Match report by Allan Frydman

It was a dark and stormy evening, the rain was falling and…….uh oh, wrong story, time to start again.

It was a bright and sunny afternoon, the time was 3:01pm, the pitch was the best we had seen all year, the referee wore yellow and opposition was lined up and raring to go. Unfortunately there was barely a Balmain Rover in sight, something about a last minute pee break, but in reality a subtle plot to try and give the manager a sudden heart attack in order to obtain more game time.

Once the Rover’s had been rounded up, there was the customary pre-match ceremony, the shaking of the hands, the national anthems (in our dreams at least) and the desire to whip some serious football rear end. Unfortunately the first ten minutes did not quite work out they way. It appeared that we were still waiting for the national anthems to start playing well after the game had started. Concord just seemed to cut straight through us and create some serious goal scoring opportunities. Luckily for the Rovers we had Amir in goal, knowing full well that he needed to perform well today in order to lift the spirits of his much loved Iranian team in the world cup. Amir had the eyes of a tiger, the reflexes of a cheetah and the determination of a Beaconsfield gold miner stuck 900m under ground. No matter how hard Concord tried they just couldn’t get the ball past Amir regardless of how much space they had.

Once Amir asked the question about the rest of us, Baz gave his Tarzan call for the troops to get our act together the result of the game was never in doubt. We lifted in all areas of play and soon were controlling the game in the manner we have become accustomed to over the last few weeks. Baz and Paul started controlling the centre of the park, Ere and Dave gave the opposition nightmares with their blistering runs up the wings (although there is a few more left foot crosses lined up for Dave at training) and Ismet and Serdar created constant pressure up front. Although we had our chances the score was still 0-0 when controversy struck.

The much loved Balmain Rovers match ball of 2005/06 had been tampered with. After being kicked out of bounds it appeared back on the field desperately in need of some air. Concord immediately rejected it and demanded us to supply a replacement (even though they were the home team). A quick search through the Balmain bag and the Balmain branded ball was out on the park. Concord could not deal with this and substituted the loved Balmain ball with their own excuse for a match ball.

It all played perfectly into our hands, the next goal kick from Concord went straight to Serdar about 35m out from goal. Serdar wayed up his options (run, pass or shoot) chose the right option and the ball ended up in the back of the net. 1-0 Rovers. Which is where the score remained at half time.

Balmain started the second half where we finished the first – strongly. We had constant pressure on the Concord goals. Shots where coming in from all directions and eventually Serdar broke through for the second goal. 2-0 Rovers and thigns were looking good. We kept the pressure on and controlled the majority of the half. With about 15 minutes to go, Concord started to remember that they were here to play football and started putting the pressure back on us. This is where the Rovers winning spirit held true. Paul, Baz and Ere were all over the park putting their all into stopping the rejuvenated Concord attack. As the final whistle blew, Balmain had a 2-0 win and Concord were complaining about anything and everything they could.

Another strong team performance getting the result it deserved.

Full time score Rovers 2 - Concord B 0

Goals: Serdar (2)
Pele Points: 2 - Serdar (two goals, two points), Paul (everywhere on the day, must be able to stop time to cover that much ground), 1 - Amir (the super saves – what else needs to be said), Ere (It was the final effort that impressed most)