FC Village 3-2 Central Park
21/04/07 - League

The Village completed the double over Central Park with a comfortable win in the sunshine down at Levers. With a couple of the players resting themselves for a cup final for their Sunday side the team were able to give young Mike a rare start with Les and Maggot returning to the line up from the midweek game. As Muzza failed to show Colin kindly donned the No 12 shirt in case he was required to come on. For once the Village failed to come storming out of the blocks although they did dominate the early proceedings. They tried to get things going but found it just wasn’t happening and although they had a series of corners they were reduced to some long range efforts. In fact as the reporter on the game I can’t think of anything that really occurred in the first half except for a booking for one of the visitors. However the second half was in complete contrast to that of the first and had much more excitement and goals. The Village were much more direct from the restart and they came close to opening the scoring when Les saw his hot blocked on the line by the keeper. Then Mike was at the far post and he managed to get his head to Sweeney’s cross but saw it hit the bar and get cleared to safety. Finally the goal arrived when Maggot slipped in Booey and he volleyed home in spectacular style to put the side ahead. It now just seemed a matter of could they gone on and add to that total but disaster struck a few minutes later when yet another long ball from the visitors flew over the head of one of their attackers who looked well offside. With no whistle from the ref he ran after the bouncing ball which sailed over the advancing Jay’s head leaving him the simple task of slotting in for the equaliser despite the valiant attempt from Martin to stop the shot. The Village now had to do it all over again but you could see that it was only a matter of time before they regained the lead. It came when the ref gave offside against the Park and a quickly taken free kick reached Les who looked offside himself but he cut in from the wing and pulled the ball back for Maggot to volley in his nineteenth of the season. With Colin on for a run out before his big final the Village sought that third killer goal and when Sweeney was brought down for the umpteenth time up stepped Maggot to drill in a cross which Colin got his head on to and he smartly diverted it in to the net for 3-1. With the game won the Village should have shut up shop but they kept plugging away fore more goals and this allowed the visitors to chalk up a few corners in the dying minutes themselves. From one of these the Village failed to clear and the lanky Park forward saw his shot get cleared off the line by Dava but the ref said it had crossed the line. The Park thought they could now salvage something from the game but seconds later it was all over and the Village had completed the double over the visitors. Only three games remaining now but the side must hope that if they win them all they could still be in with a shout for promotion.