Aberdeen As 1 Capital Canaries 0

Sunday February 4th, 2007
Division 1, APFSCIL League

Team Line-up: McMeckan, Taylor, Harris, Slater, Jelbert, Tett (Bennett), Wilson , Boucher (Perrett), Gallagher, Davies, Utting. Unused subs: Howard, Higgins.

Norwich arrived at the Hi-tech south west London Changing rooms full of hope after a long unbeaten run. Unfortunately Chelsea and Westminster council had run out of money once the showers had been completed - leaving the narrow pitch covered in ankle breaking pot holes.

The Canaries got off to a shaky start ,and after 10 minutes poor marking led to Aberdeen scoring a soft goal as the ball broke to their unmarked centre forward who coolly lobbed the out coming McMeckan. The rest of the first half saw some pretty dire stuff from both sides, as both teams failed to adapt to the poor surface. The only clear chance fell to Norwich who after some fine interplay down the left found Clooney (Davies) free at the far post ... his aging limbs are not quite as flexible these days and he was unfortunate not to level.

Half Time 1-0

Norwich stepped up a gear at the start of the second half with Tett and Jelbert getting hold of the central area, wrestling the initiative from the' Bald Enforcer' in the Aberdeen midfield. Finally the Canaries began to play football down both flanks
with both Rick and the newly introduced Perret linking well with the front two.

Just as the match was swinging the league leaders way disaster struck. Taylor clearly fired up by rumours of household unrest due to flatmates stealing his last Pepsi, lunged once too often at the Aberdeen Centre Forward. After 29 'creative' tackles the ref finally gave up patience and sent the boy off ( although I would suggest in future it may be best practice for the ref not to say he been watching the big man from the start 'as he knows all about the way he plays' ).

The frustration was too much for Gallagher who immediately got involved with the official and found himself joining Danno for an extra long soak. Down to nine men and 20 minutes left ,surely all hope was lost for Norwich. Amazingly the new 1 - 3 - 6 formation enabled the ball playing Canaries new freedom. Bennett conserving his energy ran the game from a five yard circle in the middle of the Aberdeen half and this led to Jelbert finding space just inside the area. A well struck shot was surely about to balloon the onion bag? Just as the ball entered the net it took a right angled bounce and hit the woodwork - rebounding to safety.

Aberdeen were hanging on - the new attacking partnership of Barney and Davies looked to take advantage of some excellent driving runs from Frazer and Perrett. A final chance fell to Bennet having eased himself to the edge of the box struck the ball with all the power of an 8 year old girl - Clearly his Pepsi hadn't been Max!!!

So the unbeaten run was over ... but the dream is still alive. This commentator, when quizzed by CC legend Seechy at the start of the season, guessed that the league winners would drop at least 12 points - having seen all the top teams play he's now convinced!!!!

7 matches left and 7 wins required ... it can be done .. are you up for it? ..."Where are you? Let's be having you. Come on." !!!!!!

MoTM: Harris