Season ticket holders Petra and Galia, Rovers' "extra man" when the going gets tough
Melchester lined up for the weekend's fixture missing their two top scoring strikers, yet far from feeling any anxiety there was an atmosphere of excitement as the remaining Rovers realised that each of them would be given a chance to swan around up front and snatch a bit of glory, while someone else could stay back and take care of all the donkey work.
Rovers started brightly, stringing together long sequences of passes around their opponents, and it soon became clear which team had the upper hand. Try as they might though, nothing seemed to go right in the one place it mattered - the RomStar goal.
After 20 minutes of running rings around their opponents, the reds were in shock as, yet again from a throw, RomStar found the net. However, it was a confident, if slightly bemused Melchester who went into the break a goal down.
Sure enough, in the 2nd half the lucky "9" shirt came good, as R.Smith floated a delightful cross to the back post, leaving Ralph Davies to slot home an equaliser. Davies then displayed exceptional athleticism by sprinting to the touchline to celebrate his first goal for the team. It was a happy day all round for Davies, as RomStar were fielding possibly the smallest player outside of table soccer, allowing the diminutive Welshman a rarebit of an opportunity to bully the poor wee fella off the park.
Moments later R.Smith was involved again with a long shot that the keeper could only parry. Holland, running in for the rebound, saw his attempt pushed away and, already suffering a nosebleed from being so high upfield, collided with the keeper, getting nothing more than a fist in the eye for his troubles. Miraculously, M.Smith kept the ball in and supplied a perfect cross along the goal line, and had Holland not still been seeing a double helping of stars he might have got a foot to the real ball and put the hoops in front.
Even more bizarrely, moments later a Holland clearance smacked into the eye of the man lining up to replace him, Pagliaro, leaving the reds with two one-eyed players seeing double.
Comedy moments aside however, tension was beginning to mount on pitch as chance after chance went begging. And comedy looked to turn to disaster movie as RomStar punished a rare defensive error to re-take the lead. Could even a point be salvaged?
Luckily, free-kick specialist* M.Smith was on hand to put things level once more with a well placed low drive from the edge of the box which somehow blasted a hole in the wall and left the keeper floundering. Still, going into the last 10 minutes, things were tense as what had seemed an easy three points in the beginning was becoming a tough battle for just one.
When it counted though, the most experienced player on the park saved the day. With 5 minutes on the clock, the ball fell once again to Davies in the magic number 9 who coolly shot home to put the reds ahead for the first time in the match. And there they would stay, an exhausted RomStar having nothing left to give, except a fair amount of abuse to each other.
Back in the top half, but next week sees a real challenge as Melchester face 2nd place Fail Play Team.
Roy Race spent the entire match making sure no-one stole the wheels off his badly-drawn 1970s Lotus.
*As requested by Matt (Smith).
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