Twenty eight of us sat down to homemade Steak Pie followed by Bread & Butter pudding, Cheese & Port. A huge thank you must go out to Bob and Rose Morris who provided the fantastic homemade lunch as well as Tommy Caulkwell for donating a marvellous selection of Cheese's.

After the lunch we were privileged to watch the top of the table clash - COXA 4th XI vs Dorkinians 5th XI. The COXA 4th XI turned on the style, producing some great football in front of the assembled spectators, finishing with a 5 - 1 victory to put them top of the league.

Amongst those attended were: Joe Davorn, Ray Gibbs, Graham Hudson, Jimmy Burke, John McGuire, Mick Powell, Vic Roszkowski, Paul Tehan, Rich Williams, Mick Burke, Aidan Coletta, Dan Condon, Colin Garvey, Eddie O’Brien, Mick Powell, Ben Benedict, Scotty Macdonald, John Leathem, Mick Power, Frank Barretta, Mick O’Flynn, David Leathem, Andy MacDonald, Brendan Walsh, Joe Benedict, Andy Brannon.....

Pictures from the day

MATCH REPORT : COXA'4's 5-1 Dorking 5's
Team sheet : Josh Browne, Stan Christoforou, Michael Hart, Liam Thornton, Conor Keable, Dom Taggart, Jacob Browne, Ben Dakin, Matt Drury, Tom MacGregor, Sam Michael. Karl Velinor, Sean Slater, JJ Thornton.

On the face of it, this was another convincing win for the 4's. But score lines can be deceiving. Me and Dom had gone from trying to convince the boys that Tooting bec common wasn't 'that' bad and that it would probably be a one off, to pumping them up with the news that we were the feature game for the old boys lunch at Norbury. This news must have hit home as for the first time probably ever, everyone was on time! After preaching the importance of being on time and being prepared to the boys, the kick off was pushed back 15 mins. This didn't strengthen my argument, I could feel the dissent from the boys as they stood in the pouring rain just waiting for the game to start. Sean Strachan even went as far as to tell me he 'wasn't in the right state of mind' after the 15 min delay. We laughed it off, but he appeared to have a point. We started very slowly, the first 15 mins were ping pong football, no one could really get a grip of the ball and there were plenty of misplaced passes. One thing which was good from the off however, was our pressing, Sam Michael in particular charged down the opposition back four at every opportunity like a young Alexis Sanchez. His persistence was rewarded when he won the ball from their right back and went on to bear in on goal and finish neatly. A mention must also go out to Conor Keyboard who during this period of pressure consistently got the better of his winger putting in some brilliantly timed challenges.

We began to get into the game around the 20 min mark, Sam fashioning out two chances for winger Tom 'pea head' MacGregor. However, Tom was not on top of his game, one chance in particular took us all by surprise. Sam putting an inch perfect ball into the path of Tom less than 1 yard out... but the pea head managed to trip over the ball and watch it go out of play. We were beginning to believe that all his power was in his hair. But the Adam Deacon look alike trudged on and managed to score what was a much harder chance curling it in with his right foot to put us 2 up and give us a bit of a cushion heading into the break.

We were met with applause from the old boys at half time and they told us we were playing some great stuff. We knew we had much more in the locker though, and we knew if we could just get that final ball right we would go on to put this team to the sword. One thing we tried to drive home was not to give them a lifeline back into the game and make it 2-1. Soooo the second half commenced and we conceded almost immediately from a headed own goal from Ben Dakin. This angered us and we were determined to correct this as soon as possible. None were more determined than Ben himself, who is known for his goal scoring form, he went on to make amends for his mistake scoring a delicate lob to give us a 3-1 lead.

A mention must go out to the Dorking number 9 whos main attribute was mistimed slide tackles on opposition back four. A personal highlight for me was when he attempted to break the ankles of Michael Hart for the third time only for Harty to casually skip away from him and drive into the midfield whilst asking the ref to have a word with him. It was fair to say that they wernt a fan of either of our centre halves. Liam in particular got under their skin when returning the ball to their goalkeeper by dropkicking it into the furthest corner of Norbury for him to fetch. He wasn't best pleased. But as John Leathem explained to the ref 'he didn't judge for the wind'. So Liam got away with it.

The last 20 mins of the game we were completely dominant and whereas they had rolled their subs on and off all game and were tiring, we introduced ours for the last half an hour and their freshness caused problems. Matt put the nail in the coffin by scoring a brilliant Ronaldinho style screamer* and from that moment on it was comfortable. This team were a more physical opponent than we have faced so far and put us under more pressure, but we dug deep and with the support of some club legends on the side line came through the other side with the 3 points.

This was met by plenty of beers and some great grub in the clubhouse afterwards so a massive thanks to everyone involved with the club day the boys had a great day, I hope you enjoyed the game. Hopefully we will provide a trophy for you come the end of the season!

MOM- Conor Keyboard- Grit, headers, a lack of pace and a big mouth, everything required to be a world class amateur left back.

Up the Clapham

*Cross