Knuckleball

Ollie’s Canadian housemate Daniel came along. Wore a scarf and kept banging on about knuckleball, which I now understand is a powerful dipping free kick, as practised by, for example, Cristiano Ronaldo. There was none of that on display in the warm up and Daniel anyway ended up filling in for the oppo, who only had 10 with him.

There was one other new ringer, Chris’s friend Andrew, and we all worried a bit when we saw he was going to be lining up against Manu, but he handled him very well and even got forward to support a few attacks, so much so in fact that Manu redeployed more centrally, which ended up causing us more problems. More on that later.

Paul robbed a defender and scored with a really nice curling shot, 1-0. The oppo winger received a loose ball and hit a great looping finish over Tyson, who really had no chance, for the equaliser. Defence splitting pass and the oppo striker beat Tyson on the near side for 2-1 down at the break, which felt a bit harsh on us.

Second half, James hassled a defends and laid it off to Paul, who rifled into the net for his second of the game. After a corner, I think, Ollie flashed in a shot which took a deflection and we were 3-2 and smelling victory.

But Manu latched onto a pass down the right, got a shot away, Tyson parried and the oppo striker bundled in the loose ball, despite Rich’s best efforts.

A bit annoying to concede late on, but a good game.

Ringer A - Andrew

Ringer B - Sol