11/10/2009

Kingsbury Ardent are a young side with an average age of sixteen and a bit, which makes most of them half the age of a number of players in the Cashen starting line-up including yours truly, I know, I know who'd believe it?

Cashen came into this game on the back of a 4-1 drubbing by QPR the previous week and were hoping to make amends for their early exit in the cup. It was unfortunate for Cashen then, that after ten minutes of soft football from both teams, Kingsbury scored first. Leon had found himself crowded by KA players and the resulting switch in possession led to a KA striker bursting through the defence and would have got a shot off had it not been for Jason cleverly taking his legs out of the shooting equation with a spectacular foul from behind. To be fair to Jason, the only thing mentioned by the ref before the match started was that dissent would not be tolerated, he said nothing about penalising reckless challenges that prevented goal scoring opportunities. Anyway, the ref must have decided that John and Leon were closing in quick enough for a red card not to be issued and just awarded a penalty which was put away well.

The best thing Cashen could have done was to counter quickly and get on with the job in hand and that's exactly what they did when Chris squared the ball to Tik just outside the semi circle of the KA area who then played the ball into the danger zone for Chris to calmly chip the ball over the outcoming Keeper and into the top right hand corner.

The best thing that could have happened next is if a throw in down the left flank was flicked on by Paris for Tik to run onto and beat the full back, cut in to the area and score with a shot inside the near post, and then everyone rushed in to tell Tik that no way does he look twice as old as the opposition. Most but not all of the previous sentence happened.

(Somewhere, a man saw a leftback and remembered he hates leftbacks)

Soon after, a ball (an assist, who was it?) was played to Tik in a busy Kingsbury goal area whose flick of the ball to evade an incoming defender bounced off said defender's arms to give away a penalty as the referee judged him to have approached with arms raised. Tik sent the keeper the wrong way and Cashen were two up.

Half time came and Cashen reaffirmed their allegiance with a circle, a tower of hands and a shout of 'CASHEN!!'

(Somewhere, a man in a circle with his hand sandwiched in a tower of hands, shouting 'CASHEN!!' secretly wished he was shouting at a leftback instead)

The second half began and Cashen sat on their lead, happy enough to soak up anything that Kingsbury threw at them. AJ and Leon were continually making their presence felt in midfield, winning many a physical battle and the back four also had the physical upper hand, some admitting after the game to have gone a bit easier on the oppo due to their tender years. When Chabs came on for Jason he really went easy on them and fell on his arse for no tangible reason. Whilst Chabs was picking himself up, Paris was busy making countless forays up the left wing, cutting in and having a punt at goal but alas no joy for his efforts.

(Somewhere, a man who hates left backs got kicked by a leftback)

In keeping with his core values Ashley started shouting at the KA leftback, a lot. That guy, he just doesn't like leftbacks. Wayne decided to diffuse the situation by swapping Ashley and Paris to opposite wings, and brought Streaky on for Chris.

It wasn't until towards the end of the second half that either team scored again. This time a ball was played to Tik (whose assist?) who ran at the defence and tried to play Sean in with a diagonal ball but the pass bounced off a KA player toward the goal and into the path of a second defender. Whilst the second defender was waiting for a written invitation to clear the ball or pass back to the keeper, Tik gatecrashed the party by taking the ball off him and stroked it past the keeper for his hat-trick.

Before the game was out, Wayne couldn't resist testing whether Kingsbury's smallest player could pass through solid matter as he stepped into his pathway to goal. As the Kingsbury player picked himself up off the floor, the only conclusion the ref could come to regarding this experiment was that it was a foul. Nothing came of the resulting free kick and the final whistle moments later signalled a 4-1 win for Cashen.

Man of the match: Tik