SECOND HALF FIREWORKS

The rain greeted the 5th XI to a slippery pitch at Gillingham. First half was very even, and it could have been any one's game. The other team was propped up by a power player in the middle, who we might call the excessively-well-skilled-for-this-league player. There were some dangerous moments, with both teams nearly scoring. A lot of back and forth happened, but balls were mostly turned around in defence or crossed the base line.

0-0 at half time. After umpiring in the first half, James (that's me!) came on with the sole job of marking out their excessively-well-skilled-for-this-league player. With the star player (mostly) out of the game, the goals flowed.

Charlie hit the ball to the post, ball hit a defender's foot and dawdled towards the goal. The somewhat Pythonesque manner of scoring left some on the field staring blankly and pondering if it should actually be a goal, but yes it was a goal.

Charlie crossed to Andy over on the right, Andy crossed to Ben at the top of the D and, like Chris Hall two weeks earlier, single touch undercut to the top corner. The goalkeeper had no chance of stopping it.

Justin passed firmly to Charlie just outside right post, deflected beautifully to the top left corner. Again the keeper had no chance.

Zac took a free hit five metres out from the top of the circle, dribbled in, around one player, took a shot and it was in the goal.

Unfortunately this inspired the excessively-well-skilled-for-this-league player who got the ball, got away, ran a third to a half of the field, backstick hit straight into the goal.

Number 5 - a brilliantly executed short corner. Well injected by Zac, Charlie trapped and hit into the bottom right , just a few inches off the ground.

Throughout the game much of the team pushed forward, and we had good numbers on the forward-line, rather than just two strikers. We were probably lucky that Gillingham seemed to not have the energy to run back. As the game went on, BOE saw more good passing around the field, particularly in attack.

Two of the dynamos once again proved their talents - James Smith and Bobby Archer. James played at centre back the entire game, and Bobby mostly in midfield. Antony Sturgess was thankfully able to jump on board after a late injury to our goalkeeper. We were lucky to have Sturge in goal. Many thanks to Joni Coleman for umpiring the second half.

Charlie took out man-of-the-match with a hat-trick, but there were also many other strong contenders. That win clocks up 12 months with the 5s losing just one league game.