Witton Albion JFC

After the usual winter slump, Witton Albion descended on Middlewich, home of AFC Middlewich. Pre-match activity consisted of comments about the high number of black plastic pellets on the 3G pitch, co-ordinated “trade union style” moaning about players not receiving their kit and the manager moaning about losing his pen (again). Witton hadn’t won in the previous 4 games, conceding some heavy defeats against the heavyweights of division 1. Alex hadn’t turned up to be chief linesman, but the inventor of corner number 5 Evan was lurking around

The first half ended with a lesser seen 0-0 score, but overall Witton had been in charge with a number of chances, a Thomas wonder volley narrowly missing the corner flag and an unfairly disallowed but expertly taken Dan goal to their “credit”. The central defensive rock o’ Jack looked like a Duran Duran song and once riled by an annoying winger, Sam H got his business hat on and began bossing the right side of defence. The main threat from Middlewich appeared to be “match abandoned – no football” as clearance after clearance disappeared over the stands. A half-time team talk - unusually shorn of moaning - was “more of the same but more communication”, with the players left wondering what a “business hat” was….

James took this advice onboard and started communicating more with the referee, only to find that the referee had magical sin-bin powers and he was given a rest from his number ten duties (which he had been honing to good effect thus far). Middlewich were upping the ante and a spell of pressure resulted in a triple save miracle from Elliot as he flung himself around keeping the ball out as it pin-balled around the box from the marauding forwards. This led to a shiver and shake from Witton and a free-flowing attack led to Fin shooting the ball under the keeper for the first. Some battling midfield play from Tommy C led to a free-kick on the edge of the box and under the expert guidance of the manager (“Danny, Danny, DANNY, far post, put it far post, far post ok?”), Danny curled home a beauty inside the near post. As the fans started to recover from the shock of seeing Witton play well in the second half, a corner resulted in a splendid scramble resulting in Tom A sitting down to smash home a 0.5 yard effort including repeated efforts to kick the defenders into the net. “Coach THAT, Manager” he yelled on his lap of honour. Witton were now rampant and as the midfield maestro Sam R (another influential game) received “treatment” from Craig on the touchline for a broken tooth, a wayward corner from Danny actually resulted directly in a volley from Fin for his second goal of the game. Having decided that Elliot should not have his clean sheet, the Albs then desultorily played out the final minutes conceding a couple of consolation goals in the process.

After the game, the manager could not find anything to criticise, a very unusual situation which left the manager to get his satisfaction by moaning at the team for their haphazard and disorganised kit distribution methods; “short passes, communication and shape is key here lads” droned the misery-meister as the team deservedly grabbed their new kit.

Captain’s Man of the Match: Elliot
Managers Man of the Match: Sam H
Magic moment: Elliot triple save
Quote of the day : ”that’s 100 yards offside”