Jokers 3 – 1 Perfidious
9 October 2005
Market Road, k.o. 2 p.m.
Team: Linter; Lynes, Vere, Gromb, Read; Milner, Seaton-Smith, Gamson, J Perez-Tejedor; Mandolini, Wilby.
Sub: King (on for Mandolini, 60).
Scorer: Wilby (3)
So often do the Jokers slip up against supposedly inferior opposition that it came as something of a relief to walk off the hallowed Market Road turf yesterday with another three points safely tucked away following a victory against a poor Perfidious team, who have finished bottom of the League for the last two seasons. In truth, the Jokers could and should have won by more and the goal they conceded was comical.
By the time they managed to register a goal the Jokers could already have had three or four. Gamson had planted a header from a corner against the bar and Milner had struck a shot against the base of the keeper’s right hand post. Wilby had fired straight at the keeper’s legs when well-placed, and Mandolini had forced him into a good stop to his right. Add in a Seaton-Smith effort bundled off the line, a Perez-Tejedor drive that flew narrowly over the bar and a succession of corners and you will have some idea of the dominance that the team were enjoying and some insight into the anxiety that was beginning to creep in as they failed to convert that dominance into anything meaningful.
No doubt Seaton-Smith’s chart will credit Gamson with an assist for Wilby’s first. And no doubt Gamson will claim that they all look the same in the scorebook. But this assist was a bit like a top edged hook that flies over third man. As the ball fell to his feet on the edge of the box, Gamson had no other thought than to smack it past the keeper. This didn’t happen. As his cry of ‘oh no’ – or something stronger – revealed, an assist was the last thing on his mind as the ball skewed across the box, landing at the feet of the unmarked Wilby just as Gamson changed his call to ‘There you go Jack’. The keeper got a hand to Wilby’s shot, but it still looped up and into the far corner of the net. During the warm up Gamson had remarked to Wilby that he couldn’t count on any repeat of last week’s goals against poorly positioned keepers who could then only half-block his shots into the net. Clearly, the team has been away from Div. 2 for too long…
Half-time arrived with the Jokers in the lead, but aware that Perfidious, who had not featured as an attacking force, were still in the game. Much of the discussion focused on the need for a second to put the game beyond doubt, and it soon arrived when Perez-Tejedor cut inside and slipped the ball through for Wilby to double the team’s lead. At that point, it should just have been about how many more the Jokers could add as Perfidious still weren’t creating anything of note, with Linter enjoying a quiet game. Just as the forwards were wondering how many they would get and the defence were turning their minds to the thought of the first clean sheet for over a year, they conceded.
If Perfidious keep a similar chart of assists, they’ll have trouble determining who gets this one. Perhaps it was the player who swung the ball to the right-back position, where Read calmly headed back to Linter on the right-hand side of his box. With Lynes calling for the ball on the left, Linter decided to kick across goal. Lynes could only prod the ball into midfield, where a Perfidious player stroked the ball into the still-vacant net from thirty-five yards. With a least twenty minutes still to go this threatened to bring Perfidious back into the game, so credit to the team for re-establishing a two-goal cushion almost immediately, Gamson playing the ball over Albion’s defence for Wilby to finish under pressure to complete his hat-trick. The rest of the game was played out in unremarkable fashion.
There are – there must be, surely – better teams in Division Two than Cambazola or Perfidious, but all the omens are there for a good season. The defence looks more solid than it did last year and the Jokers are enjoying lots of possession. One worry is that all the goals so far have been scored by Wilby. A chance to change that will come next week with the match against old rivals ESB Shantytown, on the receiving end of a 5-2 defeat in last year’s cup competition.