Report by Craig Taylor

A free weekend in Logica's hectic fixture calendar was well spotted by league mandarins when Dark Star Reserves made the call for an emergency friendly. The Supremo had originally planned to use the free weekend for an intensive two day training camp session as well as an opportunity to scout out Logica's next opposition, Lillington.

The rest of the squad, evidently, had other plans too as only ten men made the journey to the Richardson-Evans ground. Dark Star graciously sacrificed their assistant manager, Steve, to play for Logica. Supremo Groom saw fit to play Steve in a back three along side himself and Tim Wood. Loriot, Taylor and Fazel were tasked with controlling the middle of the park with Field and new-boy Howarth out wide. Noobie and Hoyzone were paired up front together in a cunning combination of pace, talent and experience.

THE GAME
Logica started well, showing the home side how to use the ball. In a promising early move, Hoyzone found himself wide on the right. Some intricate footwork saw him beat three defenders, twice, before floating a great cross into the box where Banoub was unfortunate not to connect on the volley.

As the game progressed Logica's makeshift defence was showing signs of weakness as they were exposed a number of times. Pendleton and Steve saved Logica's blushes more than once. Red Star's pressure paid off as one shot was well blocked by Groom only to fall back at the strikers feet; Pendleton saw the follow-up shot just too late to save it [0-1].

The goal sparked Logica into life and a number of good moves included Mercer Field finding a lot of room on the left wing but the final ball was just lacking. Logica's best chance fell to Nigel Hoyland as he was played through with just the 'keeper to beat, but the Footballing Gods can be fickle, and Hoyzone's shot slid just wide of the far post. After this, Logica's frail defence was exposed again as a neat passing move was finished off with a side foot shot past Pendleton [0-2].

With less than ten minutes of the half remaining, Logica resorted to some old-school tactics with a Tim Wood special. (A little history lesson: back in the day when Gautam and Wood were regulars in the middle of the park, they had a little trick free kick just for special occasions. Gautam would run up to the ball and jump over it at the last minute and continue his run around the wall. Tim would adroitly flick the ball over the wall into the path of Gautam, for him to finish spectacularly). On this occasion Wood's flick was played into the path of Taylor, but the ball skimmed out of his reach on the wet surface and into the path of the advancing keeper. The Dark Star stopper couldn't hold on to the slippery ball and fumbled into the path of the Leeds blurk, who gratefully tapped the ball into the empty net [1-2]. Logica were back in it and Red Stars' heads were visibly dropped.

At half time the Supremo saw fit to change the Logica system a little, Taylor was switched to left back to help shore up the defence and Howarth moved to centre midfield so that Fazel could use his pace on the right wing.

Logica started well and pressurised the Dark Star defence on a number of occasions, Hoyland was unlucky again as a virtual carbon copy of his earlier effort went just wide. But the away team's dominance paid off as a long throw was handled by a red-faced Red Star man. Supremo charitably assigned Loriot to take the spot kick, despite the England Pups' regular penalty taker, Taylor being on the pitch. Banoub was seen to have words with Loriot, and the magnanimous Frenchman allowed the Teessider to take the kick for him. With anxious looks from the Supremo, Noobie sent the keeper the wrong way and buried the ball into the back of the net [2-2].

Logica were well and truly back in the game now and the Dark Star players were arguing amongst themselves. But as so often happens in these situations it only takes one incident to change the game.

THE INCIDENT
A through ball was played just ahead of the Red Star number ten. Taylor's pace was enough to get him ahead of the striker so he could clear the ball, but an ugly hack from behind felled the stand-in left back. The vicious hack was a replica of our own Hackneyed Hackney Hacker's effort last week. The only difference this week was the ref's poor judgement in not giving the free-kick to Logica. Instead the Red Star man got the ball and advanced on goal and was tackled by Tim Wood. However the referee adjudged this tackle to be unfair and gave Red Star a free kick just outside the box. A well worked free-kick and a slight deflection left Pendleton unsighted as the ball found its way into the net [2-3].

This signalled the normal Logica collapse. Dark Star soon found the net again thanks to further poor judgement by the referee. In defence of the referee the lack of a linesman, made this offside decision very difficult to make [2-4].

Logica created a few sporadic chances, with both Field and Fazel making use of the width allowed to them. But again the final ball was lacking. Dark Star got their fifth from a fairly soft shot from 25 yards; unfortunately Pendleton's usually secure handling let him down on this occasion [2-5]. The home side finished the rout with a very well taken goal, their big number ten made it through two or three Logica defenders to cleverly pass the ball across the box to an unmarked team-mate who slotted the ball home [2-6].

The brave Logica men still managed to make a few chances in the last ten minutes; some good running from Field found Hoyland in the box with his back to goal and he laid a neat ball off to Taylor. The Leeds man hit a curling 20-yard strike at the top corner which was well saved by the keeper. Loriot had a glorious chance with a low curling shot from 30 yards just tipped round the post by the Dark Star number one. Another half chance fell to Taylor from the resulting corner, but the shot fizzled just wide of the upright.

In summary the friendly was played in the correct manner by both teams. Logica were almost back to form for brief spells in the game. However, against better opposition the score could have been a lot worse.