We travelled to the town of the scrubbers with a bare squad of 12 aiming for a third consecutive 6-0 victory and were greeted by freezing conditions and cold changing rooms. The pitch had just about defrosted as we kicked off kicking downhill and away from the sun as Sharky didn’t have the brains to bring a cap.
Once again we started well and took the lead ten minutes in. A ball was flicked on from the midfield and JV won his header and raced on to his own ball and he was clean through. As he advanced on to the goal he drove low past the keeper in to the bottom corner. An age old IMFC trait of not scoring enough of our chances came to the fore again as Burnsy and Jebu were particularly guilty of missing some golden chances. So despite our keeper hardly having a touch we only managed to get to half time with just the one goal lead. Once again the break brought about a change of formation and kicking up hill the 4-4-2 system didn’t work for us. Luckily Barnsley were rubbish and only tested Shark once and although we didn’t get as many chances as the first half we did miss a few, Burnsy having an uncharacteristic off day.
Eventually the management duo decided that we should switch back to a 4-5-1 and once again this paid immediate dividends and Burnsy closed in on goal only to be cut in half with a scything challenge. From the resulting spot kick Andy saw his effort saved but luckily reacted quickly enough to score from the rebound. Minutes later Lee grabbed his first of the season as he nodded in on the line from a corner. We were unstoppable now as Burnsy finally converted one of his chances after rounding the keeper and Jebu finished the scoring and also atoned for his earlier misses when he fired low in to the bottom corner.
It was a good result for us as we hadn’t played that well and it was nice to get one over on the Dingles as they have messed us around a bit in the past. Only four of us went on to watch the afternoon game, which was a bit poor but never mind!