A demonstration on how fragile confidence can be, was demonstrated by St Johns this Saturday.

Reverting back to the trusty 4-5-1 St Johns kicked off going up the famous Argyle Rd slope with the bit between their teeth, a string of bad results leading up to this game seemed a distant memory and St Johns raced into a 2-0 lead before 30 minutes had passed by, making a mockery of the league table and going some way to exercising the ghost of the previous 3-0 defeat at the hands of this workmanlike team form Tufnell Park.

Paul Huggins was first to notch, with a typical, don’t care how it crosses the line finish they all count! Then Mark ‘Platini (students ask yer dad!)’ Blackburn curled a 25 yard beauty into the top right corner which the goalkeeper admired all the way!

St Johns at this point where cruising, the sun was shining and all seemed well in the camp. Then an innocuous free kick was awarded around 35 yards out, the flight of the ball through the wind changed and instead of Dave Michael connecting with his forehead it bounced of his shoulder looped across the six yard box, Scott Barton’s punch hit the back of the head of a Wilberforce player and fell kindly to a forward on the six yard line who couldn’t miss.

St John’s limped to the half, but you could see that the confidence was beginning to drain from players. Where as prior to this, everyone wanted the ball and played their passes with conviction, it soon became the hot potato nobody wanted, with poor passes and even worse ball control!

As things are when the luck is against you, the second half saw both the elements and the German referee conspire to keep St Johns in this dismal run. Firstly after playing into the wind for the first half, the wind decided to change direction! Then the referee decided that anything resembling a tackle by the St Johns midfield should be punished, considering that a main part of the game of Blackburn, Werbinski and Orton is to get amongst it, the free kicks came thick and fast!

Wilberforce firstly levelled with a well struck free kick, and then went into the lead with a carbon copy of the first half goalmouth scramble.

The Special One, who missed the Wilberforce goals whilst taking a dump, decided that Orton was playing shit and needed replacing, by yet another untested new signing! And with minutes to go gave Mikey Holmes another few seconds to impress at the expense of a bewildered John Werbinski, who in his own inflated viewpoint was playing quite well and was one of the few players who at least looked comfortable receiving and passing the ball!

Wilberforce still had time to further rub salt into the wounds and snatched a 4th, but still left St Johns elders thinking ‘how the f**k are they top of the league’

Back in the changing rooms the finger pointed had started and St John’s downfall was laid at the door of both Blackburn and Orton who had the audacity to try and win tackles but conceded free-kicks that lead directly to goals. The fact being that 2 of the free kicks were at least 40 yards out had seemed to slip the mind of the finger pointers!

In a nutshell, St John’s need to start loving the ball again and be comfortable in both their own ability and the ability of their team-mates. St John’s must not resort to hoofing it as they are better than that as the first 30 minutes of this game showed!

Match report by John Werbinski