The Return of the Prodigal Son

After the humiliating defeat last week against a team named after a convicted paedophile, the Boys were keen to return to form and find some bouncebackability that had been so key before the winter break.

Spirits were raised by the return of prodigal son Gaurav ‘G’ Mehta. This London boy had gone to the big smoke for 2 weeks – apparently to grow a particularly scruffy beard.

He doesn’t really look that prodigal

Although initially The Boss was unsure about G’s commitment to ATB FC, the skinny midfielder’s apologies (and the fact that ‘Old Man’ Obi was serving a match ban for last week’s laziness) meant G was back in the team.

Preparations for the match were fairly hurried with your reporter forgetting to bring a camera in the frantic, but unsuccessful, search for missing goalie gloves. Yet the team all remarked they were ‘well up for this one’ in comparison to the lackadaisical attitude of last week.

Our hopes were raised even further when we realised we’d be playing on our lucky pitch, the site of our famous 3-0 victory against Combined Honours. The match itself was a derby against local rivals ‘Melville Mandem’ (ATB FC are based in Vine Court).

From the off, the Boys dominated the Mandem with Atherton and Maticevic coping particularly well with the aggressive physical game that weaker teams typically use in local derbies – much like Everton against Liverpool. Unfortunately ATB’s number 9 Sawko appeared to have lost the cutting edge he had last week (head coach Maticevic blames his poor gym attendance) and most shots were tame efforts against an impressive keeper.

“G’s back!”

It took some magic from man of the match Brown to break the Mandem’s defence with a counter-attacking run from his own half and a powerful shot into the corner for the only goal of the game. The boys’ performance stayed fairly level throughout the game with Butler putting forward a good case to replace Jamie Carragher.

Fortunately Butler’s work meant the gangly goalie was not tested after last week’s shocker and his gloveless hands were rarely needed. In the middle of the park Atherton had a solid performance – only marred by a sliced shot with the goal at his mercy (apparently the Mandem defender put him off).

In his role as Manager, Maticevic attempted to turn pressure into goals by bringing on our prodigal son. ATB’s fans gave G a standing ovation on his return, and there were promising signs before he was completely flattened by a rather rotund Mandem player. Super-sub Powell did not quite live up to his name with a performance that showed his inexperience.

ATB FC can be pleased with a good performance that saw the team triumph in the Campus derby – thus giving our loyal fans the bragging rights over the Melville mugs – and climb to the heady heights of 14^th. Although The Boss told us not to get carried away we’re already planning on closing the mere 20-point deficit between us and 1st.

Like The Tab on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.