"You miss the ball you do not hit 100%." — Wayne Gretzky (paraphrased)

The milder weather of earlier in the week had passed and a chill wind blew up at the pitch as Brentwood arrived to face the Mighty Fives. We were without some of our more youthful players with Terry busy earning Dick of the Day for the 4s and Joe bolstering the 3s. In return, we had Pete, who did nothing for the team’s average age, but pushed the Dirty Old Man quota to levels of “Inappropriate”.

We knew that Brentwood would push us hard, so the tactical brain of Ross had been working hard over the week to produce a formation that gave us a little bit of depth at the back. Wiseman was padded up in goal with Kev, Daren and Slap as the defence. In front of them, JP and Connor were on hand to push things forward, with Ross and Dan (due to Mat’s flexible relationship with punctuality) on the wings to feed Mr. Awesome, Sam L and Glen at the front.

Pete, having finally found a yellow shirt to wear, warmed the bench as we made a good fast start by applying pressure down the sides which resulted in a short corner. Will fired the ball home and Witham were 1-0 up after only ten minutes. Mat chose this moment to arrive and replaced a grateful Dan on the left of midfield.

Brentwood play a physical game with their elbows out as Sam found early, but we are nothing if not a team that is built to absorb a few knocks and the Yellow Army put it’s naturally occurring crumple zones to good use, absorbing the Brentwood pressure and creating more chances at the other end. Tactical rotation of players found Dan in the unusual position of being upfront with the ball in the D. However he soon found himself in the far more normal position for a Youngman playing hockey after falling over whilst trying to shoot.

Brentwood kept trying to apply pressure, but found it difficult to penetrate past Mat, JP and Connor. It was JP who was next on the scoresheet with a fine strike that put us 2-0 up, but Brentwood struck back quickly so that we went in at half-time with the score at 2-1. A quick drink and positive team talk later, we got ready for the second half - a period of play that would see more goals, several cards (Kev taking the verbose role once played by Widdle only to be carded by Widdle himself) and a special piece of comedy.

Witham again attacked early in the second half with Sam, Ross, Glen and Dan (!) all coming close to putting the ball in. Witham were passing the ball well when Pete received it on the sideline next to the dugouts, looked up and swiped at thin air, not realising that the ball had rolled several feet off the pitch. Dick of the Day firmly secured, Pete was shuffled upfront whilst Dan moved to a more familiar role in defence, where he was able to admire Super Slap display a Man-of-the-Match winning defensive masterclass on the the left as Brentwood pushed for an equaliser.

But the reds pushed too far and were caught out by some neat play from the midfield powerhouse of JP, Connor and Will that then found Ross scything into the D and slipping the ball to Pete who buried it for Witham’s third.

The last ten minutes saw Brentwood throw everything at Witham, but the defence, martialed well by Daren and Wiseman, were able to stand firm. The last touch before the final whistle being a goal line clearance.

A 3-1 win and an overall excellent team performance putting us possibly within one point of a guaranteed fourth place finish, although the Champions League might be a step too far… this year.