This week we were up against some old rivals - Longton St Germain - and we knew that they would give us a good game, but with a strong performance we had a chance of picking up 3 points. So we assembled a top team, perhaps our strongest to date this season, and looked forward to ending the evening with at least one more point and ideally three. We had Goose, Joe, Phil, Crofty, Matt, Hitch and Andy, what could go wrong.

Well, the first thing that didn't go as planned is that Longton St Germain have evidently folded and been replace by a new team (who had latched on to the name). The second thing was that the new team played a different style of football to the old one. Gone was the solid, patient, consistent style of the old Longton SG, instead there was pace, flair, courage, skill, commitment and energy. Still, we had the team to deal with that, didn't we?

Well, yes and no. We limited their chances, Goose pulled off a series of fine saves - Joe and Phil did their best to keep their attackers at bay - Crofty, Matt and Hitch battled in midfield to disrupt them when they had the ball and to break out into attack when we had possession - and Andy battled away up front in his normal style. Longton SG created a number of attacks and after 10 minutes had scored a couple of good goals, we were creating chances also but their keeper was managing to save them, deflect them or they hit the post. We were in it, but we were also under pressure. Longton SG managed to nick a third goal before the break.

Second half started better for us, for the first ten minutes Longton SG were not dominant and we were playing a better game. A nice move by Hitch and Crofty saw Matt in space to fire the ball home and pull one back. We were still creating chances and peppering their goal, but they managed to convert a couple of their chances at the end of the second half which saw then run out as comfortable winners.

As Joe commented as he left the pitch "I think their correct position in the leagues is a division or two up from where we are at the moment". Couldn't agree more.

Sand City Strollers   1 - 5   Longton St Germain (new style)