Best Performance of the Season for Sparticans
By Simon Fitch
Sparticans 3 – 1 Sanderstead M1
Goals: Jordan, Steve, Lewis
Spartican of the Day: Jordan
Comfortably the performance of the season so far for the Sparticans as we ended Sanderstead’s 900+ day unbeaten run with a great all round performance in the Valley of Dreams in Caterham.
Prior to the game, Birthday Boy Captain Chaos Curtis made Steve our on-field gaffer and he unleashed the never seen before ‘Iffland’ formation for this crucial clash. And it worked a treat (don’t tell him) as we matched an opposition understandably used to having the upper hand from the get go.
Both sides had plenty of chances, but we made ours count, with Jordan, The Boss himself and Lewis ‘the Better’ Curtis all finding the net in a competitive first half. There was no need with Meg and her Mysticism to predict that our opposition would fight back with a vengeance in round two, and so they did. We held firm until late in the game, though, allowing just a solitary consolation goal to find Lee’s net.
We also had a number of chances of our own in the second period, with some excellent passing. Happily, despite our success we still found time for a DoTD moment when Jordan decided to imitate the older Curtis with a miss from point blank range. All told a good day for the Mangold family as Pater won Dad of the Day as well...
Some of us retired to their clubhouse for an old school Teas Platter before journeying to Mr Thames Ditton’s local to wish him a happy birthday and find out some key facts about the man himself (will divulge for a beer!)
An excellent day all round for the Sparticans, and without lapsing the team into a sea of sincerity, we are very grateful to Matt for coming to umpire a game he would have clearly loved to play in. His rigour and control was invaluable in ensuring the game remained very hard but very fair. Anyway enough of that, we look forward to our last pre-Christmas game next week and a final SHC @HockeyTeas debriefing of 2019...