Down to the wire!

28th January 2007

We managed to get up early without a problem, probably cos we heard movement upstairs so we got ready before they came down. Didn't fancy any breakfast and didn't really have much time so we had a quick cuppa before heading for home. We decided against using the sat nav for the way home. We just headed for the A1 which was well signposted and got home for about 10:45am.

I only had about 15 minutes before I was due to pick James and Ben up to take them to football so I quickly got changed and went to fetch them. We got to football to the good news that Ripley had drew 0-0 with Oak Tree, which all but ruled them out of the title race as long as we stuck to the gameplan and took all 3 points today.

We were up against a feisty Ilkeston Tigers team who seem to be underachieving this year. There in 6th out of 10 in the league but have taken some big points this season having been the only team to beat Ripley, they also beat joint leaders Ladywood and drew 4-4 to us the first time. I expected a tough game and wasn't surprised they took the lead halfway through the first half. We'd played the best but our movement and passing in the final third wasn't great and if things didn't change could cost us.

Still 1-0 down at half time I gave the lads a really good talking to and fired them up to go out to win the game. We had a fantastic second half, scoring 4 goals and comfortably winning 4-1. This put us solely in pole position though Ladywood were still playing there game. We went to watch them as they kicked off the second half against our next week opponents Huthwaite and the score was 1-1.

Ladywood scored to go 2-1 up and there was muted celebrations around the pitch but Huthwaite looked good going forward and soon equalised. The huthwaite supporters celebrated as did all our Welbeck lot causing a bit of a stir amongst the Ladywood bench. So much so that one of them came to moan at us about standing around the goaline and not on the touchline. I said we were in the Kop end and told her to shut up! Ladywood ended up 4-2 winners and as you can expect, they made sure we knew they were happy with the goals and the 3 points. It was all on again for the title.

1. Welbeck Pl 17 Pt 40 (Top by 3 goals)
2. Ladywood Pl 17 Pt 40
3. Ripley Pl 17 Pt 37

After the match I went to check on next week's fixtures and found out that Ladywood v Ripley had been cancelled until the week after. I didn't think this was fair as the battle for the top spot should be played at the same time on the final day. I tried to cancel our match but was told it couldn't happen. Therefore if we won, Ripley definately couldn't win the league and aren't exactly favourites of ours so they may do Ladywood a favour the following week. I hope not. We'll just have to do our bit next week.