The first weekend in January, with its Cup spills, thrills and shocks, is one of the most eagerly anticipated dates in the football calendar. But for Logica it proved a miserable start to the new year, as a 6-1 defeat to Fourth Division Wandsworth saw them crash out of the Little Ron Trophy after a thoroughly woeful quarter-final display.

The best that could be said is that the tie was badly timed. With Logica not having played for four weeks, the players were decidedly rusty. Ample quantities of turkey, Christmas pudding and sherry had clearly taken their toll, and 's charges were a shadow of the side that won their last two games in December in such entertaining fashion. The scheduling of 's Stag Night on the eve of such an important game was also unfortunate. Although the celebrants were all present and correct on Sunday morning, the in-form Walsall Wizard's wise if regrettable decision to make himself unavailable in advance was a big loss.

The match started badly for Logica and simply got worse. Wandsworth were quick, skilful, aggressive and, perhaps most significantly, young. The visitors were never allowed to settle into any rhythm at all, and the home side threatened with each rapier-like attack. in the Logica goal had already pulled off a quite brilliant reaction save before Wandsworth took the lead on the quarter-hour. An incisive pass dissected Logica's ill-functioning offside trap, and the home forward advanced unchallenged before clinically flicking the ball over the advancing [0-1].

Worse followed as a mix-up between and allowed Wandsworth to add a soft second shortly afterwards [0-2]. Logica huffed and puffed, but to little avail. Whilst they should have been awarded a penalty at 0-1 for a quite blatant hand-ball, there was little other threat during the first forty five minutes save for some tame long range efforts straight at the keeper from , and .

Much throwing of tea-cups during the half-time interval had an instant impact. Within a minute of the restart, Wandsworth added a third when another through-ball again exposed a shambolic Logica offside trap, and the home forward was able to round and slot home [0-3]. An almost carbon copy goal a few minutes later added to the visitors' woe [0-4], and when an identical break handed Wandsworth a fifth before the hour-mark, the game was clearly up for Logica [0-5].

The visitors, spurred on by pride alone, did piece together a few moves of note thereafter, but it was really too little too late. was played in by , but opted to cut back inside the last man instead of shooting early. hit a fizzing volley straight at a keeper who knew nothing about it, whilst both and had efforts which were again straight at the keeper. engineered a good shooting position for himself, but somewhat comically stubbed his foot and the ball trickled into the keeper's arms.

got to a low cross just ahead of the keeper, but swivelled and shot weakly when a lay-off to either of two better placed colleagues would have been far more likely to yield a goal. Likewise got himself into a good position at the far post, but although his shot from an acute angle hit the post, a squared pass to either of two unmarked Logica players in the six-yard box would again have been the better option.

As the game neared its end, Wandsworth added a sixth goal to further humiliate the second division side [0-6]. Logica did belatedy get their act together with their best move of the game. fed in the inside-left channel, and he cut back inside his man before clipping a perfect cross to the marauding and unmarked , who wasted no time in smashing a thunderous volley into the roof of the net from 12 yards [1-6]. Unfortunately, though, it was practically the last kick of the game, and in the circumstances hardly even merited being called a consolation.

After so much anticipation ahead of this quarter-final, the Logica dressing room afterwards was a quiet place indeed. Perhaps the players were already concentrating on the league.