A slightly modified line up consisted of Fernando Criado (welcomed warmly from the 3rds) at right back with Ben Butters and Chris Den Hartog in the now familiar 3-man defence. Lacking the first-choice Joliffe/Reynolds creative fulcrum in midfield it was decided to partner Oli Duncan and Gianluca Di Fabio in their place with Captain Alan “Fantastic” Herrity in the holding role. John Pellegry returned to his more familiar right wing with Yuriy Shpek on the left. Up front saw the pacy, agile pairing of Neil Wright and John Fitzgibbon. Sergio “The Cat” Tache “volunteered” to play in goal. It has long been suspected that Mark Sheekey was not entirely human (he speaks some strange alien language after all). Opposing forwards, goalposts and trees have all succumbed to his ferocious tackling but, much like HG Wells’ aliens from “War of the Worlds”, he was finally defeated by the common cold and relegated himself to the bench where he was joined by Matt Williams.

It was quickly evident why AZUR have conceded so many goals. Their defence was remarkably slow and immobile and the 4ths had several chances within the opening minutes With the defence rarely being troubled the midfield was able to spread the play out wide and it was from there that Shpek scored the first goal. Skipping past two challenges he cut in at pace from the left and drilled a well-placed shot into the bottom right hand corner. 1-0!

Not much later, Captain Alan “I am The One” Herrity, slipped into bullet-time and curled a left-footed shot from the edge of area towards goal. Time slowed down (as did the ball) as players and spectators watched the ball trickle over the line. 2-0! It was party time and the 4ths started to play exhibition football. A hoofed long ball forward from Di Fabio was flicked on by the head of Wright into the path of Fitzgibbon who coolly rounded the keeper and slotted it home for 3-0! Who needs total football anyway?

At this point AZUR sparked briefly into life and managed to mount a reasonable attack but it was quickly snuffed out by Wright who duly fed the ball out wide to the eager Pellegry. Off he went on a mazy run down the wing, skinning the defender before firing an unstoppable shot in the top far corner. Goal of the game (sorry Yuriy!) makes it 4-0!

The fifth and final (for the 4ths) goal was a true team effort. Some intricate play in our half saw the ball fed wide to Duncan. Finding himself on the halfway he shaped to shoot (probably) before changing his mind and setting off on a run down the wing. Almost reaching the by-line he shaped to shoot again (probably) before, uncharacteristically, listening to the shouts of “Pass it you greedy b*%^%&d!!!” and subsequently crossed the ball to the far post where the waiting Wright only had to tap it in from two yards. 5-0 and game over!

After such a rousing first half it was, perhaps, inevitable that the second half wouldn’t live up to the billing. And so it was. Our play became sloppy as we relaxed and AZUR started creating more chances. Criado was replaced by Williams shortly after the interval and AZUR made a change of their own bringing on a strong and powerful winger who immediately starting causing a lot of problems on the right. After winning a free kick on the left, AZUR switched the play to their new player and he, much like Shpek earlier, cut in from the right and fired a shot into the back of the net. It was never going to much more than a consolation goal but, against better teams, we’ll get punished a lot more heavily. Shpek limped off with a slight injury to be replaced by the coughing and wheezing Sheekey but the half continued in much the same vein until the final whistle was met with relief from both teams.

In the end, it was the result that counted although, truth be told, the score could easily have been 10-1 had we converted all our chances. Still, we find ourselves sitting pretty in second place with a very healthy goal difference. Next week sees us play another win-less team before “The Big One” against British United!

Wrightmanaged to pip Herrity and Shpek to the man of the match award and William Denholm walked away with the dick of the day award for the third week running (if he carries on this way he we may have to consider re-naming it the ‘Denholm award’)