It's been a while, more than a month, since I last reported on a Reserve XI game but since the 1st XI were away at St Albans, outside the 6 zones of my oyster card's validity, I chose to check out another Old Parmiterians teams playing at the Douglas Eyre that day. I arrived to see a familiar face, Gary Kirby, skippering the Vets A over 35s. Whilst the game was in the balance at half time, they ran out easy 7-3 winners in the second half with a sparkling display of 'playing on the break', working the ball to both flanks and occasionally down the middle with examples of superb individual and team play skills leading to well taken goals. I hope the camera was running, if it was, the highlight reel will be a great watch.

Considering it's May the weather wasn't bad, cloudy with an occasional light shower, the threat of heavier rain coming and going with the moderate wind. This was an end of season friendly for the Ressies who have completed their league campaign and have to wait for other games to play out but, at the time of writing, have the 'points on the board' to lay second, given what a challenging season it's been I think they can be proud of that. A couple of teams have chances to catch them with their games in hand, we'll know soon what the finishing position is. The visitors were Rapid Chingford FC, player/coach Chris Kane experimented a little with his line up for this one, choosing a 4-5-1 with himself on the sideline as Joe Massingham took his central defender position, stepping up for the day from the 3rd XI.

The game started brightly with both teams trying to break with pace but with a packed midfield the centre ground was very congested and the flanks, particularly our left, proving a better way to move the ball forward as Moses Kazibwe and Marcus Christopher started to link well as an outlet, putting pressure on the visitor's defence. The response to this was crude to say the least, with scything tackles leading to a stop/start type of game, chances being particularly hard to create as the tackling became more and more desperate and the half finished without a goal.

The second half continued in much the same vein, both sides seeking to break the deadlock but a combination of resolute defending for the home side and increasingly reckless tackling from the visitors led to the referee having to stop the game regularly to put a succession of Chingford players' names into the book. On reflection it was a shame that the ref relied on the carding strategy, rather than sin binning, to curb our visitor's tendency to foul as that might have made the difference in a hotly contested match. As it was we came close only once in each half to scoring and the visitors only serious effort on goal was well saved by Steve Kennedy-Clarke to maintain the 0-0 score line.