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More drama to come
By Lawrence Mentesh
Despite having one of the largest squads in the League,
Bonus Weeks found themselves entertaining top of the Table
Cines IMF with only 12 players, the rest of the squad being
decimated by injuries, work and other problems. It was
therefore a very similar Team to the one that lost to
Finestrat last week, with just a couple of tweaks here and
there, notably the absence of Chris Griffin and the return
of both Ross Musk and Alan Belshaw.
Cines IMF also only turned up with only a couple of
substitutes, but having won all 18 of their matches so far
it was clear that no matter who they put out they were
always looking likely to win. However, despite the enormous
gulf in their respective Table positions you would have been
hard pressed to separate the two Teams for the first 25
minutes, if anything it was Bonus Weeks who looked to be
making most of the early running, keeping Cines pinned back
in their own half for long periods.
Bonus Weeks carved out several half chances but lacked the
cutting edge to take any of them and again it was left to
the opposition to punish them for it, the deadlock being
broken by Cines after 25 minutes in quite a lucky fashion, a
hopeful shot from the left of the area took a nasty
deflection off the defender before it carried on past the
wrong-footed keeper.
A sigh of relief from Cines who were beginning to look a bit
rattled and they should have gone into the break with only a
1-0 lead at best but more blunt forward play from Bonus
Weeks and even more good fortune for Cines saw them steal 3
more goals in the last 10 minutes of the first half to make
it 4-0. First they had another speculative strike from
outside of the area which managed to squirm its way through
the hands of the diving keeper, then some slack defending on
the edge of the box allowed the Cines striker just enough
time to get his foot in first to put the ball past the
keeper and finally a double-defender sandwich saw the
attacker brought down which led to the inevitable penalty
and the even more inevitable scoring of it.
A very harsh sequence of events which left Bonus Weeks
severely short changed for all their effort in the first
half, not helped by the innumerable off-sides given by the
referee, some warranted and some not! Still, spurred on by
their industry in the first half and their excellent
football last week, Bonus Weeks started the second half even
stronger than the first and after some near over the bar
misses from both Cameron Parker and Carlos Parkin they
eventually breached the Cines defence on the hour mark, a
ball played through the centre was helped on by Lee Slevin
to Cameron Parker and this time Cameron made no mistake in
burying the ball into the keeper’s far right for his first
goal of the Season.
This gave Bonus Weeks a real lift and some rays of hope and
after riding the odd scare back in their own defence they
continued to push for at least one more goal to make the
game reflect how close it actually was. Bonus Weeks could
have done just that soon after but a great high cross in
from the left by Lawrence Mentesh was just missed by the
head of Lee Slevin at the far post and a couple of half
chances by Alan Belshaw were sent goal-wards but were not
telling enough to trouble the keeper.
However, if you keep on knocking eventually they will let
you in and after 70 minutes Bonus Weeks got their second,
another great high ball was sent in by Lawrence Mentesh to
the back post where Cameron Parker headed it back across the
face of goal where it found Carlos Parkin who then used his
own head to steer it past the helpless keeper to make it
4-2.
Things were now really looking up for Bonus Weeks and they
could have had even more, the best of the next chances
falling to Carlos again after he had been slipped through on
goal by a deft pass by Alan Belshaw but unfortunately the
shot from Carlos didn’t quite have the bite expected and the
keeper managed to get down well enough to block it away to
safety. Lawrence Mentesh then nearly got in on the act
himself, a Ross Musk challenge sent the ball loose across
the edge of the area and Lawrence wasted no time in curling
a left foot strike over the keeper’s head but the keeper was
alert enough to tip it over the crossbar at full stretch.
This obviously was not the script that Cines were used to
and eventually their attacking prowess began to surface
again although all 3 of their final 3 goals were again
helped by a large slice of luck. The first came from on easy
finish which was hardly surprising as the attacker was well
offside when he received the ball, the second came from a
close range free-kick which was initially blocked by the
keeper Adam Musk but as the rest of the Bonus Weeks defence
were caught ball-watching it was another Cines striker that
reacted quickest to make no mistake with the follow up. The
third goal was the biggest farce of them all, a cross in
from the right was accidentally diverted in at the near post
off the chest of the defender to make it 7-2 to Cines.
However, there was still more drama to come, with just 1
minute to go a ball over the top was deliberately handballed
by the last Cines defender. The free-kick was given and when
Lee Slevin tried to take it quickly the Cines keeper refused
to release the ball. This led to a confrontation between the
two which eventually ended in punches being thrown, Lee
being shown a straight red for throwing the first punch and
the keeper receiving only a yellow.
It was an ugly way to end another frustrating game which
could quite easily have been much closer in the end. Again,
and I say this every week, the score-line flattered the
opposition but with many of their big guns missing today
Bonus Weeks can still feel proud of their performance,
particularly players Cameron Parker, Carlos Parkin, Lawrence
Mentesh and Lee Frape, Lee playing the last 30 minutes with
a badly sprained hand after an earlier challenge. The full
extent of his injury was not realised until he went to
casualty after the game and came back with his arm in a
sling and his hand bandaged up!
Another player to add to the massive injury list, whoopee!!
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Trainer/
Coach