Saturday marked the half way stage of the 2017 / 2018 season and it's Forward who have put themselves into prime position and already have one hand heading towards holding the league trophy. On Saturday they faced Scottish Stage who sat in 2nd place but dispatched them 3-1 at Happy Valley through Cyril Latrous (2) and Jesus Collado. Stags will be ruing their missed chances however having missed two one on one chances and hitting the post. But against the league leaders you need to take those chances and the clinical finishing of Forward saw them win 9 and draw 2 out of their opening 11 games. Stags scorer Lorenzo Gattai.
DB and Club Tropicana faced off in the first of their double header as they meet again in the 2nd Round of the Cup this coming Saturday. Tropicana raced into a 2-0 lead when two horrible defensive passes were intercepted and punished through goal from Julien Dresco and Remi Depalmas. DB brought themselves level at half time through a Syd Ho brace. Into the second half and Tropics again got their noses in front when Jonny White got his head onto a near post corner but DB struck back once again when a Matt Hoare free kick dipped over the wall into the bottom corner.
An entertaining game between Goodfellas and Corinthians saw 6 goals shared in a 3-3 thriller. In a tight first half, a solo strike from Steve Franklin gave Goodfellas the advantage and it stayed that was till halftime. Player / Manager Manjeet Bar rallied his Cors side and lead by example as he got his sizable noggin onto two crosses to nudge his boys into a 2-1 lead. This woke up Goodfellas who struck back with two quick fire goals from Ed French and Louis Man. As the clock ticked down the game once again swung back to Cors who drew level via a Jamie Hitchmough strike. Goodfellas pilled on the pressure looking for the win and Corinthians had their keeper to thank for saving a point with a fantastic save at the death.
Spartans and Mes kicked off 13 minutes behind their allocated 4.30pm kick-off time with the ref oblivious to the fact it would get dark near the end. With this in mind Spartans decided to put the game to bed early and took the lead within 5 minutes when Will Cortes finished off a nice move. The Spartans keeper then helped Mes get back into the game when his clearance bounced off the Mes striker into the net – Andy Nunn being the Mes “scorer”. It was then all Spartans as Jorginho scored a trademark screamer of a volley from 25 yards over the keeper. As the light drew in during the 2nd half there were plenty of chances with Jim Lawrence scoring 2 to finish Mes off.
San P’s were 5 minutes away from securing a vital 3 points against Krauts but veteran Sascha Cohrs found the net to level the scorers at 2-2. In a game that started well for the Germans, they took the lead from Angel Suarez Garcia who hit a stunning free kick from 20m out. However, San P’s turned the game on its head with 2 fantastic team goals before half time with Tim Foster finding the net on both occasions. As Krauts pushed on in the 2nd half the San P’s defense stood firm but ultimately the pressure told. J-Leaguers stormed to a 3-0 win over an out of sorts USRC Gunners side. Off the pace from the 1st minute it was an easy victory for the Japanese with their talisman Shunsuke Nakamura opening the scoring with the other goals coming from Sho Kaseyama and Tomoo Takahashi
In Division 2, Vikings’ invincible march was finally stopped by Team Shotguns who beat the leaders 2-1 in a close match-up. Ambrose Wong was the only scorer for Team Shotgun and his brace has closed down the gap between the Vikings to 2 points but playing one game more. Jacob Ravn scored for Vikings and their manager Kasper regarded Team Shotguns as a very good team and wondered how they could lose 2 and draw 2 games in the season. The title race is still open and fierce.
Soho Spartans started the show on Saturday with a 5-0 rout of Legal Heads in the early game. Legal could evenly match Soho in the first half but after interval they ran out of steam and a brace of goals from last season Golden Boot winner Li Youngsen and one each from Robbie Lunn, Willie Wong and Richard Cowley separated the two teams.
Bants beat Revolution 2-0 on HV3 which their manager Hao described as a kids playground pitch, and his view was supported by some other managers who would like to avoid playing there. A deliciously delivered deep cross by Stefano “Greenpants” Sorrentino was well taken by Lee Hodgeson to break the deadlock. Lee put the game beyond reach with his second after picking up a low centre cross from Jonny Irving.
MBFC remained rooted to the bottom after being thrashed 0-5 by Young Guns. Simon Fan scored a hat-trick while Anka Wu and Cheng Ming To also put their name on the score sheet. MBFC manager Vincent Pang bemoaned at the silly mistakes at the back and he thought that a loss by a deficit of 2-3 goals should be a fairer result. It seems they need to work hard on sorting this out in order to rebound.
Elsewhere Blue Samurai thrashed BOC 4-0 with Sam Wooly being the hat-trick hero, and the remaining was an own goal. TWF recorded their second consecutive victory when they came from behind to beat old opponents Shooters 3-2. David MeeChan opened the score with a thunder header from a cross by Chris Gallacher for TWF. Shooters geared up the pressure and they went 2-1 ahead in first half after Matsumoto Haruhito capitalized on the moments of loss of concentration by TWF defence to break the off-side trap and score twice. After some substitutions TWF got back to the game and their top scorer Hang Ng became the savior again when he found the net twice with two headers to grab the precious 3 points.
On Monday night, KCC Royals played out a 3-3 thriller with Old Speckled Men. Dan Jacques scored two while Luca Merlone also got a goal. Cavaliers beat Shui Wei 4-1 easily with a goal each from Jason So, Ming Kong, Marcel Sossnowski and an own goal. Joan Colomer was the scorer for the consolation goal of Shui Wei.
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