St Ives has never been a happy hunting ground for Threemilestone, we've always struggled with the rugby pitch surface and the gale force winds, add to this the late withdrawal of first choice goalkeeper Kevin Pellow and you know you're gonna have a hard day at the office.

We were quite surprised therefore to take to the field to find the surface cut and rolled to putting green standard and nothing more than a gentle offshore breeze teasing the corner flags. Having opened my big mouth to question caretaker manager Ian Jays replacement goalkeeping choice, I found myself between the posts in an otherwise unchanged side.

TMS started brightly and setup several half chances in the opening ten minutes pinning the homeside back in their own half. Mark Taylor, Dan Taylor and Steve Howson all went close to opening the scoring but it was St Ives who eventually broke the deadlock when the defence failed to cope with a soft free kick and a shot from the edge of the area took a deflection to loop up and over the motionless keeper (Me!) Both sides then continued to create good chances, but with the St Ives leftback almost single handedly repelling everything and the visitors defence of Stephens, Jay and Spargo standing firm, half time was reached without any further score or real incident. (Except of course when I inadvertently knobbled 'Gaffer' Jay as I came and collected in the area, that's the fast track back to the subs bench! sorry mate hope your shin mends soon.)

Whether it was the scoreline or the fact that his leg was now hanging off, the half-time team talk from Jay was somewhat blue and the Stones started the second half knowing the already slim chance of the league title was getting slimmer by the minute. St Ives continued to create chances but the TMS defence restricted them to long range efforts and they were never likely to beat even me from that range! The Stones midfield were beginning to have more of an influence in the game and the visitors equalised mid way through the half when Chris Bailey headed in from close range from an Anthony Caddy corner. The game now turned and with TMS in the ascendancy it was pretty much one way traffic, so it was no surprise when Mark Taylor volleyed in the winner with fifteen minutes to go. St Ives then made some changes and threw everything forward to level things. I caused a few raised eyebrows when in a moment of madness I raced out to the edge of the box and took the ball with a sliding tackle only to see the ball spin back to the winger who stepped sideways and crossed into the box, but with the rest of the TMS side now standing on our goal line the ball was cleared and I avoided a good 'kickin' back in the changing room!! The referee blew the whistle and we celebrated a superb second half comeback and returned home with all three points. Oh and I got Man-of-the-Match which was nice...

Jeremy Hocking, Web Manager