OAPs 4 - 1 Caradon (390050923)

The crowd of 41961 turning up at Nursing Home today were greeted with some nasty showers of rain. Anton Liepold was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Skanda Jacob and Alco Pluyet. A 3-5-2 alignment was the formation of choice for OAPs. The following players took the field: Ricceri - Gray, dos Santos, Kilgallon - Gallagher, Standish, 宽筏 (Kuanfa) , Thurfoot, Harkrader - Sincler, Pintu.

Caradon tactics involved an interesting 4-4-2 combination. Starters: Watkins - Taylor, Castellanos, Cohen, Vasques - Perttilä, Lloyd, Ciro, Wedderburn - Viheri, de Hooge.

Caradon clearly had decided to counter-attack when they could. O. Gallagher's fine footwork caused nothing but headaches for S. Taylor. The keeper wasn't fooled however, and confidently scooped up the ball. Some great play up the middle by OAPs led to a chance for O. Gallagher to score after 22 minutes, but the shot hit the crossbar. After 23 minutes, Caradon surprised their opponents with a breakaway counter attack. The defenders had to resort to a foul to stop it. The free kick that followed was a clever indirect effort that almost succeeded, but the defence read the situation well and the intended recipient was left ruing what might have been. Caradon's S. Castellanos was shown a yellow card after 24 minutes for slicing down an opponent. After a fine move down the middle A. Harkrader nearly gave the home side a goal after 26 minutes. However the finishing shot went just wide. A. Ricceri looked great 33 minutes into the match after stopping a shot from the middle of the penalty area from the visitors' V. Viheri. 34 minutes into the game, Caradon had difficulty finding their positions and their organisation dropped to passable. OAPs fans held their breath as M. Thurfoot scampered down the left side. He successfully avoided all challenges and cracked home the shot for 1 - 0! OAPs's M. Pintu had to watch the rest of the game from the sidelines, after twisting his ankle with 37 minutes having been played. F. Gilardoni was the replacement. 1 - 0 was the halftime score. Possession in this half belonged to OAPs, who controlled the ball 67 percent of the time.

Despite his frustration resulting in the smashing of a few teacups, the coach of Caradon was able to get his message across, and raised Caradon's organisation to solid. The boggy pitch disrupted the game, especially for technical players like O. Gallagher. The home side's O. Gallagher came close to extending the lead 60 minutes into the game. His shot came in from the right hand side but M. Watkins managed to save it with an unbelievable reaction stop. After 61 minutes, a well-worked counterattack by Caradon on the right presented an easy opportunity in front of the goal that was duly converted by V. Viheri to make it 1 - 1. 72 minutes into the match and the home team took a 2 - 1 lead after breaking through on the left. The scorer for OAPs was O. Gallagher. After 73 minutes, a couple of quick and successful challenges followed by a shot from just outside the penalty area by G. Kilgallon might have resulted in another goal for OAPs. However, M. Watkins made a spectacular save. Cheers filled the stadium as F. Gilardoni broke through the visitors' central defence to put away the ball to increase the lead to 3 - 1 to OAPs. OAPs increased the lead as F. Gilardoni struck to make the score 4 - 1 after an attack from the left left him unmarked in front of the keeper. Confident in their lead, OAPs's players relaxed and focused more on defending the lead than increasing it. Caradon's S. Cohen got himself booked for a foul. OAPs's G. Kilgallon went down after a savage challenge, but could continue playing after some medical attention. OAPs enjoyed most of the ball, as they maintained 63 percent of possession.

Most important OAPs player was M. Sincler. However, S. dos Santos made a disastrous appearance. The most dominating Caradon player was without a doubt D. Lloyd. On the other hand, V. Vasques's play was disheartening. The match ends 4 - 1.