Only one of the five sides that played on Saturday lost – however, the Sixes were playing Old Salesian Reserves in a game that Referee Kenny Lane described as bad tempered. The visitors ran out 3 – 1 winners.

The two Cup games ended with relatively easy wins for the Bluebloods. Josh Morris took the Fives squad to Old Finchleians in the AFA Senior Novets Cup and won via a brace each for Matt King (still playing ater his bad knee injury) and Josh Tutt. It ended 4 – 1 with the home side having a man sent off for punching a Wickham player – I will be interested to read the referee’s report on the behaviour of the hosts.

The Reserves went the short distance to Coney Hall Recreation ground to play FC Elmstead (1958) in the Kent Intermediate Trophy Quarter Final. In the end we should have won 5 or 6 – 0 but the game was far from being one sided. We kicked off 15 minutes late – the referee did not appear mainly because he was in Germany and nobody knew - except Jurgen Klopp who called me to give me the news – “ he’s in the Heidelberg Inn having a beer.”

The fun really started then (and it was no fault of FC Elmstead) – one of the Assistants took the whistle and a spare club linesman was appointed. Neither “flag waver” had a clue about what was going on once the game started – one hardly ever raised his flag and the "official " one kept raising and lowering his flag when making a decision – the ref had no chance of knowing what was going on – and it was surprising that these antics didn’t result in a plane landing on Coney Hall Rec instead of nearby Biggin Hill Airport. Proceedings were very frustrating and the 42 spectators were getting agitated – luckily, as time passed, it all became something of a comedy – maybe “A Comedy of Errors” and, at the end, when a blatant penalty was missed right in front of both the ref’s and Lino’s noses (they actually only had one nose each so don’t let me add to the confusion) everybody laughed out loud. We wouldn’t have been laughing however if we hadn’t been leading 3 – 0.This decision left me speechless and I unable to describe the incident adequately without appearing to be biased.

Skipper and centre back James Williams opened the scoring after 3 minutes when he placed Sam Murray’s left wing free kick firmly into the net. The home side took 15 minutes to settle down and looked more likely to score in the first period and John Chisholm had to make one exceptional save – his excellent positional sense made his other work straightforward. At the other end their keeper had nothing to do that would have worried his defenders. The FC Elmstead attack looked very dangerous on occasions and Kemp, Williams, Rathbone and The Durse erected a strong barrier which repelled all raiders.

1 – 0 to the Bluebloods at half time was a bit harsh on the home side and they then committed Hari Kiri two minutes into the second period when George Maw added our second after his shot, a rebound header and a follow up rebound header left the home keeper perplexed.

FC Elmstead never really looked like scoring in the second half and good work by Joe Kemp down the right wing resulted in substitute Carl Goppy sweeping in a goal with his first touch of the ball. Carl was narrowly wide a couple of minutes later from another Kempy cross.

Fozzie’s introduction of speed merchants Goppy and Joe Rahilly had “worked the oracle “and our third sub Nick Gibbs should have scored another goal. A fine move between Gibbsy and Murray gave Gibbsy a clear sight of goal but he hit his shot just wide of the right hand post (do posts have right hands?). The home side never gave up the ghost but the ghost had already disappeared -- maybe to Germany!!!

The Bluebloods were well in control and then came the ludicrous “none penalty” when Sam Murray was upended by the keeper in full flight – even the Elmstead players appealed for it – the ref was 5 metres away and just laughed – frankly we all laughed – the officiating was Benny Hill style.

Question—why was the referee in Germany? – it’s easy to get to Coney Hall Rec by the 138,119, 246 and 342 busses – so why did he end up at Gatwick Airport and get on a plane to Germany???

On the positive side his wayward meanderings provided the crowd with some Shakespearian comedy but “The Comedy of Errors” could have turned into “Calamity Jane”.

Man of the Match James Williams -- there were four others in contention but I wont mention them because they won nowt.

As for the officiating -- please see my article tomorrow after showing my video to Graham Poll this morning.

The First team entertained Old Owens and the Bluebloods won 2 – 0 – I only saw the last 10 minutes on what I heard was a very entertaining game. This is the second time I have seen Owens lose 2- 0 (the other was at Wilsons) and they played very well in both games. They are on a worrying losing streak but should soon rectify the situation. Josh Kennedy scored after 2 minutes and the 3 substitutions were, apparently, critical in getting us all three points. On came Ian Seabrook, Connor Byrne and Charlie McGeary and Byrne was unlucky not to score at least one – Charlie did get one and that was that.

The Fours banged in 5 against HSBC who replied via the penalty spot. Paul Farthing got two so did Chris Eadon and believe it or not Steve Uwins got himself off the Cold List (so did James Williams by the way). Miracles are happening every day (Palace failed to lose) but Jay Askew and Seebs should start praying to The Almighty - neither has even scored in the pre - match kick in.

The Sixes eventually succumbed to Old Salesians Reserves despite hitting the crossbar twice. Abi Balogun scored our goal from the spot.

Next week is a big Cup week SO get to training AND remember if you haven’t paid your annual subs by Tuesday 10th January 2017 YOU WILL NOT BE SELECTED. Don’t ruin our brilliant season.