Date: Saturday 16th January 2016
Venue: Barn Elms
Starting Line-up: Gaz Stewart, Rufus Shedwick, Jonny Patterson, Pete Woodhead, Marcus Torr, Chris Pyke, Elliot Connolly, Ben McGeown, Oli Perkins, Martin Ansell, Harry Tulip
Subs: Brad Wilkie, Tom Simmons
Cubo returned to winning ways with an important victory over local rivals Tooting Bec thanks to two goals from skipper Oli Perkins.
The boggy surface at Barn Elms made it difficult for both sides to play much football with players struggling to keep their footing at times. Tooting had the first chance of the game when a defensive error put the TBFC winger through on goal but Gaz was quickly off his line to shut down the angle and block to safety.
Cubo took the lead when a peach of a cross from Rufus found an unmarked Perkins in the box and he nodded past the Bec keeper to make it 1-0 Cubo.
The home side looked to press their advantage home with an attacking move reminiscent of Gus Poyet’s belting volley for Chelsea against Sunderland on the opening day of the season many years ago, the only difference here being that the Bec keeper pulled off a fantastic reaction save from Perkins’ volley.
With half time approaching Cubo looked comfortable but some sloppy defending in their own box gave Tooting a late corner and the resultant set-piece was converted at the back post with a towering header by the Bec centre-half.
As is ever the case with fixtures between these two sides the game was finely poised at half time and on a difficult pitch it looked like mistakes would decide this fixture. With the pitch deteriorating it was Tooting who took the second half initiative and only further good keeping from Gaz prevented them taking the lead.
However, against the run of play the home side took the lead again. Pressure on the Tooting defence from Shedders, for some reason finding himself the highest Cubo player up the pitch, gifted the ball to Harry Tulip who drew the defender before weighting a pass to Oli Perkins who clinically fired home at the near post to make it 2-1 Cubo.
With time running out Bec were reduced to pumping the ball long but Woodhead and Torr were dominating the aerial exchanges and Cubo were able to celebrate a very valuable 3 points.
Goals: Oli Perkins x2
Man of the match: Oli Perkins / Chris Pyke – a joint award this week with Oli rightly taking the plaudits for his two goals and all round performance. Pykey on the other hand was a rock in the midfield, and his tenacity in the tackle was key to Cubo dominating this area of the pitch.
AFC Cubo 