My internal monologue for the past 18 hours…
You’re in all sorts of bother, son. It’s dead easy to write a witty match report when they’ve stunk the place out. You got seven likes on Twitter last week. Seven. You’ve not been this viral since the kids came back from school with Covid.
But they were bloody great today. Or Yesterday now, because you’ve spent so long trying to come up with a decent intro that The Antiques Sodding Roadshow is gonna be on a minute. Just get on with it. Half of the neanderthals who’ll read this still have a copy of The Sun tucked under their armpit on the terraces. They wouldn’t know a well-crafted intro if it slapped them in the particulars. Just write.
Lewes didn’t get off to the most comfortable of starts. (Pot, kettle etc.) Tom Carlse’s shanked clearance dropped at the feet of the massive Mo Faal, who smacked the ball towards the top corner, forcing a terrific save from Lou Carey.
Indeed, it was the visitors who edged the opening 25 minutes, but the game turned on the opening goal.
A corner looped in from the left seemed to paralyse the entire Enfield defence, who simply stood and gawped as it dropped to dinky Brad Pritchard at the back post. He side-footed a shot back across the face of the goal and it was 1-0.
There was barely time to order a celebratory pint of Harvey’s before the lead was doubled. Tony Russell spent his pre-match video patiently explaining that he wasn’t going to break with his principles and tell the boys to hoof it long to get a result.
Well, either Lou Carey didn’t get the memo or Tony is such an evil genius of misdirection that he should be stroking a fluffy cat, not a puppy, in his pre-match vids. (Nice line that, you’re feeling your way back in.)
Lou Carey punted a goal-kick almost the full length of the field and Joe Taylor shrugged off his flailing marker to chip the ball past the keeper. Route One, Two-Nil.
If the second goal was industrial, the third was a beauty. Taylor Maloney had a terrific free-kick tipped onto the crossbar against The Met last weekend, but the hapless Enfield stopper got nowhere near this week’s effort, which dipped just under the bar to give Lewes a 3-0 half-time lead. Dreamland.
The dream briefly threatened to turn into a nightmare moments into the second half, when a long Enfield throw from the right was accidentally flicked on by Pritchard. Mo Faal slashed the ball past Carey and there was a period of uncomfortable mumbling in the Philcox.
But it really didn’t last long. Colombie, Razz De-Draft and Taylor were working beautiful little combos down the right-hand side, and Razz almost claimed the fourth when he danced into the area but fired his shot skywards.
It didn’t matter, as moments later and only five minutes after Enfield threatened to make a game of it, another delightful bit of pass-and-go resulted in Colombie bursting into the box and tucking the ball through the keeper’s legs. Colombie – my wife would have loved that. (You’re doing Columbo puns now? Really?)
The game drifted away after that, with Lewes exerting full control and only ever looking half-panicked when Enfield resorted to launching long throws into our box. A glorious afternoon’s football. (Except for the match report satirists. Satirist? Oh, get over yourself you big tit.)
Lewes: Carey, Colombie, Carlse, Wearie, Nelson, De-Graft, Olukoga, Pritchard, Maloney, Tanner, Taylor
Subs: Klass, Parker, Allen, D’Arienzo, Richards
Match highlights
Boyesy’s match photos