The lad Fleming is certainly giving 110% for Logica Football Club. The eyes of the more world-weary Logica Supremo (e.g. Clarkey, Abbott) would light up at the prospect of a free Sunday morning, and visions of warm duvets would immediately fill the mind. But so far this season Logica have had two Sundays without league games, and Fleming has effortlessly arranged friendly matches each time to keep that Logica footballing machine well-oiled, and also to try out a few new cogs.

The first friendly a few weeks back saw one of Logica’s best performances of the season, and proved an excellent warm-up for the following week’s draw with table-topping St Anselms. This game was of more questionable benefit, and will surely have given Fleming the kind of organisational headaches that will gradually nudge him into the duvet school of Supremo-ship. The day began with a deja-vu as our prospective goalkeeping solution failed to materialise for the second week running, and Hatton and Fleming were once again left scouring the tube stations of West London for a likely looking suspect in gloves. (This management pairing must have covered every blade of grass on the London Underground map already this season, intentionally or otherwise.) Fleming is learning fast though, and had covered his back with a second keeper.

The next problem arrived at the ground, minutes before the appointed kick-off time, as Fleming and Hatton screeched into the car-park in true Dodi and Boyle style, only to find a couple of hundred footballing sheep milling around uncertainly. The groundsman, it transpired, had failed to appear, and the changing rooms remained locked. Fleming controlled this one first time, and after some consultation with our hosts for the day, suggested we grab a pitch, get changed on the side-lines, and get on with it.

At last, Fleming could relax and settle down to enjoy the football. A mediocre first-half found two teams struggling to exert any authority or achieve any cohesion. Fleming was the pick of the Logica players as a number of bursts down the left created a few chances, as well as offering a few penetrating exceptions to what was otherwise a midfield melee. Khellia opened the scoring after some slack defending resulted in a simple tap-in. The years were rolled back to deliver Logica’s reply. A Spence header was flicked on first time by Richmond (for it was he) to send Abbott clear. Any guesses? Yes, a delicately executed lob gave the keeper no chance and meant that Abbott had netted all of Logica’s last six goals.

Half-time brought Fleming back down to earth as the newly fashionable squad system meant the need for someone to organise four substitutions. Having dealt with this, our much changed team lined up for the re-start. No referee. As Appleyard had done the honours in the first half, etiquette demanded that our opposition provide an arbiter for the second period. Clearly happy with Logica’s fair-minded reputation, they refused to do so, and after contemplating fourteen shoe-gazing colleagues, Fleming once more was left to take responsibility and swap red jersey for black. Logica though are renowned for their sense of irony, and proceeded to show their appreciation for our Supremo’s sacrifices by making life as difficult as possible for him. First up, a Khellia player ran the ball close to the side-line and Fleming blew for a throw-in based on some indecisive semaphore from the flag-waving linesman. A torrent of abuse from the Khellia team was concluded when ‘Honest’ Kev Spence shouted across clarification to Fleming that the ball had not in fact gone out. "Cheers, Kev." came the dead-pan reply. Next up was Johninho taking further exception to some shirt-pulling antics by Khellia’s centre-forward. At the same ground as the "JOHNINHO SHAME" incident of three weeks ago, the well-built sweeper once again reacted with some irritated arm-flapping in his opponents general direction. The Khellia player pulled out his hand-bag and retreated ten yards. It was, of course, left to Fleming to calm the situation down. Afterwards Johninho complained to his colleagues of a lack of protection from both them and the referee during this potentially life-threatening assault on his person. The poor lamb.

And what of the football? Well, not much really. The quality of football was appalling by both sides, and only some spectacular open-goal missing by Khellia enlivened proceedings. Abbott also had time for some more international-standard fannying about in the box, in the process of spurning the few chances to come Logica’s way. On the plus side, Logica had the opportunity to give some new players a game, and James Anthony was probably the pick of these. Restricted from joining too many attacks by defensive duties, he never-the-less showed excellent discipline, tackling ability and determination. Mike Davies in goal also made some good saves. Perhaps the most significant event of the day was the return of David "Skippy" Richmond. Playing only the first half due to a predictable hamstring tweak, he showed that he hadn’t lost the composed touch, the strength in the air nor the ability to give 150% in the bollocks-talking department. If nothing else, the journalistic fraternity are relieved to see return of this eminently quotable legend of yesteryear.