victory but I will not accept that as this was an all round team effort. We started with a 4-4-2 formation and discussed before the game that we need to put in the effort and work rate and play for Stationers with pride.Most importantly to go out and enjoy with only 1 game left. As in true Stationers fashion we gave the ball away and paid the cost for it in the opening few minutes 1-0 down. But we looked easy on the eye with the whole team closing and pressing down any open spaces from defence to the forwards. It seems to be embedded in our nature that when we start to play decent football we seem to lose the plot and self destruct this is what happened when again we gave the ball away for a second time and found ourselves 2-0 down which I didnt think we deserved as we were outplaying our opponents.We continued to probe and had bossed and dominated possession as we were the better team. Surely the goal was gonna come as we relentlessly pinned the oppo in when 10 minutes from half time jazz was adjudged to be fouled in the box and jazz stepped up and duely obliged 2-1 game on. We pretty much pressed them till the end of the half to come in 2-1 down at half time.

Second half we continued in the same vein with our team captain Alan Amato coming close hitting over and Alex going clean through but hitting it straight to the keeper. All throughout we totally kept them on the back foot and surely we deserved more to show for our team display. We duly obliged when Ron our versatile rock played a ball down the right hand side to jazz who was out wide and I expected him to cross the ball but a brilliant moment of magic happened when he looked up and smashed the ball into the top corner of the goal from a Ross blackmore like angle to level the scores. Erm Ross thats how it's actually done. As we continued to look for the winner it seemed there was only one team winning this. Zaf came close with a shot just going over and Mike d scuffing a shot when the goal opened up. Alan came close again when he hit over. With 10 minutes we had a corner and the opposition failing to clear the lines with the ball hanging in the air jazz with his back to goal done an overhead scissors kick from about 10 yards out into the back of the net, what a hat-trick. 3-2 up. We held our shape and were resolute to the end. When the ref blew up it was a sweet sound to hear and an important 3 big boy points today. Everyone played with pride and more importantly represented old Stationers in a manner which made me proud to be a Stationer.Well done lads more of the same for next week. It's our last game so we just need to go out and express ourselves in like manner as we did today. Special mention to Karl who made 2 important saves when we were 2-1 down which kept us in it.Well done mate. Special mention to jay and Ron, two outstanding towering performances. But my man of the match has to go to Jazzy with great hold up play and 3 fantastic finishes. Well done cuz. Nick you see how quickly I wrote this report. I think I should get an award for best reporter of the season to open up another can of worms on the emails lol. Well done everybody. Good feeling to win in an os shirt. Let's finish in style with a good team effort for our last game lads. Ps welcome back George Johnson put your name down for next week. Be good to have you there.