TEAM BANG THEIR HEADS TOGETHER
Logica 2-2 Monaco of Lambeth
04 February 1996

With supremo Clarke absent, practising for his Director of Football role in Australia, team organisation collapses in a chaotic heap. BR close the Raynes Park line and offer an alternative route that seems to take in Birmingham and Bath en route, and Abbott thus arrives late.

The eleventh commandment dictates that "He who arriveth late shall haveth the kit", and thus Clarke stand-in Hatton is immediately set a teaser. Taking Fleming with him, Hatton heads first for Raynes Park in search of his star goalscorer, and then on to Fleming's gaff to collect an alternative strip.

In the meantime Abbott appears, the rest of the team change and are forced to begin the game. Confident of the wanderers return, Logica begin with nine. Fleming and Hatton finally return, have trouble undoing their buttons and tying up their shoelaces, and eventually join the fray 15 minutes late.

The farce had only just begun. Logica comfortably survive this numerically disadvantaged opening against their very optimistically named opponents. It doesn't really require Mystic Meg's limited powers to guess what happened next. A complete failure to reorganise with the two newcomers and Logica are quickly 2-0 down.

Finally Logica get something right and score. Abbott squares to Spence who has his shot saved, but Woolhouse feeds Abbott once more, and the same move is repeated. The rehearsal pays dividends as Spence flicks home deftly over the keeper with the outside of his right boot, a trick that Ian Wright later copies when scoring against Newcastle at Highbury. Logica now realise that their opponents are in fact crap, and quickly score another. Millar wins a ball in the air, knocking it forward to Abbott who swivels and scores with a left-footed half-volley from the edge of the box.

As half-time approaches, a Monaco player floats a harmless free-kick towards the back of the Logica penalty area. In keeping with the mornings theme of uncoordinated farce, Johnson and Fleming go for the same ball with no Monaco player in sight. The ball is a bystander as Johnson heads Fleming's chin and suddenly the grass is red. A ten minute wait for the ambulances enables some photo opportunities for the Logica boys, but once the two victims have been carted away, there is nothing worthy of clicking the shutter, and the game ends in a 2-2 draw. All that had been missing from the morning's script had been a vicar arriving unexpectedly for tea, whereupon we could have sold the rights for a new 'Terry and June' series. Come back Clarkey, all is forgiven.