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A bag of brown flower
By Lawrence Mentesh
Another unwelcome visit to the sands of La Marina saw the
return of one of the few Teams that Bonus Weeks have managed
to beat this Season, the all-pink wearing whipping boys of
the League Quinta del 50. Last time out it was 2-1 to Bonus
Weeks but after the disappointing loss to Aluma last week
nothing could be taken for granted.
Missing this week were keeper Adam Musk, Chris Griffin and
Paul Wells, adding to the long term absentee list of Adam
Wilson, Dave Mold, Rich Billam, Mark Dooley, Ryan Moorhead
and Gaz Walling. However, returning to the squad were Adam
Tuaber, Nathan Conteh and Alan Spurgeon, all of whom have
been missed over the last few weeks.
The surface of La Marina is normally bad enough but now it
was especially loose and dusty making it very difficult for
the players to keep their balance and footing so the game
saw lots of slips and collisions which severely hampered the
quality of the football.
First to strike were Quinta on 15 minutes, a very dubious
free kick was awarded to them high up the pitch on the left
and when the kick was sent in it was flighted perfectly over
the wall and the stand-in keeper Lawrence Mentesh who
remained flat footed as he thought the ball was going over
the crossbar but it instead it dipped in high into the far
stansion to leave him with egg on his face.
Another soft goal conceded but Bonus Weeks were becoming
used to that so they carried on with their own forays
up-field and were rewarded soon after when a free-kick on
the right was taken by John O’Leary, his ball arching into
the centre of goal where the keeper made a complete hash of
clearing the danger allowing Carlos Parkin to pounce on his
mistake and put the ball into the back of the net to make it
1-1.
Their good fortune continued on the half hour mark when a
cross from the right wing by Alan Belshaw appeared at first
to be too far ahead of the chasing James Charles but again
the keeper fumbled his attempt to catch it, dropping it
right in front of James and the last defender but it was
James who used his power to out-muscle the defender giving
him the space needed to bury the ball in the open net for a
2-1 lead.
Bonus Weeks had a couple more chances in the first half, the
best of which was a fantastic run by Alan Belshaw from the
edge of his own area which saw him leaving 2 Quinta players
in his wake before he was eventually stopped as he was about
to pull the trigger by an excellent challenge by the last
defender.
That might have killed the game for Quinta but instead they
were given a life-line on 35 minutes when a clearly
perfectly timed challenge by Pete Frank in the area was very
harshly adjudged to be a foul and the referee blew for a
penalty. Pete was quite rightly incensed but his rather
outspoken and animated appeals simply added to his torment
as the referee then showed him a straight red card for
verbal abuse. Down to 10 men Bonus Weeks now had to deal
with the penalty and although Lawrence nearly got to it he
couldn’t keep it out so the game was levelled at 2-2 going
into half-time.
Unfortunately the second half only got worse for Bonus
Weeks, their plan to test Quinta’s dodgy keeper just did not
materialize with hardly any quality attempts on goal to
speak of. So, again, it was left to the opposition to take
their chances and they did just that on 65 minutes when a
kick by Lawrence from the edge of his area was won by a
Quinta player in midfield and seeing the keeper was still
off his line he smacked a great shot from the half-way line
which made it into the unguarded net. Lawrence did try to
get back to cover his goal but the sandy surface gave way
below him as he turned and all he ended up doing was a
rather good impression of a drunken Superman as he stretched
one arm out before stumbling face first to his sad demise in
a cloud of dust.
But for some superb defending by the now 3 man defence of
Jeff Ball, Adam Tauber and John O’Leary and an excellent
last ditch safe by Lawrence Quinta could have bagged a
couple more at least but they did eventually get one more
near the end as the 10 man Bonus Weeks were left too exposed
at the back allowing a 2 on 1 situation and as one attacker
rolled it across the area for the other the despairing dive
of Lawrence was never going to be enough to stop them from
scoring.
Bonus Weeks battled hard to get back in the game but they
just could not get any kind of rhythm going and when
full-time came the 4-2 score-line summed up their
disappointing day. It was the usual story of soft goals,
poor finishing, bad refereeing and a stupid sending off.
Pete did apologise to the referee at half-time but he will
still miss the game next week and as our most present player
of the Season I’m sure that he will be gutted not be able to
play.
Still, there were some great performances put in today,
particularly by Alan Belshaw, John O’Leary, Jeff Ball and
Adam Tauber, with Adam being in the wars on several
occasions with some nasty challenges by the Quinta players
and a good bitch-slapping from his own keeper during an
aerial challenge which left him winded for quite some time.
James Charles was also smart-bombed a couple of times, at
one point he looked like he had fallen into a bag of brown
flower but he managed to pick himself up and carry on.
Next week is the final game of the Season before the Cup
starts so Bonus Weeks desperately need some points and some
pride to finish on a high. At least it will be played on a
decent surface so hopefully they can get their passing game
going again.
Bring it on…
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Trainer/
Coach