At times i wonder whether he was actually at any of the games - but then again I don't think it matters because he is quite funny!!!!

After a more than credible draw against the Dorchester Reserves where stand in ‘keeper Chapman took all the plaudits as well as all the pies, it was another reserve side that posed the next opposition as Hamworthy United’s second string rolled up at the Stad on a bright spring afternoon.

Yet again, the gaffer was forced into making some changes due to absentees as Cobham looked to maintain their unbeaten run that has been carrying on for more games than Mawesy can remember/count. Firstly, Chapman got evicted from between the sticks as Higgy the Hippie returned. He reverted back to his favoured position of centre back along side Matty the Shank and Rob Cotton. This then pushed Tucks into the middle of the park to fill the whole left by Scott who was on a stag weekend. The rest of the team remained from the side that took to the pitch at the Avenue, Mez and Jude in the middle, Gunnsey and Vucks on the wings with Temps and Chris ‘How many games haven’t we lost for?’ Mawer the marksmen. G, for the umpteenth time put himself on the bench with the fresh into puberty pairing of Asbo and Perry.

Cobham started without much of the passion, desire or aggression that G had previously had the team playing with. They seemed void of anything that vaguely resembled a will to win; as a result the Hammers took advantage like CJ with a schoolgirl at a house party. Cobham failed to properly clear their lines and the ball fell to a Hammer’s striker who darted into the box past the flat-footed Allen and shaped to shoot. Somehow Allen got back to make a tackle but the striker was too fleet of foot for the Cobham sweeper and promptly went down under the clumsy tackle Matt put in that was later than he arrives at the match every week. PENALTY!!! With only 3 minutes on the clock.

Up stepped one of the BTC’s from the Hammers ranks, JJ. He confidently stepped up and drilled the ball into the top left-hand corner of the goal leaving the longhaired lover from the Stad with no chance. 1-0.

This acted as a catalyst for the home side who then remembered how to play football. With Mez inspirational, desperate to impress or have an impact against his former club. JJ acting up to his BTC status and cheating, left Gunny with all the time in the world to exploit the space in behind and work his legendary magic, an invitation he graciously accepted.

It was down the right that the next talking point arose. The ball was knocked into Tempany who had drifted to the right hand side. As he controlled the ball his marker hit him with great force from behind and he crumpled to the floor clutching his already strapped right knee. As the physio ran on, he reluctantly signalled to the bench that he wouldn’t be able to continue. G, took this as a sign from God to take to the field and did so. As a result, Cobham became the first team in DPL history to have famous television stars working alongside each other upfront, yes, tonight Matthew, Mawsey and G were – the Mitchell brothers!! Lets hope they can torment and bully the Hamworthy back line like they used to Walford. Surely it couldn’t be long until Cobham were back into the game . . . .

The match was well balanced, until that is JJ decided to take the game by the scruff of the neck and increase Hamworthy’s lead. He dropped short into unchatered territory, and at the risk of a nose bleed, picked up the ball on the edge of his own box and set off for goal. But the BTC hadn’t reckoned on one thing, Mawer. He saw that JJ, although skilful, was built in such a way he looked as though he could blow away in the next wind and seized his chance. He easily brushed the midfielder off the ball and laid it back to the onrushing Law who, 20 yards out, took a touch and drilled in low into the bottom corner past the despairing dive of ‘Hamworthy’s number 1’. 1-1. Cobham were back in it and still the best part of an hour to go.

The referee was the bain of both sides for most of the match for never using/listening to his assistants and insisting on stopping play for every petty little thing he thought he saw, yet failing to see the most obvious and cynical of tackles. He was in the spotlight no more so than when Mawer entered the box. He ran at pace at the full back and was clipped as he turned to go at goal and Cobham’s leading scorer went sprawling. The linesman was flagging furiously for the penalty and the referee blew his whistle sharply, everyone in the Cobham ranks was celebrating and the Hamworthy lot were distraught. Yet, bizarrely, the referee gave a free kick to the side from the County Ground for offside of all things, no penalty. Scandalous. That was it as far as action went for the first half. The only other moments of note were a few sliced clearances from the Cobham sweeper, a few poor and over hit freekicks from the same player. Finally a ‘taxi’ moment for the Hamworthy ‘keeper as he let an innocuous back pass creep under his foot and to his relief out for a corner, not into the back of the net. HT 1-1
The second half started in much the same fashion. The ding dong battle’s were continuing. With Vucks and his ‘bitch’ on the Cobham left, as well as the carthorses Merrell and Dick in the middle of the park. They were the main attraction, unless you’d come to see Allen’s comical display of his ‘range’ of passing (the range consisted of either out of play or to a member of the oppostiton). Tackles were flying in and the referee was missing them yet if someone looked in a way at a member of the opposition that displeased him, the referee gave a free kick. The frustration built and built yet surprisingly didn’t explode. Merrell went close with a bullet header that Hutch did well to hold, yet now claims he could’ve ‘span it on his finger’. Whilst at the other end, Cotton was his usual dominating self and Chapman coped well with everything that was thrown his way.*

Then disaster struck, Matty the Shank saw JJ in the first half and wanted to show him how it was done so tried to over play on the edge of his own box. Except Allen didn’t learn from the first half, and was dispossessed by Baguley who ran into the box to finish past the Cobham goalie. 2-1.

Now things started to boil over which included a booking for the Cobham skipper after expressing his displeasure to the over zealous linesman. Although the truth hurts, the linesman took it personally and for the first time all match, the ref listened to his assistant and produced a yellow. A yellow card was soon to follow for ‘rocket’ Ronnie on the sideline after telling the same adolescent linesman that he was his father and he was going to turn out like him in a few years.

Cobham were getting desperate and were pushing for an equaliser but time was against them. Merrell had promoted himself to the attacking midfielder role and even Tucks, still sporting his Dennis Pennis ‘Strawberry Blonde’ haircut was getting forward to unleash a few daisy cutters at the Hamworthy goal. Unfortunately all this adventure in their play was to be Cobham’s ultimate downfall as Hamworthy then hit the home side on the break and doubled their advantage. In the end the Hammers just had a bit too much for Cobham and held on until the final whistle went to signify the end of the worst refereeing display in history.

On the plus side, Mawsey now knows how many games Cobham are unbeaten. Zero Chris, I think even you can count that high!

* This included a pasty from the sideline that he managed to consume in one.

Team: Tramp, Cotton, Pieman, Shank, Gunny, Tim Cobham, Merrell, Alfie, Pennis, Tempany (P.Mitchell 10), G.Mitchell

Unused Subs: Chav 1, Chav 2.

CJ is fast becoming Public enemy No. 1 - but hey one day he has to start playing again and we can all laugh at him!!!!!!

With the one man Mawer demolition of Swanage slowly disappearing into DPL folklore, the daunting task of a trip to he Avenue was next for G-Unit and his rejuvinated Cobham side to tackle the might of Dorchester Town Reserves.
As per usual, there were more than a few changes to the starting XI. The 'biggest' one was perhaps that of Chapman in goal due to an absent Higgy. There were a few theories as to why Chapman was picked to go between the sticks, one was that G picked him as his frame would fill a large percentage of the goal mouth and therefore restricting the area the Dorch attackers had to aim at. The second was that everyone drew straws but Sam was too slow to get a chance to pick a straw so was left with the default short straw, a 3rd was that G couldn't bring himself to dropping his number one 'managerial decision making supporter' from the side completly and so accomodated him. Finally and most ludicrously, that Sam is a proven goalie at this level and is more than capable of holding his own if not any crosses!
Dan Payne missed the trip to Dorchester as he joins CJ on the knee injury list, and with Goodbodys suspension finally starting, Nick Tempany made a rare start alongside 18 goal Mawer. The was also a recall for club captain Merrell as he managed to get off his piles ring long enough to run around. Vukcevic also returned at left wing back with Alfie moving into the centre. The defence was back to full strength with the now Ginger Tucker and Cotton accompanying Allen the sweeper. On the bench was Robbie Cooke and G in a vain attempt to re-kindle his playing days, but with Mozza on the bench for Dorchester there was still hope for him.
The match startd as expected with the youthful Dorchester side applying the pressure and there was a few early touches for the stand-in keeper who flapped at more than one or two crosses but his frame and sheer blind luck saved his blushes. But most of the threat was nullified by the rock solid midfield, the athletic wing back, the awesome defence and Gunny. Then, as in recent weeks, Cob startd to express themselves, and also as in recent weeks, most of the joy came from the intricate passing in the midfield and the hard work, tireless running and trickery of Gunn down the right. It was from the midfield play that the first chance emerged after 20 minutes. A poor cross was made difficult by Chapman who eventually got the ball under control and rolled it out to Allen. He took his time and picked a pass into the midfield and it was first time knocked out wide to the asylam seeker Vukcevic, he in turn played a long ball down the line for Tempany to give chase. He pressured the defender into a mistake and robbed him of the ball. He slipped it into Mawer on the edge of the box with only one defender to beat and the youngster showed great awareness to spot the hairy, pot-bellied dwarved Gunn to his right and slipped it straight into the veterans path who took one touch and then let fly. With the keeper only able to watch, the ball whizzed past him and struck the bar. Dorchester knew they were in for a match.
Cobham were dominating and were forcing Dorchester to play like the away side - on the counter attack. Critchell was being his usual whiney self in midfield and faced against 2 more athletic, younger opposites, only the knowledge he still had the legs on Mezza could've given him respite, but regardless, he was not having a good day. Until that is, the 35th minute. The ball had dropped to a striker in the box and forced Chapman into action who despite being nutmegged luckily his cellulite ion the way and deflected the ball out for a corner. The corner was floated in and it dropped to the moaning git Critchell who made no mistake and gave Chapman no chance of claiming a clean sheet bonus as the ball was volleyed ino the top corner - 1-0 and to say it was against the run of play was almost as big a understatemet as saying Mezza lacks a few yards of pace. Cobham tried to hit back straight away but Mawers efforts lacked the desired power to test the lanky streak of piss in the Dorchester goal.
Half Time - 1-0
The second half kicked off and Cobham were still in the changing room as poor marking and now uncharachteristic bad defending gifted the home side a few early half chances that Chapman dealt with well with a series of saves. Also, having learnt from the first half,(bad geek joke coming up . . . ) Chapman was less and less like Dracula as he punched crosses instead of attempting to catch them.

Sure enough, as the half wore on Cobham came back into it and applied some pressure of thier own. Then at last, an equalizer. With slow and methodical build up play (with Mez about, is there any other type) The ball was played out to the left wing to Scott who tried to play a 1-2 with his captain but Merrells co-ordination let him down and instead the ball ricocheted off of his shin pad and flew into the bottom right corner. 1-1 The team, the stand and the bench went wild. Cobham were back on level terms and there was plenty of time left to grab a winner.

Not wanting to let the high flyers settle, Cobham went for the win in a venue where theyve not endured the greatest success in recent times with the last trip ending in a 7-1 hammering after going 1 up. Incidentally, Merrell scored that day as well. Cobham pressed and pressed and could've had a second had Mawer and Law let others join in their game instead of passing it between themselves for about 5 minutes. Had one of them looked up they would surely seen the inspirational couple of Merrell and Gunn screaming for the switch ball as it would've created a 2 man overlap and although either would've probably missed, they may have been able to create something for someone else to score. This is how the game remained, it looked destined for a draw. there was however, one last opportunity for Cobham . . . .

Being caught in possession on the halfway line is never good but it's what the Dorchester defender did. The ball was then threaded through to Law who breached the Dorch back line and raced toward goal. He was one on one with thier keeper, last minute, could it be a fairy tale ending???

No is the simple answer, the shot from Law, 10 yards out left his left boot and started to rise, it just kept going, up and up - like the great glass elevator, nobody knew when, if ever it would come down, it was the worst attempt at scoring since Richie Penn in Jersey.

Final whistle then blew - probably a fair result considering Cobham had an immobile and immovable object in goal.

1-1