El penalty de Cabrejo sella la victoria del Cartagena. By Steve.

CABREJO PENALTY SEALS CARTAGENA VICTORY

FC CARTAGENA - 1 UD PAJARA PLAYAS JANDIA - 0

BY STEVE HIBBERD

Bottom of the table, Fuerteventura based, Pajara Playas (PP), made Cartagena fight every inch of the way for this home win. Without a win all season, and only 3 draws, PP should have been easy pickings, but they forgot to read the script. Played on a bare, bumpy and surprisingly rock hard pitch, both sides struggled to string more that 2 passes together during a disappointing 1st half. The games first real chance fell to Cartagena, when Juan Pablo faced with only the keeper to beat, dallied sufficiently to enable defenders to regroup, resulting in him shooting into the side netting. On 21 mins, Miki Roques confident back header shaved the wrong side of the post. Aguilar was next to almost score, when his well placed header was saved by PP keeper, Ramon. With 10 mins of the half remaining, Juan Pablo looked to be brought down from behind inside the penalty area, but ref Gomez was not impressed. In a half of one way traffic, Miki Roque was again unlucky with a header from a corner that just missed the target.

Twas unlucky 13 (mins into the 2nd half) for Carmona, when his reckless challenge on an opponent brought him a 2nd yellow, then a red card (from where I was sitting it looked harsh, but the ref had a good view), Five mins later, Juan Pablo put in a great diving header from a good cross, but his effort was pushed away for a corner. Mariano was so unlucky, when his long range shot was superbly turned away by the impressive Ramon. On 80 mins, PP had their first serious threat on goal, when Alfonso unleashed a powerful drive which Ruben saved well. On as sub, Addison was clearly upended inside the PP pen area, resulting in the ref immediately pointing to the spot. Up stepped Cabrejo to hammer home a text book penalty on 83 mins, greeted with rapturous applause by the Cartagena faithful. With time running out, PP became ratty, so much so that numbers were evened following the near decapitation of Addison by an incensed Aday, who deservedly received a straight red card. He then kicked the advertising hoardings for good measure, before departing down the tunnel. Aday was followed by his manager, also dismissed for ranting at the ref, who by this time was taking no prisoners. Deep into stoppage time, Addison should have doubled Cartagenas lead, but when faced with a 1 on 1 with Ramon, he unfortunately panicked, shooting straight at the PP keeper. All in all, this was a thoroughly deserved victory for Los Albinegros, even though the standard of play by both sides was poor. Special mention must be made of subs Viyuela and Addison, who introduced much needed urgency into their teams performance. As well as the 2 sending offfs, Cartagenas Eloy was shown a yellow card, as was 5 PP players. This win pushes Cartagena up to 2nd in the div 2b table (17 points from 8 games), only a point behind leaders Real Madrid ´B´.

Attendance - 3,500

Cartagena line-up

RUBEN, TXIKI, AGUILAR, MARIANO, CABREJO, CARMONA, ELOY, JUAN PABLO (ADDISON), MENA (TATO), NANO (VIYUELA), MIKI ROQUE