On Saturday the Carshalton third team made it a perfect three wins from three in 2007 with a gritty, courageous victory over a decent Alleyns side on a nightmare of a pitch. It is difficult to know exactly what to attribute this sudden consistency and indeed, quality to, although the Little General is convinced it is all down to his efforts since taking charge of the team.

I think it is time however to reveal the truth. All the team are well aware that the reason for this sudden improvement in form is the multi-million pound sponsorship of the team by bookmaking giant Coral (visit us at coral.co.uk or call 0800 242 232 for all your betting needs) that commenced before Christmas with the purchase of the incredible shrinking football kit. Since then the association with such a high quality betting brand has proved inspirational to every player that pulls on the sponsored shirt. Even the referees have noticed an improvement in attitude on the pitch under the motto -"never a quarrel with the boys wearing Coral"....oh yeah and because HMS Paterson isn't shouting at them any more due to his retirement.

On Saturday, Tony Edwards put out another strong line-up on a wet, muddy, stamina sapping pitch which definitely inconvenienced us much more than the home side. For the first 20 minutes Alleyns were all over us and we struggled to adapt to the demands of the pitch. Our stand-in goalkeeper, who had only ever played 5 a side football, pulled off a miraculous save when their striker found himself one on one, and clearly thought it was a one second rule and not a six second rule, so quick was he to boot the ball up the pitch as soon as he had caught it. We soaked up the pressure and then a decent move down the left found Ben Woods with a bouncing ball to contend with and he brilliantly volleyed it into the top right hand corner to give us what was arguably an undeserving lead which we held to half time.

We started the second half much better than the first and then we got caught with a sucker punch when Clare failed to prevent the right winger crossing the ball into the box and our goalkeeper fumbled the ball allowing their slightly mad centre back to lash it into the unguarded net. 1 v 1 and this was definitely a situation that before Christmas we would have struggled with but the new improved third team showed terrific battling qualities to fight their way back into the match. Tom Ritchie had the best game I've seen him have at the back against two pacy wingers and an immense lumbering centreback, and Richard Bennett and Gary Baker were equally impressive. Given we only had a part-time keeper it is incredible to think that Alleyns were not allowed one clearcut chance in the second half and only had a couple of shots on target from outside the box. This is all down to the three defenders. However, every player played their part with Ben and Dave on the wings working their socks off, and Clare, Gary Cummings and Dan Lawler battling away in the middle. Tony Edwards fought hard before going off with a hurt tummy, allowing Johnny Harris to come off the bench and play alongside Paul Neil, who was also having a stormer.

Carshalton "powered by Coral" fashioned a handful of good chances before a long throw in from Clare was only cleared to Harris inside the box and he hammered it home sparking wild celebrations. He is probably thinking it will be impossible for Edwards to leave him out next week but unfortunately Tony now thinks Johnny Harris makes an excellent super-sub!!! Not too many mentions of Clare this week because he didn't actually play very well by his own high standards but he did want to point out that the third team has not lost this season when Clare has played. Also thanks to Kirknall Reynolds for turning up and not getting on. It was definitely his best game this season.