U's:0 Diamonds:0

In my life so far encounters with famous people have been few and far between.

I’ve spoken to a couple of low-ranking politicians, interviewed Amanda Barrie, and served Lionel Perez an ice cream, but other than that my celebrity cupboard is bare.

So you can imagine my excitement when I pulled into a petrol station last Friday and found myself standing next to the great Wayne Hatswell.

I’d like to say I indulged in some witty banter of the kind that footballers favour, but instead I stood there gawping like a starstruck teenage girl as he filled up his BMW (he clearly gets paid too much by the way) and sped off into the distance. Never mind, I’ll certainly be frequenting that particular garage again in the future, so the chances are we may meet again.

Hats and his defensive colleagues were back in top form on Saturday, as we returned to our clean sheet-keeping ways by shutting out crisis-club Rushden and Diamonds. Sadly our forwards weren’t in such good form, and we failed to find the net in a game that always threatened to produce more than it did.

Although I wouldn’t agree with the Brabinator when talks of an “excellent performance”, we certainly played some good stuff at times, even if it didn’t result in goals.

The early loss of Beesley didn’t help of course. He went for a cross with Chris Hope and came off second best, leaving him with a cut right across the forehead. The problem when Beesley isn’t playing is that there’s no one to hold the ball up and bring other players into play. Without this we were a bit one paced, with the only threat coming from the flanks, where Robbie Willmott again put in an assured performance. Felino Jardim didn’t enjoy a great game, and was particularly poor in the first half, although he did pick up in the second period.

Best chances of the first half fell to Challinor, who saw two shots from outside the area saved by Dale Roberts.

Danny Potter had a quiet first half, but was much busier in the second period, when the visitors put in a series of crosses into the six-yard box which required decisive catching and punching from the U’s number one.

Leading the line for the Diamonds was our old camera-licking chum Daryl Clare, whose love of cold hard cash led him to make the move to Irthlingborough in the summer. He missed the best opportunity of the game, spooning a shot wide from six yards with the goal gaping after being set up by the languid Andy Burgess. Honestly, you don’t get much value for £3,000 p/w (allegedly) these days.

United didn’t really test Roberts unduly, with Carden shooting straight at the keeper, and Jardim and Willmott putting in awesome crosses that didn’t get the finishing touch they were crying out for. Holroyd had the ball in the net in the last minute, but this was disallowed for offside.

As a positive person, I chose to believe that we’re close to rediscovering the form we showed at the start of the season. At the moment it’s not quite clicking, but we’re still only two points off the top and, as I said last week, if we can get all parts of the team functioning at the same time it should all be happy days.

Man of the Match: Paul Carden – Totally dominated midfield. Please never get injured again Paul.







Quote of the Match: Brabin on Beesley – “He’s got a nasty gash on his head so he’s all stitched up - he looks like young Frankenstein at the moment!” Gotta love that famous scouse humour eh?!