As the third team players assembled in the state of the art dressing room facilities at Carshalton FC on Saturday 6th January, word quickly circulated that manager, Andy Walter, had resigned his post. At that stage no reason was given as to the sudden shock decision though several theories were put forward. The most plausible of these being that Andy, an avid watcher of Dream Team and Footballer’s Wives, had naively hoped that managerial status of a successful SAL team would see good looking babes falling over themselves for a piece of the Wal. Maybe we can all take a bit of the blame for this failure, as had we won a few more games before Christmas he might have actually been able to claim to Beverley, Stephanie or any random un-named Doris, that he was in charge of a top of the table team while downing Flaming Sambuccas in Tiger Tiger. In all seriousness, Wal did a great job managing the 5s, 4s and latterly the 3s and deserves a well earned break from football. When I asked him what he’d been up to this Saturday he told me he woke up late, watched Liverpool v Watford at 12.45pm, then watched Soccer Saturday from 3pm onwards, Arsenal v Blackburn from 5.15pm and Football First and Match of the Day till bedtime. Ho Hum.

This breaking news was compounded when it was also revealed that David “HMS” Paterson had hung up his boots for the sixth and final time once again on medical grounds, though given his miraculous past recoveries, we hope he’s kept those boots in his cupboard just in case. I have been fortunate enough to have played football with Patsy from the age of nine to the present day in a variety of sides ranging from a Sunday side that got beaten up every week at Charlton Park (literally), a Church Side that said a prayer before each game and then beat up the opposition, and finally for Carshalton where Patsy played for nearly every side in the club going up and down the sides like a yo-yo!  He will be missed, particularly for his loud shouting!

Having picked ourselves off the floor at this double whammy of bad news, Tony Edwards took charge and rather surprisingly the third team started quickly against an Old Westminster Citizens side that only had the bare eleven, on a soggy pitch in wet and windy conditions. After sustained pressure Clare opened the scoring with a long throw in that the opposing keeper tried to save but the power of the throw was too great and Clare had broken the deadlock after seven minutes. It is fair to say that the order of the goals as I now describe them may not be entirely accurate but in my defence I struggled to remember all of them immediately after the game and I am now writing this report ten days later!

Dan Lawler scored from a powerful header from an excellent Matt Dudley cross, and then Tony Edwards was put through by Paul Neil and prodded the ball in whilst being hacked down by the centre back. Clare slid in to convert an excellent cross from Neil to make it four and then Edwards, having lambasted Clare for shooting from a tight angle instead of crossing, shot from a tight angle instead of crossing, and scored.

The second half continued in much the same vein as the first with Neil scoring the goal of the game with a turn and shot from the edge of the box, then slotting home after being put through by a defence splitting pass by that man Clare again (hopefully you’re getting the message!). Neil then beat a handful of players got to the by-line and squared for Edwards to complete his hat-trick, and then completed his own after another defence splitting throw-on from Clare (if you haven’t noticed yet he was involved in everything!). He made it four with ten minutes to go when their keeper decided to try and take the ball round him, fell over and left an empty net for Paul Neil to slot the ball into. We were robbed of a clean sheet when their winger crossed the ball into the far corner over a statuesque Ross Sinclair.

It was a clinical and convincing performance on a very soggy pitch in at times tempestuous conditions and if we can continue that kind of form in the coming months then we won’t be far off the top come April.

Simon Clare