THE CLASH OF THE TITANS ENDS IN A 3-3 THRILLER

Yes! The big game of the day between Maple Cross and Philippine United ended up 3-3 in the battle of the two best teams in the West Herdfordshire League.

That my dear PUFC fans means that we are still unbeaten and the only unbeaten team in the division. Maple Cross have only lost one game before today’s encounter and guess who that was to, Yes! Yours truly, Philippine United 3-2.

PUFC started a little disoriented because a few of our players came late through different circumstances and we didn’t have time for a team talk. They literally had to start the game without any warm-ups and stretches. One would think that we would have started badly due to the mishaps, but we didn’t. We started like a house on fire and ripped their defence wide open early on in the first half.

Pressure paid off in the end when a clever pass from Ray Tordicella gave Jason “the beast” Arroyo the opening for the first goal, just tucking it inside the near post.

It remained 0-1 at half time and after the break, Maple Cross started with their own brand of pressure. They soon equalized and then shortly after, took the lead and with PUFC having a few injured players on the park, heads started to drop and then the opposition went even further ahead making it 3-1. Something that PUFC have not encountered before being behind two goals down in a game. I must say in all honesty, I thought our guys were dead and buried but they stuck to their task and once again, Jason Arroyo slipped through three defenders and tucked his shot low and hard outside their keeper’s reach.

Now it was game on! And PUFC went for the equalizer with great endeavour and with constant attack after attack, they got their just rewards with another great cross from Ray Tordicella to the far post where king poacher, Anielo Mone, was there to head in a great equalizer making it 3-3. PUFC could have snapped the winner a couple of times later but 3-3 was probably a fair result in the end. It was a thriller end to end and the only black spot in the game was the poor quality of the mail official.

Good performances came from new boy, Chris Tordicella and brother, Ray with Jeffrey Burgin battled it out for the man of the match. I would also like to give a special mention to our ever present full back Brian Buazon who has been playing injured for us for over a month and today, because all of our subs were used, we couldn’t bring him off and even though he was playing with a very painful foot, he did tremendously well for the team and is a real credit to his team mates and Philippine United.

Well, stay in touch for my next instalment which will be next week and it will be the last game of 2009, so let’s all hope we can stay unbeaten until then.

Take care all you PUFC fans and keep the faith.

Yours in football,
Norm Parkin