Midfielder Mike Jones bagged his third goal for the club in some amount of style on Friday night – incidentally, it means he’s currently scored once in each of the last three seasons for the Blues, and all in different competitions – and he did it in front of the TV cameras and at what was a key moment in a tough game against hosts Dulwich Hamlet.
But, having rattled a few like it into the onion bag over the years, was it his best yet?
“I have hit some nice ones over the years, to be fair,” he said. “People seem to forget that because since I’ve been here I’ve been dry.
“That one was quite special. It’s been a tough time lately off the pitch and on the pitch, so it’s a culmination of quite a few things as to why it was so special. It was definitely my nicest one for a while.”
“With it being live on telly, it was nice,” he added. “The phone hasn’t stopped all weekend. The family enjoyed it, my little man – I enjoyed showing him. The bigger picture is we got the job done and we did it in quite nice style.
“I’m getting one a season at the moment, I’d like to add many more, and I should be getting more, but they’re nice when they come around. I’ll try and get a few more this season.”
And knowing that his little boy was watching at home added even more icing to this particular net-busting cake.
“I think his mum showed him it quite a few times after it had gone in,” he commented. “He’s been asking to see it time and time again, which is brilliant. I didn’t want to go into it in too much detail but I’ve had a little bit of a problem with the little man, so it was nice to get a goal for him.
“He always asks when I pick him up, have I scored? I always have to tell him no, so it was nice to actually tell him that I had scored. He kept saying ‘Daddy’s friends didn’t score’ and I had to tell him they did as well.
“It’s a good thing that it was on telly because family don’t get to watch you very often, or your friends. They probably think I can do that every week … so they’ll be very disappointed!
“Obviously Nicky Adams was at it as well, because he was watching. I think I had more videos of my bald patch than my actual goal! You know what he’s like, but he was buzzing for me as well. We’re best pals. It was nice to see they [Northampton] went through at the weekend.”
On the technique behind the strike, he said: “It happened so quickly, I don’t know – Jack [Iredale] was down the left but their man kind of cut that off in the last second as I was about to play it.
“That was when I cut inside and thought, ‘why not?’ Maybe there was also a bit of anger that we let them back in the game at 2-1. It flew in nicely. I was quite disappointed with the second one, I hit that one nice as well, but I was probably getting a bit carried away by then.
“Seeing it hit the back of the net was just a nice relief, really. It was quite satisfying. It’s hard to put into words – on telly, a big occasion, even though it was against a much lower opposition, the whole occasion was nice and to top it off in good style, 4-1, that was also nice.”
And it came at a time when Dulwich had got themselves back into the game and were looking to push on for at least an equaliser.
“I’ve seen most of the game back and they were quite in it in the first half,” he told us. “It was quite impressive the way we went about the job. We might not have dominated possession like we have in games previous, in the league, but we were just clinical.
“Harry [McKirdy] was magic on the night and we defended well at times. We knew it was a tough place to go, we knew how much they’d put the ball in the box, put the ball at us. It was quite an impressive performance by us and hopefully it’s a platform now, with the home win last weekend and the point at Orient. Fingers crossed we can kick on.”
Having had the performance described as being ‘very professional’ by the commentary team, he agreed that the Blues had done a good job on the night.
“It was clinical,” he said. “We maybe could have got a few more towards the end, but it was job done. You’re in the hat for the second round, that’s all that matters, and we ended up doing it in style in the end.”
We’ll have more from Mike Jones on the official website on Thursday morning where he talks about keeping the current unbeaten run going through what is an important period for the team.
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