Due to the dissemination of fake news, Mariano was wrongly informed he'd been voted lemon and so wrote this wonderful match report, saving me a job! Cheers pal. Puds x

The match report from this weekend needs to be traced back in time, recounting some of the highlights of Mazz's journal over the last couple of weeks.

• Oct 29th, a solid win on the pitch and a solid performance on the dance floor. Maybe Nik gave me too many drinks to keep hydrated. Just thinking out loud.
• Oct 30th, I could barely move. My back decided to take a break and remind me I was not a young lad anymore.
• Nov 2nd, after a couple of days, my back was feeling better, so I went for training. No issues. Ready for the weekend.
• Nov 5th, we went to play against a club I won't mention, as I am sure that pitch is cursed. The weather was horrible, as usual, in that place I won't mention, and I managed to play for 15 minutes. My back said no again, this time without saving me the embarrassment of conceding three goals in less than 15 minutes.
• Nov 7th, my skipper recommended me to go to the physio, and skipper advice is a command, so I did a session, some stretching, and some exercises hoping to be able to play at the weekend. No training this week. Better to rest.
• Nov 12th, my back was pretty stubborn and decided that a game was not a good idea. So I changed Long Road Fortress to Abbey Fortress. Bad idea, as the game against Bolton Wanderers was a boring 0-0, very different from the performance the lads put up against Kettering, conceding in the last minutes to share points with a solid team in our league.
• Nov 16th, no training again, but much better with some exercises. I was hoping to be back on the weekend.
• Nov 19th, we headed north on an unforgettable trip in Aston's car, dusting off the CDs for what I may call a blast of 2000s music! The mood was high, some pretty decent dances were shown, and then we went to the pitch to get three fantastic points from an always complicated Peterborough's 4s. Well done the lads!
• Nov 20th, the World Cup started.
• Nov 22nd, Argentina Lost against Arabia. Oh no.
• Nov 23^rd, 2 pm, the school office called to tell me that my daughter was a little down. I picked her up, and she slept from 5 pm to the next day — coughs, fever, and usual school things. In the evening, I returned to training. There were no issues besides using the tiniest bibs in the history of tiny bibs. Sexy scenes in the rain!
• Nov 24th, my daughter is still sick. Fever and coughs. No school for a couple of days.
• Nov 25th, I woke up with an itchy throat… this is not looking good. On my way to my office, I planned to drop some clothes to the charity. The bag got tangled in the front wheel of my bike, and I decided to fly over my bike, hurt my right leg, left elbow, and both hands and broke the bike's front wheel and front brakes. Some blood was spilt… what a start to the day. By night, the itchy throat slowly became a fully developed sore throat. I barely slept that night.
• Nov 26th, I decided to back off from coaching juniors and umpire the L1s game (thanks, Nev!). I wanted to play my game. We were short in defenders for our game, with only four on the team list. I tried to sleep a bit more in the morning, but the dice were already rolling: all in. Go, play the game, go back to bed, and pray to recover soon… yes… sure.

The team was ready to warm up. We went for the usual run, and I almost ran into a 2-year-old kid. I tripped over, went to the ground, rolled quickly and stood up in front of my whole team, trying to show them my cirque du Soleil skills. Some blood was spilt, this time from my hand. I was absolutely sure this would be in most of the white papers for LOM votes... In fact, I am writing this match report assuming I got the lemon of the match, as I haven't heard anything from my skipper… yet.

The game was a fantastic performance for the whole team; we played against a very well-structured team sitting comfortably in the 3^rd place. We dominated the game from beginning to finish; we scored two great goals. We found another striker. We kept a clean sheet. And we sent the opposition back to Ely with empty pockets. Top work lads and I hope this diary has no more entries to share… at least for a good couple of weeks!