As they head towards the end of their debut season, will our hardy bunch of five-a-siders find some form? Here’s their latest report from pitchside…

“Going into this week’s match, Howard’s Juicebox lay in the unenviable position of tenth, and considering that our league only has ten teams in it, things could not be much worse. I guess we should be grateful that we lack the multi-million pound debt that seems to be stifling a few other clubs around the country, but still bottom of the table is pretty bad.

All things considered, the only direction we could move was up. With four games left there did actually remain a chance, albeit a small one, that we could win the league. We would need to start hitting double figures in every match and hope for other results to go our way. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Too bad no one in our team is called Will.

The day before we had enjoyed our first team social, well half the team had anyway. We went to the pub and watched some footy together, unsurprising then, that the same half of the team were still nursing hangovers before the match.

The match kicked off and was fairly flat for the opening proceedings, but at least I was a lot calmer than in last week’s match. My first touch of the ball was just plain embarrassing. Locky passed me the ball with a fair bit of pace, but even a fair bit of pace doesn’t really justify me falling flat on my bum.

Jack took a corner, low and directly to the front post, their keeper routinely collected the ball and then broke swiftly. I tried in vain to get back, but I was chasing shadows, it was Captain Kilshaw against two men, and they used it to their advantage. The shot wasn’t much special, but it seems hard to lay the blame with Alex when he is so often found keeping us in games. 1-0 down, but there was still plenty to play for.

Thinking about it, missing a sitter is never an enjoyable experience, but sometimes it can be worse than others. When you are 1-0 down, it’s just not pretty. You get a genuine chance to get your team back into the game and you mess it all up. This is how it went down: Jack hit a trademark thunderbolt and the keeper could only manage the parry. The parry fell directly to me. Sadly, the ball fell to my weaker left foot. I took a stab at it and watched as it sailed a couple yards wide. A look of relief spread across the faces of the opposition, whilst a look of disbelief spread across the faces of the Juicebox. Sorry lads.

Then a chance presented itself, a chance for me to redeem myself, a chance for me to look my teammates in the eyes again. I took a sublime first touch, and there I was, one on one with their keeper. Smash! Straight at his legs, the ball rebounded to David, I called for the ball, it came into me and I fed through Jack. I would have bet my house on him scoring, so its a good thing I rent my place. Jack fluffed it and I felt a mixture of sadness and joy. Sadness that we had again failed to score, but happiness that I wasn’t the only one guilty of messing up.

Halftime came and David consoled me with kind words, but somehow ‘you did well to get into the right positions’ wasn’t making me feel any better.

Into the second half, and another chance came and went as Jack fizzed a ball across the box and Locky was just inches away form making a connection. They broke quickly from the resulting corner and buried the ball in Alex’s net, doubling their advantage. We were losing 2-0 and it was painful. As the final whistle blew we all knew we hadn’t done enough, and I apologised to the rest of the Juicebox for missing two golden opportunities.

Luckily the door to the January transfer window slammed shut last week, otherwise I would probably have been cast aside for fresh blood or sent on loan in a lower league, well if there was a lower league. With three games left to play, we have only three points to our name. Something has to give.”