Jagex Mugged by Melbourn

Jagex 0 - 1 Melbourn Sundays

Team - Fardell, Walther, O'Neill, Jens, Pickett, Winfield, Gaz, Shaun, Danno, Piers, Pete
Subs - Sam, Dominic, Scottish Dave

This was a game that should have been won, but was sadly lost, although credit to Melbourn for fighting right to the end in the first cup game Jagex has lost this season.

Early on it was all Jagex positivity, with one particular passage of play seeing a left to right ball picking out Ben, he exchanged nicely with Shaun, and forced a decent attack. Rolling subs were used liberally throughout the early stages, so it was hard to keep track.

Fardell demonstrated early on why he plays in goal - fluffing a clearance from a simple Daz backpass, before recovering well to tip the ball wide. Daz and Jens were dovetailing well, and helped push some attacks from the back, and Pickett, Winfield and Gaz combined to give Pete a free header in the six yard box. Pete gently cushioned this back to the opposition keeper, in a bit of a woopsie moment.

Winfield, Danno and Piers also interchanged well, in one attack that was blazed over the bar. Close to half time my abiding memories were of terrible chat - with two chaps talking about FTSE performance over the previous week and some cheeky bugger interjecting with "I don't know about Stocks and Shares, but I know a lot about footsie". Scottish Dave was rolling subbed off, and Daz shouted to him "are you off because you're injured or because you're s@&te". Charming.

The game was being played at a tempo, but was quite scrappy. Pickett made some lovely runs down the left, and a subtle interchange with Winfield that sent him free to cross was worth the price of admission on its own. Jens then secured a yellow, and a £10 fine, for doing a swear, the worst swear in the English language. I said the same word two minutes later, but I directed it at Pete, so the referee wasn't bothered. I also took some of my own goal kicks. Half time came.

Immediately after half time, Jagex went on a bit of a standard snooze. A big kick from one of their players saw Jens step up, miss it completely, and left Daz trying to cover 2 Melbourn players. It bounced kindly for one, and he lashed it in.

From the point at which they scored, until the end of the game, the opposition wined and whinged and moaned, content as they were to try and take time out of the game and get the 1-0 win. The oldest player for Melbourn, or indeed to play football anywhere in the land, spent a lot of time as a linesman waving his flag and showing off his manly white Hasselhoff chest rug. Please wear a shirt next time you go out in public chum - only Peter Andre can get away with that.

With about 20 minutes to go, Fardell turned a screamer round his left hand post. This sparked a period of Jagex possession, with Danno absolutely certain to score from a Gaz layoff at the end of it, when all of 8 yards out, but he saw his shot blocked by a miraculous last ditch defensive tackle.

One of the Melbourn chaps then had a shot from 60 yards. I was content to let it go until one of their players screamed "it's going in", so I scrambled back and caught it instead. Piers then blazed over from a corner, Sam beat the keeper and headed it just over, and Jagex had corner after corner after corner.

The ref was getting slightly miffed at the bad nature of the game and the language, but kept things under control. From one corner Pete rose well, got a firm header on it, but hit the crossbar.

Jagex were on top for much of the game, and really should have nicked one, but I don't remember their keeper making a tough save, as we squandered all the opportunities presented in a slightly odd game. Ah well, we don't like cup runs away.