Thursday 15th March 2012 ko 7.45pm

Peterborough & District League Premier Division

RAMSEY TOWN 3 (Mitchell 4 Edwards 41 Ives 51)

PARSON DROVE 1 (J McManus 87) Patrick sent off (2nd booking) 37

Att 68 (h/c)

Entry FREE

No programme

Tea-in-a-mug £1

Whilst this game was in the same division as Tuesday’s at Netherton, it really couldn’t of been more different. Mind you a home official was heard to comment that the League had phoned him to ask whether Ramsey would play in Netherton’s caged 3G pitch. He laughed as he commented that they’d already played Netherton home and away.

Many of the differences are due to location. Ramsey is in the Cambridgeshire fenlands and you are so obviously in the Eastern Counties, even though the football club dropped out of the United Counties League during the 1996/7 season. The overiding impression is of a small agrarian town, albeit one whose parish church used to have St Thomas à Becket as its priest.

The ground is still well up to lower division UCL standards with its elongated “Bus Shelter stand, and hard standing on two sides, and most importantly floodlights! The bugbear for promotion, I suspect is the fact that the ground is shared with cricket, compressing the season-time.

If Henry II said of Thomas à Beckett, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” referee Nick Breen must have thought the same of Parson Drove’s forward James Patrick. With his team 2nd from bottom of the divsion, and having just the one substitute, you would have thought simply completing 90 minutes would be a priority. Not a bit of it, as during his 37 minute stint he could have easily been dismissed twice before the red card was finally shown. After 6 minutes his “Tackle” on his marker was lucky to earn a mere booking. His colleague up-front Scott McManus got in on the act too, his booking for a foul-mouthed rant directed at Breen. Patrick then decided to perfect his two footed lunge technique by repeating his previous assault. That earned a final warning, but still the thuggery continued until he contrived to stamp on his opponent’s er “gentleman’s vegetables.” That earned only a second booking, but as he departed, he was heard to comment “I wasn’t me fault, he fell under my boot!!”

By this stage Ramsey were a goal up and cruising and when Edwards fired home after a free kick was swung on from the left, the game was over as a contest. I counted the crowd, and waited to see what would happen next.

The second half saw Ramsey dragged down to their visitors’ level, collecting 2 bookings for dissent from referee Breen whose patience was Beckett-like. Justin Ives smashed home for the third, before the visitors gained a consolation with something completely out-of-place with what had gone before. An erudite diagonal ball found James McManus out wide right, His cushioned chip expertly beat Lloyd Turner-Potter. I wondered why they hadn’t tried to do that in the first place!