Waters leaves Neasden doubled up

Los Blancos finished the game like a soggy bowl of coco pops. White shirts covered in chocolate milk but with a well deserved three points on their spoon.

Blancos went behind to a lovely turn and precise finish from Oli Joseph early on, but after the goal a trip to the Blancos half of the pitch was a rare outing for the Neasden boys.

Chance after chance followed for the whites, the closest of which saw an Annis howitzer of a free kick crash off the bar.

The second half was no different. Neasden had two decent chances - both 1-on1's with the ever youthful Cohen in the Blancos goal - produced stunning saves (the type of savings George Osborne dreams about). With Joseph through on goal he sent a powerful shot towards the right hand corner, Cohen, at full stretch managed to get a strong hand to it and turn it over the bar in a clear contender for save of the week.

Blancos kept pushing, and after Len Bloom in the Neasden goal produced an excellent point-blank save from a Hersh header (another contender for save of the week!) and some other decent saves.

Blancos were finally rewarded when an attack down left had Ben Annis feed Waters whose cross was turned in by who else other than Adam Hersh.

In crazy scenes, straight from kick-off Blancos were correctly awarded a penalty when Hersh was bundled over in the area. Waters, showing an ice-cool temperament, stepped up and smashed the penalty down the middle in a dramatic last kick of the game.

Two goals in the last minute was some justice for a deserved Blancos victory.

A jubiliant Adam Hersh told JC Sport: "Doing the double over Neasden just shows how far LB have come. They were always our bogus team and this season we have dominated them over 180 minutes. When back in January, we will be going all out for promotion and who knows even the title."

NWN player-manager Adam Levene told JC Sport: "Having played Maccabi football for many years, this was the worst refereeing display I have ever seen. The referee disallowed a Neasden goal to make it 2-0 on the advice of a Blancos linesman when the player was three yards onside and actually ran past a Blancos defender, as witnessed by people who watched the game. He also gave a penalty with the last tackle of the game for an overly physical tackle, even though the Neasden player stayed on his feet and got the ball before he then made contact with the man. I thought we were playing a contact sport but the ref obviously thought we were playing netball!

"Los Blancos definitely deserved something out of the game but it was a shame the referee seemed intent on trying to put his stamp on the game and meant after all the hard work from my tram we got nothing. We'll pick ourselves up and go again in the new year."

DC Prediction: Blancos 2 Neasden B 2