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Having played up in the far reaches of North London last week, the team collectively decided that it may be better to camp down for a week rather than make the long and arduous trip to the safety of Victoria Weatherspo....sorry!! South London.......... Nick Cook's bag of Mary Poppins tricks allegedly had an 11 man tent, but we soon discovered under section 7c, paragraph 2i sub section 3a of the SAL handbook that camping under the stars at recognised SAL grounds was a criminal offence.  So another round trip to North London, via Bombay this time, awaited us.

Having arrived in good time the first half was very evenly contested. Norseman looked wobbly at the back, but had a couple of useful players in midfield. Our back four coped well though, despite the loss of Raaz Roberts to an early injury.  Norseman took the lead - a questionable free kick given against Martin Petit and Norseman took the lead with a massive deflection that Mark Brown was helpless to stop.  Cars weathered the pressure that Norseman applied and went into half time one goal down.

In the second half Cars stepped into their stride from the kick off. Within minutes we were level. Colin Banham's persistence was rewarded with a well deserved goal.  Some great football followed, and 2 more goals.  A sweeping move from back to front ended with Alan Thake glancing a delicate header from a Pete Wetheridge cross beyond the reaches of the Norseman goalkeeper. The third came from Colin Banham who reacted first when his own shot rebounded back from the post. Unfortunately Cars conceded two soft goals to set up a nerve racking last quarter. John Laming, who had been a constant thorn in the side of Norseman's defence restored Cars' lead with a fine individual goal.  Cars could have added to their lead in the final minutes, but Norseman's keeper saved well from Matt Parker's half volley.  Special mention to Steve Ollington and John Hicks who were consistently  solid throughout the 90 minutes.

Special mention too, to Dylan May and his new, but very rare, martial art of 'throwonfollowthrough'.  Dylan will be offering lessons in this new form of defence on a Thursday evening at Beddington Park - charge is £5 per hour, beginners welcome.  Please make cheques payable to:

"The Dylan May Wooden Bench Trust"

PS I carried out a spell check on this report before I sent it through. 'Ollington' is highlighted and can be replaced with Lovington. Can someone please contact the authorities at Microsoft to explain this mistake. Thanks.

Matt Parker