Teams that get promoted to Division 6A usually struggle to survive their first season in the top flight. In this battle of this season's 2 promoted sides, it was therefore vital for us to maintain a healthy distance between us and Ettekijs, who started the day 2nd bottom in the table with 7 points.

Coming on the back of two unfortunate losses, Vets1 were aware that this could arguably be a season-defining match. With Tommy still injured after last week, we were fortunate to call upon Luc Tholoniat as keeper. Similarly, it was a real boost to have 2nd team stalwart Mark Pellegry making vets1 debut.

On a bobbly grass pitch, the early exchanges saw Lolo and Cian dominate the centre of midfield, with Carl stifling their playmaker. Attempts to release Thierry, BenG and Matt going forward tended to get stuck in the mud. Literally. At the same time, Lars and Roger soon took control of their centre forward, to the extent that Cedric and Mark, in particular, were able to set some attacking accents further up the park. In fact, Mark's winger probably did as much defending as Mark did going the other way - notably from throw-ins where he highlighted the simple art of advancing slowly but surely 40 or 50 metres upfield with ettekijs heading repeated throw-ins back out of play.

After 15 minutes we got our first corner of the game, and this proved to be the decisive moment of the game. As practiced at training earlier in the week, Thierry swung in the corner and, thanks to a couple of decoy runs, Roger was left with a free header 6 metres out, which he duly despatched into the bottom corner. 1-0 to vets1. Ben G was so enthusiastic in his celebration that half the defence thought that he had scored until well after the game - and he even thanked them for their congratulations. When asked afterwards, he claimed a "virtual assist" for his decoy run! Forwards!! 🙄

Apart from one attack down their left shortly afterwards, they did little to trouble Luc in goal in the first half. One excellent pass from Lolo nearly saw Matt get to the ball before the keeper. Otherwise, we continued to dominate possession without managing to turn it into clear chances. And we went into half time very comfortable with our lead.

The second half saw much of the same. Ettekijs tried to push forward more - leaving a bit more space for Matt and Ben to exploit- and Simon, when he came on. On one occasion, Matt seemed to be through, until the ref gave a free kick for an unfair shoulder charge.

10 minutes later, he returned the favour by giving us a free kick just outside the box for a shoulder charge. Lolo stepped up and curled it up and over the wall, but onto the post - with the keeper well beaten.

The remaining minutes saw Ettekijs with more possession in our half - and yellow cards for Cian, Roger and Carl. Nando was able to help tighten the defence. And Luc had to be on his toes a couple of times. But otherwise we were able to get through to the final whistle without any major scares.

And so we finished with a comfortable, though unspectacular 1-0 victory - and secured our place in mid-table. Ettekijs, with half the points that we now have, confirmed the old adage that many promoted teams struggle to make the transition to division 6A.

Voting for Man of the Match saw glowing tributes to Lolo and debutant Mark, but, once it finally became clear to all who had scored the goal, the most votes went to Roger.

Reporter & MoM: Waite