Jokers 4 – 2 Northern Alliance

Sunday 12 March

Market Rd, k.o. 4.00 p.m.

Team: Linter; Lynes, Vere, Gromb, Mandolini; Milner, Hyde, Seaton-Smith, Gamson (Hinks/Gamson/Hinks/Gamson); Hinks, Stevens.

Subs: None (although we could have done with some…).

Scorers: Lynes, Hinks, Gamson, Stevens.

This report has been brought to you in association with Penbet©, the unique Jokers spreadbetting game which allows YOU to bet on when central defender Bernard Vere will give away his next penalty. This week’s winners: 65-70 mins.

Following the Jokers’s 2-2 draw with the same opposition a couple of matches ago, this fixture posed a potential problem for the Jokers’s run-in. Despite a good Alliance performance and a Jokers team missing the likes of Wilby, Read and Perez-Tejedor, the Jokers prevailed after coming from a goal down to leave the team unbeaten in the league this season with just two fixtures to play.

A no-show from Lacey and a withdrawal from Perez-Tejedor meant that Seaton-Smith’s late availability to partner Hyde in central midfield was particularly welcome. With Wilby off on honeymoon, Adam Hinks returned from the States to bolster the attack. But this was still a team carrying injuries. Stevens, miraculously, lasted a whole match. So too, after a fashion did Gamson, following a nasty looking collision with Alliance’s keeper midway through the first period that saw him withdrawn from the action for the remainder of the half, only to reappear after the break to score with a cheeky backheel and set up Stevens for the Jokers’s fourth. All while ‘reserving the right to walk off at any point’. Come on Pete, we all know that you always have that right and have, on occasion, used it. In fact, back-heeled goals and incisive through balls apart, it was a bad day all round for Gamson, who arrived just before kick-off and was still getting changed (and also having a piss) after the match started.

The Jokers were soon behind, although by this time Gamson had joined the fray. A corner from the left was half-cleared to the edge of the box where an Alliance player drove it against his own man, only for the ball to bounce kindly for Alliance as another player hit a shot on the turn into the corner of the net. Nor were Alliance flattered by their lead: The Jokers had started in ragged fashion and Alliance had already looked dangerous before they scored. But the Jokers came back into it when a lay-off from Milner allowed Lynes to sweep a shot passed the keeper and in at the far post. With the Jokers realising that their opponents appeared heartened by their draw of three weeks ago and were more committed in the early stages, they began to up their own workrate and parity in midfield was restored. The Jokers took the lead before half-time. A Lynes through-ball from midfield was played towards Stevens, who missed it. But this also fooled the defender and Hinks found himself in a race with the keeper, which he just won, dinking the ball cleverly into the net for his first Jokers goal.

Even with the lead, at half-time this was very much a match that the Jokers could still lose. But an improved second-half put the Jokers out of sight. Gamson’s re-entry saw a goal from a corner. Milner hit an inswinger to the near post, where Stevens did well to keep it in play (although this looked initially like a fine defensive header). Hyde then headed goalwards for Gamson to backheel into the net from five yards. Shortly afterwards the Jokers scored again, a fine ball from Gamson found Stevens with his back to goal. Taking a touch across his body, he hit a right-foot shot back across goal where it would have nestled in the side-netting, had the side-netting actually been attached to the post. Instead, it rolled for a good twenty-five yards, buying the Jokers what would prove to be valuable time.

At this point, it should have been all about how many the Jokers could add. Alliance, for all their bright early play, had failed to trouble Linter since the goal. But then Vere gave away the latest in a long series of penalties when he held the Alliance’s substitute forward from a corner. Now is not the time for a long disquisition on the state of the modern game, or the way in which it is refereed. Suffice it to say that the holding was not ‘very hard’ as the referee saw it, and that it appears that you’re allowed to back into defenders with impunity, but if you point out that the opposition’s goalkeeper has had the ball in his hands for say, quarter of an hour, you get nothing. Anyway, said forward managed to shake off the severe bruising to his ribs to tuck the ball into the corner and galvanise his team for a final assault on the Jokers goal. Thanks to some good defending, particularly a fine block from Gromb, and some wayward and ambitious shooting, this assault did not trouble Linter, who did not have a serious save to make during the match. At the other end, the Jokers were hardly creating much themselves, with Lynes and Milner both putting free-kicks over the bar from the edge of the area. All in all, it was a game of few chances, and the Jokers won it by virtue of superior finishing. But next are Cambazola, an altogether different proposition. A draw will probably be enough to ensure promotion, assuming the Jokers can beat next-to-bottom Perfidious in their final game. But to remain on course for the title, nothing less than a win will do.