Solihull Borough 0 Rushall Olympic 4
Such is John Allen's love of the noble art of boxing that he headed straight to Manchester after watching his Rushall Olympic side extend their unbeaten league run to nine matches.
The Pics manager had a ringside seat to watch Joe Calzaghe outclass and out-battle Jeff Lacy to unify the WBO and IBF world super-middleweight titles.
Not even if Ronnie Corbett had laced up the gloves to go head-to-navel with the Welsh dragon could a fight have been more one-sided than Rushall's annihilation of Soli-hull Borough.
The first half at Damson Park was like a fighter flicking out his jab to get the measure of his opponent and then the second half provided a barrage of blows which left Boro well and truly on the ropes.
The hosts had trailed to Ben Porter's neat lob at half-time, but they were left fighting with one hand behind their back when defender Neil O'Sullivan stupidly got himself sent off with 20 minutes left and Leon Allen, Troy Douglin and Jordan Lee wrapped up the points.
The inspiration, though, was former Solihull player Marcus Jackson. It was his trickery and confident free-running which led to O'Sullivan's frustration boiling over with a needless forehead into the right wing-back's face, but Jackson was simply unstoppable.
Allen said: "Solihull just couldn't handle him. By his own admission, Marcus has been up and down this season but he is in his richest vein of form at the moment.
"In the first half, we set out a game plan to play a bit longer and be more direct and we just got our noses in front.
"Solihull came at us after half-time and for five or ten minutes I was concerned. But we kept working and after the second goal it was oneway traffic."
Boro boss Tony Dobson could again feel disappointed by the lack of firepower up-front but he would be even angrier at the manner of Rushall's breakthrough goal on 26 minutes. One long punt from keeper Chris Gemmell sliced open the defence and Porter timed his run perfectly to flick over the advancing Shaun Hayes.
Gemmell rescued his side to push away a Dave Pearson header after the interval and Craig Dutton's header flashed across the face of the goal before Rob Holdcroft cleared Martin Hier's header off the line as Boro hit back.
But Hayes was the busier keeper, parrying Tim Jack-son's stinging effort and flicking over Holdcroft's 20-yard howitzer, and though Neil Kitching's header rebounded off the post, Rushall were not to be denied.
When Hayes punched Marcus Jackson's corner clear on 73 minutes, Allen was perfectly placed to drill a low shot into the net and then defender Douglin beat the keeper to head home Tim Jackson's left-winger corner five minutes later.
With six minutes left, it was 4-0 when Marcus Jack-son's through-ball allowed substitute Lee to sprint clear and roll his shot under the keeper with a classy finish.
Rushall, in their first season in the Southern League, leapfrog their hosts into the top ten and though the result left both sides nine points off the play-offs in Southern One West, they looked to be heading in opposite directions.
Allen said: "If someone had said three months ago, when we were down near the bottom, that we would be in the top half of the table, I would have been delighted."
