Monday 1st June

Algy 1-0 John

Table
1. Algy Taylor ... p5, 8pts
2. Dean Thornton ... p5, 6pts (+2 GD)
3. Tony Leach ... p5, 6pts (+1 GD)
4. Neil James ... p7, 5pts
5. John Woodley ... p4, 1pt
(2pts for a win / 10mins each way)

Thanks to a combination of work, illnesses & injuries this was the first meeting we'd had in just over a month. However, it did see the introduction of a new player, Ste, to the club setup. Most of the evening was a practice 'retro' meeting, with the club intending to hold a retro league alongside the main FISTF rules one from next season in an attempt to widen the player base.

Anyway, on to the one league match that was played, which saw top of the table Algy Taylor take on bottom placed John Woodley, with Algy looking at the prospect of opening up a two point lead at the top of the table, whilst John needed a win to keep alive any realistic hope of clinching the league title. Algy started the game with a bewildered look on his face and suffering slightly from hayfever, and despite keeping the ball mainly in John's half rarely looked like breaching John's strong defensive line.

A goal finally came half way through the second half, with Algy quickly breaking down the left wing before firing the ball past John's keeper from close range. The goal seemed to spur John on, who started playing as if he'd got an extra player on the pitch! Algy's lacklustre defending rarely looked like posing any kind of obstacle, with John having shot after shot nearer to the end of the game, although unfortunately none of them went close enough to the target to trouble Algy's goalkeeper.

Meanwhile in the retro league, in his first game at the club Ste managed to stop "Goals" Tony from netting the ball for only the fifth time this season (in six games), although true to form Goals didn't let any in either.

The second set of games - both retro friendlies - saw Ste take on Dean whilst John faced Tony. Within a few of seconds of kickoff Ste had scored, playing a long ball in to the right hand side of the shooting area before sending a lightweight player hurtling after it, leaving Dean's goalkeeper stranded in no man's land. On the other, slightly wonky, pitch it looked like John and Tony were batting out for another thrilling 0-0 draw.

However, buoyed by an impressive performance against Algy, John did manage to occasionally break through Tony's normally staunch defensive line, and early in to the first half managed to go 1-0 up, a doubly impressive feat as it was John's first goal at the club and the first goal that Tony Leach had conceded since 9th March. John's 'twelfth man', four kids who were staring through the glass door, went berserk! Ste's hopes of a near-perfect start were brutally smashed by Dean midway through the second half, bringing the score level before the game petered out.

In the final pair of games, Algy and Goals Tony played out a 0-0 draw - Algy had the better of the possession, but failed to make any of it count. Even claiming that some things were in "competition rules" which only Algy had ever heard of didn't manage to swing the game in his favour, and he joined the increasing long list of players who've drawn 0-0 with Tony.

In the final game, John took the lead against Ste in the first half, before being pegged back to 1-1 in the second. It rounded up a great couple of weeks for the Makem, with convincing performances in both the retro and FISTF league twinned with the confirmation that, for the first time since 1991, Sunderland will be the sole top flight representatives of the north-east.

It wasn't until the end of the night that someone realised that the reason that, at times, John seemed to be playing with an extra figure was probably down to his pioneering 4-4-3 formation ...

Tue 21st April
Algy Taylor 2-0 Tony Leach (fr)
Dean Thornton 0-1 Algy Taylor (fr)

Due to a fixture clash with the darts & dominoes, we weren't able to use our preferred room at the rugby club. With no guarantee that the pitch surface would be flat and Dean looking more injury prone than Michael Owen it was decided that the best course of action was to play a couple of friendlies.

The first game, between Tony and Algy, saw Tony take to the field with a set of late 90s Hasbro bases, sporting a sparkling new Everton de Chile kit. The game was a scrappy affair, with Algy apparently completely unable to control the ball in the final third and Tony struggling to get his figures to go in straight lines.

The first goal game around the 6 minute mark in the first half. Algy's heavily bolstered midfield had been pushing forward incessantly for a couple of minutes before Tony stole the ball to make a quick breakaway towards Algy's goal. However, Algy's midfield tracked back well enough to steal the ball back off Tony, and with the Everton de Chile defence in disarray, Algy's Plymouth figures showed some flair more typical of their South American opponents, darted down the right wing and lobbed the stranded Everton keeper. The Everton players rallied and had a full on assault of the Plymouth goal for the last 3 minutes of the half, but failed to make anything of their chances.

The second half saw more of the same, with Algy making regular attacks but totally incapable of keeping the ball under control. The one notable shot was a moving ball effort, which would've been a goal of the month contender had it not slammed back off the crossbar - Algy's lightening fast attacking tormented Tony's defence, but with Algy though on goal, and the goalkeeper in no mans land, he instead plumped for whacking it as hard as possible against the crossbar.

A second goal came a couple of minutes before time, but by then the game had petered out with Algy more interested in posing for photographs.

The second game was a rather slower paced affair - with the injured Dean Thornton (suffering frm a shark bite or something) unable to move quickly around the table, Algy decided to wait for every block. The game was intensely dull, with the entire crowd (of one) falling asleep at one point. Algy's goal came sometime in the first half (a lobbed shot frm the right wing), there was A LOT of play in the middle half of the pitch and very few chances. I can't remember too much more about it, unfortunately

Tue 7th April
Algy Taylor 0-0 Tony Leach
Algy Taylor 4-0 Neil James
Tony Leach 1-0 Neil James

League Table
1. Algy Taylor ... p4, 6pts
2. Dean Thornton ... p5, 6pts
3. Tony Leach .... p5, 6pts
4. Neil James ... p7, 5pts
5. John Woodley, p3, 1pt
(10mins each way, 2pts for a win) - full Lancashire Pumas league table

Last night's meeting saw Algy (me) play his first league matches for 3 months, doubling his points tally for the season to go top of the table for the first time this season. The first match saw an all out assault by Algy on Tony's goal, but on more than one occasion Tony "Jan Tomaszewski" Leach's goalkeeping skills paid dividends, so Jan clocked up his 4th 0-0 draw (from 5 games). Despite being under the kosh for the vast majority of the 20 minutes, the best shot of the game came from Tony - a cracking effort from the right hand corner (as the goalkeeper was looking at it) of the penalty area, which looped over Algy's goalkeeper only to hit the crossbar.

The amazingness of his goalkeeping was put in to context in the next match, where Algy notched up the highest score of the league campaign so far in a 4-0 demolition of Neil James. The result sent him hurtling from 4th place to the top of the table, and with a game in hand he (I) must now be favourite for the title after finally displacing Dean Thornton. The result was also the death knell for Neil's title aspirations, with it now mathematically impossible for him to win the league this season.

The race is still very much open for both Dean & Tony, though, with the trio only separated though goal difference and with both players having fixtures against Algy to come (as well as the infamous Haydock Derby itself)

In the final game, a friendly, Tony put away a first half  strike to win 1-0 against Neil.

march 10th
I couldn't make it last night due to me feeling under the weather, so I've slipped even further behind on the 'games played' scale! Fortunately, though, I'm no further behind the leader as Dean "Tourettes" Thornton finally suffered his first league defeat, 1-0 to Neil James.

Having spent most of the season drawing 0-0 with anyone and everyone, Tony Leach finally managed to score ... but not content with a single goal, he went mad and put TWO past Neil!

Results
"Goals" Tony 2-1 Neil
Neil 1-0 Dean

1. Dean Thorton .... p5, 6pts
2. Tony Leach .... p4, 5pts
3. Neil James .... p6, 5pts
4. Algy Taylor ..... p2, 3pts
5. John Woodley ... p3, 1pt

march 7th

League table:

1, Dean Thornton ... 6pts (played 4)
2, Algy Taylor ... 3pts (played 2)
3, Neil James ... 3pts (played 4)
4, Tony "Goals" Leach ... 3pts (played 3)
5, John Woodley ... 1pts (played 3)

(10mins each way, 2pts for a win)

Only 2 league fixtures got played last month - Neil James 0-0 Tony Leach and Neil James 0-1 Dean Thornton.