On a warm, sunny October morning the Vets were back, new manager, same faces, same positive attitude. Mike Barnes is managing the Colts this season on Saturdays so it is good to see Simon Collins stepping up to the bar to take over the reins for the Vets.

Cuckfield started well and for the first twenty minutes, put some good passes together and used the width of the pitch. This was rewarded with two goals, the second of which was a delightful curling shot over the keepers head from DJ, close to the bye line on the left hand side, just inside the penalty area. Cuckfield looked comfortable. Then a mad ten minutes!

Ansty had a couple of attacks and were pinning us back, one of which resulted in Pammy putting the ball passed Gary Lee with his face. Why can’t he do this up the other end? We then proceeded to forget all of the good things we had done and play very short passes in very short areas of space or try and punt the ball to DJ or Ash to run on to, Wimbledon moments!Gary Lee had one very good save in particular which kept us in front.

However, wise words from Mike Holden, ‘let’s play football’ seemed to carry the message to the rest of the team. Within another five minutes we were back playing the kind of football we do best, calm, two-three touch, simple but effective. This was rewarded with a goal by Martin Benson and Peter Collins which gave us a three goal cushion at  4 – 1. Three changes were then made and no real change in performance which was good.

The second half was dominated by Cuckfield and once again DJ scored another two goals. Ansty created the occasional chance and Gary did another good save to his left to stop them creeping back into the game. I was enjoying the afternoon and had more space than usual down the left hand side of the pitch.

Ansty did have a penalty but lucky for us the taker struck the ball wide right. By 75 minutes the game was really over and it was refreshing to see how well we played considering this was our first game of the season. Effective substitutions meant that fresh legs came on when someone tired or was injured.

MOM contenders according to the new manager were can you believe, yours truly and DJ. With four goals and devastating pace and performance the latter took the honours. Well done guys, great attitude and great result. Onward and forward!