We had another strong turn out for the game against Watford which was  pleasing as we knew this would be a tough game. Watford had won a number of  games on the trot and as usual it was a must win game for ASB to keep us alive in the league.

Inga and Keir announced the starting line up as follows:

GK: Naz
RB: Tim
CB Orv
CB: Hef
LB: Tina
RM: Nick
CM: Riz
CM: Donny
LM: JJ
CF: Gavin
CF: Jools

The game kicked off and ASB looked as though we were here to play. Our passing was crisp always finding a player and Watford found it hard to gain possession. Watford had a couple of raids on the ASB defence but we handled it quite easily.

It only took 7 minutes for ASB to get off the mark. Gavin played the ball across the box to find Donny on the left hand side. Donny calmly slotted the ball in the top left hand corner to open the account.

ASB were quite unlucky not to score a couple more over the next half hour of play. We were often turning defence into attack playing the ball from the back through to the centre midfield partnership of Riz and Donny, who in turn were spreading the ball to the wide men, JJ and Nick. Both were running riot against the Watford defence.

The second goal finally came after ASB had applied alot of pressure to the Watford defence. A free kick was won on the left hand side and Nick stepped up to the plate to deliver a fine cross. Gavin, with a 7 foot monster defending him somehow got his head to the ball first and guided the ball into the back of the net.

Juzza blew the whistle for half time, ASB feeling a bit unlucky going into the break only two nil up.

Inga and Keir replaced Hef with Gary at the back and put Sharkey on for Jools and Immy on for Gavin.

The start of the second half was a bit  tighter with Watford trying to attack more to get themselves back into the game. As usual, Tina and Orv made some crunching tackles to stop Watford from reducing the deficit.

On 63 minutes, Immy put through a sublime ball to to split the Watford defence. Sharkey pounced on the ball and placed the ball past the keeper to make it 3 - 0.

ASB took their foot off the gas a bit and paid the penalty for a lack of concentration and complacency. To Watford's credit the kept working hard and got a goal to claw it back to 3 -1.

Slouch came on for JJ and Riz was replaced by Crouchy and both immediatley made an impact. Crouchy played a superb ball through to Slouch who put in a cross putting in a cross from the left hand side. The cross was then deflected off a Watford defender into the goal. This made it 4 -1.

Once again a lack of concentration brought a second goal for Watford and meant that Watford were still in the game. But to the credit of ASB, we regained our composure and Sharkey played a ball through to Immy who slotted it past the keeper into the bottom right hand corner.

Then came the goal of the game. Sharkey  from 25 yards drilled an unstoppable shot past the Watford keeper to make it 5 -2 and put the game out of reach of the Watford side. Two goals wasn't enough for Sharkey as he then latched onto a Slouch pass to complete his hatrick all within 43 minutes of being on the field. He was then immediatley substituted with his day at the office complete.

Overall it was a very good display despite a couple of lapses in concentration. We broke down a Watford team who had crammed their defensive line and we still managed to put 7 past them.