Garnett B came into their final league game of the season knowing that despite leading the league all year they now had to win the final game of the season against Newcastle City A in order to finally win the second division and break the curse of Fordy (who happened to be eating a few kebabs on the touchline cheering on his team throughout the ninety minutes)

Garnett were happy to welcome back two of their more experienced defenders in Powers and Robins back into the squad but lack of recent first team football had led to them looking less than fit.

Despite a fighting and inspiring team talk from Giles and Pollard stating that this could be the only chance for many of lifting a league title it was in fact Newcastle City who started the brightest. With Garnett defending against the descending sun several through balls by the Newcastle City team were luckily cut out by the blinded Robins.

Early in the game Lewis over stretched for a ball and pulled a hamstring meaning that the experienced Powers entered the battle, giving some extra pace and aggression to the team.

Disaster struck shortly after when Robins reacted slowly to a back pass from Pollard  and Vollyed the Newcastle City forward clear rather than the ball. From the resulting Free kick the quick thinking Newcastle City forward took an Henry-esk free kick and caught Shaw off guard as he was lining his wall up.

At this point Garnett heads could have dropped due to losing the previous fixture against their opponents 3-0 the previous week, but a rallying call by Pollard was soon met, when his well weighted through ball found Sherwood who finished with an audacious chip over the keeper to make the scores 1-1 at half time.

At half time Manager Jones brought the goal machine Envy into the attack, which gave Garnett more options up front, and enabled Sherwood to play his favoured roll of playing off the front man.

The second half was a tight affair with Newcastle City arguably creating the most dangerous chances, their forward smashed a ball over the bar from close range after a mistake from Powers and again got the wrong side of Robins to put the ball over the bar when through one on one with Shaw. Despite this pressure the solid defence of Robins, Powers, Cook and Church held strong and hard working performances by Walworth and Kieran added to the defensive strength. 

From this point Newcastle City a seemed happy to sit back on a draw, which would see them crowned league champions. However five minutes from time a mistake from an opposition defender, led to Sherwood being released down the right hand flank, he then had the vision to look up and pick out Envy who smashed the ball through the keeper from five yards out to lead to mass celebrations around the pitch (notably Envy kicking the corner flag and it coming back to hit him in the bollocks, and Fordy charging down the touchline and slipping over on his ass without anyone seeing!)

After this the experience of Garnett stayed strong and the winning spirit showed through. A final scare when Pollard sliced a clearance (well placed according to him!) past Shaw’s near post was the closest they came to scoring.

Dave Robson blew the final whistle and Garnett B were the Corinthians Division 2 champions for the first time in their history and the celebrations at the final whistle by everyone showed what they thought! Garnett B will now be joining the A team in the first division in the following season for the first time.

This again shows the great strides that Garnett have made in recent years as when I first began playing for the club in 1998 the 1st team began their life with a championship winning season in the Corinthians division 2. 

Author: A.Robins

Team: E.Shaw, S.Cook, P.Church, A.Robins (MOM), L.Brooke (A.Powers), C.Wademan, Keiran, M.Pollard, A.Walworth, D.Sherwood 1, G.Dawny (M.Envy 1)

NB: The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the
views of the Gosforth Garnett Bohemian Football Club as a whole.