SAL Division 2 - 5th November 2005

The season may only be 6 weeks old, yet the Carshalton first team has already found itself badly affected by injuries. Sam Knowles, Dave Tilley and Scott Poullier were all unavailable on Saturday, and with the Taylor brothers also both absent it says alot for the strength of the Club that the first team still fielded a well balanced side against a young and enthusiastic South Bank outfit.

With so many players out the last thing we needed was a late drama, but we got one when the oldest boy racer in Surrey, Martin Vincent, rang to say that his sports car had a flat tyre which he was fixing by the road. This wins the award for the most implausible excuse of the season so far as only someone with a single figure IQ would believe that Martin, who earns his fortune tapping a calculator, would know how to change a tyre! Keith of course believed him. Needless to say everyone looked concerned bar yours truly who simply took the warm up more seriously than usual in anticipation of a start. Fortunately, or unfortunately for me, Martin made it in the nick of time.

Even with a bare twelve plus Ryan Polley, who had fortunately done us a favour by coming along as a second sub at late notice, Carshalton started brightly and confidently and came very close after an Andy Cook ball put Paul Neil through only for the keeper to pull off a fine double save. After ten minutes however, the Cars were rocked by yet another injury when Billy Tilley had to limp off after dislocating his shoulder. There was one silver lining, for me anyway, as it meant I got onto the pitch with 80 minutes still to play.

Despite creating several excellent chances we went behind to a freak goal. After Ross had rolled it out to Kevin MacLeod, he slipped as he cleared the ball only for the South Bank right midfielder to smash it over Ross's head from the right touchline over 40 yards from goal. We fought back immediately and after twenty five minutes we finally equalised.

It should be noted however at this point that something was clearly up with the club captain, skipper and manager, Shaun Swan. He had arrived looking rather more gaunt and shabby than usual (which is saying something) and seemed to have difficulty speaking before the game. His out of character performance continued to raise eyebrows when he proceeded to miss header after header against the 5 foot 5 inch South Bank striker. Then with 25 minutes gone a Rob Morley cross was cleared to outside the box only for it to be lashed back into the net with a controlled strike from 30 yards by none other than Shaun Swan. However this only proved that the real Shaun Swan had presumably been kidnapped and replaced by an imposter. A talented footballer it must be said but not Shaun Swan. The real Shaun Swan would have crashed that ball into number 37's garden three streets away and shouted "ave it" with great pride afterwards. Still the fake Swan bought a few drinks in the bar afterwards so we may well ignore the ransom demands and keep him.

1-1 at half time and we felt confident that a repeat of our display in the second half and a bit more luck in front of goal would secure the three points we deserved. Unfortunately after another excellent start we fell behind to a sucker punch from a corner which was flicked on and converted at the far post. Again Carshalton fought back valiantly and a jinking run by Vincent followed by an excellent pull back resulted in Clare thumping the ball into the South Bank net. Surely this time we could finish the game off? Unfortunately not. Poor old Cookie who had had a fine game at right back on his first appearance of the season made a mistake that allowed the South Bank striker to nip passed him on goal and Cookie's attempt to make amends by removing the striker's shirt wasn't considered acceptable by the pedantic ref who gave a penalty. With it duly converted, Carshalton chased the game creating chance after chance but it wasn't to be. The best of those probably fell to Rob Morley when he headed wide from five yards, although Ryan Polley also blasted wide from close range. Oh yeah, and I decided to use my shoulder instead of my head from four yards out much to the displeasure of my team-mates (but the ball was quite hard and I'd had a new haircut the day before!!).

All in all an enjoyable game, that we deserved to win, but the luck wasn't with us on this occasion. South Bank haven't started the season particularly well but they looked better than their table position implies and I would back them to stay up on this performance. Thanks again to Ryan Polley for being willing to come along at late notice as a second sub. The injury to Billy Tilley, not to mention others in recent games, demonstrates the need for the first team to have at least two subs, if not three, for every game but on this occasion with the second team also struggling for players we were fortunate to find someone happy to give up his Saturday afternoon for just ten minutes of action rather than cause Ian Lewis a late headache.

Special mention also to Ross Sinclair who pulled off several high class and very courageous saves at the feet of opponents, and also to Andy Cook who made an effective comeback at right back...until his aberration fifteen minutes from time. In Rob Morley we have at last found a striker capable of scoring over 20 goals a season and though he failed to notch on this occasion, he still fashioned chances out of nothing and caused the South Bank defence no end of problems. Gary Cummings and Martin Vincent have stepped up to the first team and proved there is a real depth of talent in the senior squad and everyone is now well aware that they are playing for their places every single game. This is a healthy state to be in and long may it continue.

Oh yeah, can we have the real Shaun Swan back. I gave the fake one a lift home and he did start to get a bit boring talking about his new beautiful girlfriend who adored him more than life itself. And it proved he wasn't Swannie once and for all!!

Simon Clare