It had all the classic ingredients of a Sunday morning football farrago. One player lost on Saturday night with a latent injury. Another lost on Sunday morning courtesy of a map-reading mare. A collective late arrival that forced a rushed preparation such that the entire team looked lost for the first twenty minutes of the game. And a lost match against an Everyman side who celebrated their first win of the season, and, indeed, their first win ever apparently. Oh dear.

Whilst the injury that forced Damien Sutton to cry off on Saturday night (just as Groom was preparing to leave for a cultural evening at the cinema) was unavoidable, the navigational nightmare that befell debutante Gareth Byrne was something else entirely. The Supremo was off to see the new Harry Potter movie [These Pups are younger than I thought? - Ed] and Logica would have needed more than a little of the young bespectacled scamp's wizardry to rescue the ensuing debacle. The first inkling of disaster came around 10am, when both the day's debutantes were still unaccounted for. A quick call home suggested that Mehdi Alloula was en-route for the ground, whilst contact with the unfortunate Byrne revealed that he was at that moment waiting hopefully in the vicinity of Chiswick Football Club.

Fresh directions were issued by the Supremo and the squad belatedly headed off for the Riverlands Stadium. No sign of a debutante on arrival, but as the team changed an urgent ring of the Supreme mobile suggested that the new instructions were having no more success in guiding Byrne to his destination. A plethora of landmarks were reeled off (B-roads, bridges, boat-houses) but it transpired that Byrne was still struggling to get to grips with the map at his side, and the manic rustling from the other end of the line suggested more origami than orienteering.

As the Logica team completed their five mile hike from changing rooms to pitch, there was some good news with the arrival of Alloula, but still no sign of the other debutante, although increasingly rapid text messages hinted that he might be getting closer. A hasty team-talk and the game was afoot, but Logica were clearly suffering from their lack of preparation in more ways than one. On his first sprint at full pace (sic), Abbott was seen pulling up apparently in some pain, and it transpired that his dodgy hamstring had decided that it didn't fancy another morning of international class fannying. The experienced striker battled on to half-time despite the injury, and even though he could hardly run nor kick the ball very far, a number of his team-mates expressed surprise later, not noticing anything amiss.

There was even more calamity in the first minute when Everyman took the lead. Byrne's ordeal with the Ordnance Survey had forced Brown to be drafted in as an emergency centre-half. The Logica rearguard was still trying to get itself organised as the visitors won a throw-in. A semi-Challinor found Jeff Hatton only half-clearing with his head. An Everyman striker pounced on the loose ball, and although his low shot was well parried by Fleming in the Logica goal, his team-mates were slow to react and it was another Everyman player who was on hand to squeeze home the rebound [0-1]. A shambolic start.

An air of disorganisation continued as Everyman continued to create chances seemingly at will. Logica were lucky when a volley from six yards was hit straight at Fleming, and the Football Gods were apparently in very benevolent mood when a series of errors allowed an opponent to slice horribly wide from close-range with the goal at his mercy.

But more incompetence was beyond even the redemption of the Gods, as Logica gave the ball away twice in their own half with a goal resulting each time. Everyman's erratic striker was the beneficiary on both occasions. First he found the ball deflected to him with just Brown for company. The Logica utility man got his tackle in, but the ball squirted out in the forward's favour, and a scuffed shot bumbled just inside the post beyond the despairing reach of Fleming [0-2]. Shortly, more defensive comedy gifted the same player another unmarked shooting opportunity, and this time he finished with a little more conviction [0-3].

Logica finally got themselves together and started to play a bit. They had finally worked out that the flanks were their best option and started to feed Richard McWilliam and Jon Clarke with more regularity. McWilliam was causing all kinds on mayhem down the left as his pace and close control enabled him to beat men seemingly at will. His team-mates eventually wised up to this threat and started to send the ball his way. McWilliam engineered himself one shooting chance which was blocked, and supplied a number of dangerous crosses which unfortunately found no end-product, after which Everyman resorted to fouling the Logica wide-man in their attempts to stop him.

Clarke was applying his intelligent brand of football down the opposite flank. Twice Abbott managed to play the ball beyond the full-back for Clarke to deliver the killer ball, but again there was nobody in place to apply the finishing touch. In fact the Everyman keeper was only called on to make one save in the first forty five minutes, although it was some save. Abbott controlled a long-throw and laid the ball back to McWilliam who in turn fed Taylor on the right edge of the box. The Leeds man had time to pick his spot and arrowed a blistering drive towards the top left-hand corner. Sadly for Logica the keeper was equal to the shot and tipped the ball over the bar at full stretch.

At half-time Abbott's desperate and imaginative plea, that as a two-footed player he could get by on just his other leg, fell on death ears, and the ruthless Supremo replaced him with Julian Howarth. The players eagerly gathered round Groom's mobile messaging service, keen to get the latest updates on Byrne's jaunt around South West London, but disappointingly no further news was bad news.

After the interval, Logica appeared to have tightened up their rearguard in the face of a moderate attack, but their own offensive creativity seemed far more stunted. As a result chances were few and far between at both ends. It was McWilliam again who showed his class, creating two opportunities for himself brilliantly. A visionary Banoub reverse pass into the channel set up the first chance. McWilliam cut back inside his marker, leaving him for dead, and drifted past another challenge before unleashing a right-foot rocket which a helpless keeper was relieved to see fly just over the bar.

Next up, the left-winger sublimely carved out a chance for himself. Receiving the ball in a midfield melee, McWilliam danced around two opponents to find himself with some space 25 yards out. He looked up before clipping an almost perfect lob over a stranded keeper. Unfortunately, as the crowd prepared to roar a goal, the shot glanced off the top of the cross bar and behind.

Apart from this, there was little goal-mouth action, and so three goals in as many minutes midway through the half created the perfect opportunity for a 'none-for-ages, three-at-once' bus analogy from the miserable old Lag on the sidelines. Everyman's fourth goal came out of nothing. A seemingly harmless punt into no-man's land found Groom still suffering from shock following a crunching tackle minutes earlier. His man ambled towards the ball uncertainly as the Supremo wandered around dazed and confused. There still seemed little danger until the Everyman player unleashed a lethal first time volley that fizzed past the startled Fleming from twenty yards. A truly brilliant strike! [0-4]

Logica finally found the net two minutes later. Some untidy pinball in the middle of the park was ended by a touch from Banoub into the path of Julian Howarth. The Logica substitute sized up his options before steering a low shot just inside the far post [1-4]. For some reason, this consolation goal caused Logica to relax, and Everyman scored straight from the kick off. One of their midfield players was allowed to advance unchallenged from inside his own half to the edge of the box, from where he thrashed an unstoppable low shot into the far corner [1-5]. When the final whistle eventually sounded, all that awaited Logica back in the dressing room was a rather forlorn SMS from Byrne stating that he had given up and gone home.

This fairly well summed up Logica's disappointing morning. Against a team they beat 2-0 at a canter on the opening day of the season, and who had acquired only two points since, Logica were expecting to bounce back from last week's gubbing by London Radnor with three much-needed points. Instead they played no better and handed Everyman their first win of the season. Indeed, after the match our opponents informed us that this was their first win ever, presumably because they are a newly formed team.

Although some might observe that 5-1 flattered the opposition, this is really straw-clutching after a game we expected to win. The Supremo will be relieved that he didn't commit to a half-hearted offer to follow the Iranian coach's promise prior to their play-off with Ireland - "if we don't get through, I will hang myself from the cross bar."

Rather, the gaffer needs to act promptly to arrest the dramatic slide which these two consecutive defeats represent. Prior to that, the giant-killing Cup victory and second half performance against Parsons Green had promised much. Now we are suddenly looking nervously beneath us rather than optimistically above us.

It's mentioned regularly, but what we really need is weekly training. Not just for physical fitness, although that would obviously be a boon, but primarily for team cohesion and understanding. Nothing elaborate, just getting used to passing the ball to each other early doors, knowing what runs to make and look for, and building a more solid defensive understanding. Substantial changes in defensive personnel for the last two games have revealed some confusion about the back-four formation and strategy. Training would clearly help the team as a whole improve its cohesion, understanding and strategy. However, as has also been observed equally regularly the geographic spread of the squad makes weekly training a logistical nightmare.

In a similar vein, we would also benefit from being able to field more-or-less the same team each week. But again, it has always been the way that Logica players have more to their lives than just football (well, in most cases anyway) and will therefore be unavailable for selection from time to time. We are also suffering a bad spate of injuries currently, although that is part and parcel of the modern game. However, it is worth sparing a thought for the harassed Supremo, who was unable to select any of the following players for this morning's game: Pendleton, Trovato, Richmond, Hatton Minor, Mainwaring, Reevaldo, Loriot, Wood, Gautam, Hoyland, Fazel, Field, Gill, Sutton and Lurch - a pretty impressive squad in its own right.

There are a few things we can do something about. The Supremo has proposed a policy of meeting up before a game slightly earlier. This would give us the chance to get to the ground promptly and the time to warm up properly, as well as giving us more time for the team talk. We have been reasonably good at this in recent seasons, but this morning's disarray resulted in the players not even knowing who was playing where, a goal conceded in the first minute, and more than likely was responsible for old man Abbott's hamstring twang. Another option the Supremo is considering is asking the LSSC to pay for installing GPS systems in every player's car.

Its only two defeats, but the manner of those defeats suggests that some action needs to be taken to halt the slide early doors. Its everybody's club, and we now have a message board where players can go to add their twopenneth worth. So if you want to get something off your chest, have any suggestions for improvements, or fancy volunteering to organise some training, then this is place to do it. Don't be shy!