Saturday 19th April: Shanty Town (A)

Roll the dream sequence:

I woke up on Sunday morning after a wonderful dream: I dreamt the Alliance had won comfortably and I had clean sheets, I dreamt that I'd drunk for 14 hours afterwards. I dreamt that I'd gone back to these girl's house (nothing happened, we just drank) and then got a taxi back to Dai's. I dreamt that I hid in the bed while that fat twat got himself ready for bed with a rather gay routine and singing before noticing I was hiding. I also dreamt I did the same thing in Nick's, Dai's housemate, bed, but unfortunately his mrs jumped in with just a pair of knickers on and I scared the shit out of her.

Then I woke up and realised it wasnt a dream, so made Dai a cup of tea and jumped in with him to catch the last 20 of some rather poor Sunday morning tv, badgering him to give me one of his pillows. He said no to start with but I pointed out he had a perfectly good pillow not currently in use so he was forced to concede. Honestly, some people.

So anyway, 3-0 and the Alliance gave a very resilient performance to give a sniff of not finishing bottom of the league and give us a moral boosting victory before the biggest game of the Alliance's season. It's shit or bust time in the league, luckily this week we remembered to take a massive shit and leave it at Shanty Town's doorstep again. For the third time this season we beat them by three clear goals and they currently lie third in the league. It was their last game of the season but they put in the effort but we held strong from the goal keeper (me) to the defence Guy (new player courtesy of Liam), Liam, Dai and Colin, plus the midfield of Jeffrey, Iain, Simon and Besty with the front men Paul and Micah. And with some expert tactical changes from yours truly I managed to introduce Dan, Pete and Hectar into the fray at more or less the right moments too.

First 25 minutes we were under loads of pressure and had the wind against us and although we had a few scrapes we dealt with it well through a mixture of dubious clearances, wastefulness on their part and a death defying save from Smithy at the feet of their strike force. Then we scored - it seemed like against the run of play (like watching Forest play Wednesday in the early 90s, we'd batter them all game, and then David Hirst would have two runs all game (See Performances by The Body 2002-2006) and score twice (Dont see Performances by The Body 2002-2006). Iain from the corner, Paul ran across the defence and sneaked in, in front of their defence to guide past the keeper. In the pocket. Bang. 1-0 (although Paul should have scored before then and should have completed his hat trick by half time but we wont mention that.) In terms of first half performances, Guy showed enough to suggest he's one for the future, Dai marshalled the back four better than he usually does, and Little and Large in central midfield had resumed normal service.

We had a chat at half time, things are going well and Paul has suggested going in a bit harder in the second half. And he backed this statement up by clearing out one of their wingers shortly after the interval. It seemed like 1-0 for a long time (that's because it was) and they had loads of corners mainly thanks to Colin's timely interventions when they were through on goal. I've swapped Dan for Jeffrey, who had one of his quieter games - saving himself for an epic performance in the cup no doubt - Dan got straight into the business of missing absolute sitters again. And I thought it was going to be one of those days again. But then we got a stone wall penalty - it looked like that from where I was but Paul assures me it was. He stepped up - despite having turned down the chance of hat trick in the first half - and put it in although the keeper had a fair chance to save it. 2-0. That's 10 goals for the season according to Paul - although I'll wait for the league stats.

Time for another sub - we took the opportunity to wrap some of our stars up in cotton wool for Thursday's cup game so Besty and Micah were relieved of their duties - enter Pete and Hectar respectively. As well as an array of injured Alliance members on the side lines including Darty, Hudson and Chris G to lead the choruses of 'Well out Dai's' as we battled to keep smithy in clean sheets. Even Jesus turned up to try and put one in the onion bag but Smithy had it covered. Smithy also set up the third goal, a measured long ball to Dan put him through down the right, a great pass to Peter, who took his time and planted in the third with a well measured strike. Jurassic Park.

So that was the end of that. 3-0 and a solid performance boding well for the cup game.

This week's MOM is Colin who put in his best performance in an Alliance shirt - making countless vital interventions in the second half putting him in contention, a long with the rest of you, for the a gold and black vest on Thursday.

We had a good drink in the pub, the first for a while, with Hudson resuming his life long unrequieted love affair with John Hall in the corner of the pub while the rest of us watched the football. After a few pints, John nipped off for his 4pm match. Nice work.