San Pellegrinos made it two wins on the bounce as they put in a solid performance beating an out of sorts Goodfellas 3-0. With Fellas having a stand in keeper San P’s took full advantage by dominating the set pieces with a brace of free kicks from Jeremy Gill putting the water boys in full control of the match. They put the icing on the performance with an excellent breakaway goal from their new American wonder singing Austin “yeee haaaa” Tenny.
Mes won their first game in seven beating Club Tropicana 2-1 in a closely fought contest at Happy Valley. A 30 yard wonder strike from man of the match Rob Barrett put Mes in front and they doubled their advantage 10 minutes later when Dan Sutton chipped the ball in from the bye line. Tropics pressed and two wonder saves from the excellent Mes keeper kept it 2-0 at half time. Tropics broke their duck with 15 to go in the 2nd half when Will Holderness tapped in from 6 yards and a golden chance to level with 1 min to go was spurred by Kyle Wagner of Tropics.
Performance of the weekend however goes to Corinthians who came from 3-0 down against J-Leaguers to run out 4-3 victors. The Japanese side are not known for their aerial presence but it was from 3 headed corners that they took a dominant position in the game via Masayuki Sakai (2) and Tomoo Takahashi. Corinthians dusted themselves down and player / manager Manjeet Brar led by example scoring two free kicks to drag his team back to 3-2. Cors kept battling in the 2nd half and had a great opportunity to equalise from the spot but Manjeet missed his hat-trick as the goalkeeper guessed right and saves. They did draw level when Amanpreet Mintoo latched onto a long ball and smashed a half volley in the top corner from 25 yards out with 5 minutes to play. But they weren’t finished yet and with 1 minute to go Jamie Hitchmough picked up a loose ball and twisted and turned to find half a yard before catching the keeper by surprise and putting the ball in the far post.
With the bottom three all winning the attention moved to Spartans v Krauts to see if the Germans could be pegged back and that was the case as Spartans ran out 3-1 victors. A scrappy first half saw the team share a goal a piece with Spartans netting via a 25 yard “daisy cutter” via Erez Asaraf with Krauts scoring from an OG. Spartans took control in the 2nd half seeing a lot more of the ball and creating a lot more chances and saw the game out comfortably via goals from Stuart Pollock with Krauts returning the favour via an OG of their own.
DB missed the chance to strike a psychological blow in their title ambitions and the chance to sit at the top of Division 1 over the CNY break as they went down to a resurgent USRC. DB were on track for all three points sitting 1-0 up half way through the 2nd half via a Matt Hoare strike. The turning point however seems to have come from an unlikely scenario as a Stephen Cairns choke slam gallivanted the Gunners who scored three quick goals all from corners via Mark Jobling and Ian Armour (2). DB rallied and make it a grandstand finish when Jordon Brown made it 3-2 but Gunners ran out winners
