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9 Mar 2008: Tenterden 4:4 Grasshoppers March 11, 2008

Posted by editor in : Uncategorized , trackback

This was our first setback since the first day of the season, though we were not helped by not arriving at the ground until 10 minutes before kick off.  Tenterden is further than most of us go on our holidays, so what on earth they are doing in our league is beyond me.  That’s not to say they were anything other than gracious hosts, it’s just that the ground was well hidden and Mrs McLeod would have preferred a ladies loo to having to share with Goggy.  To be fair, she seemed unfazed, but Goggy had terrible trouble going.

 

 

 

Pulling our minds out of the toilet, we played the first half uphill, but quickly asserted our superiority, creating several chances.  Unfortunately, our strikers had obviously been watching Man United the day before and contrived to miss a hatful of chances in the first half.  Connor opened the scoring in amongst the misses, but then our normally dependable defence gave away the softest of equalizers.  Having missed a few, Oskar then put away a short range effort to give is the lead back, before our defence once again decided  to be indecisive and failed to clear, given several opportunities.  To be fair to the defence, their best player by a mile was one of their strikers and he looked dangerous whenever he got the ball.  But also to be fair, none of the defenders took the responsibility of dealing with him, and he would have scored at least 6 goals if he had the slightest idea of the offside law.  I rarely criticize individual players (apart from Oskar obviously), but all four of the defenders in the first half were well below their normal standards, though I may be being a bit unfair to Thomas. 

Harrison in particular was lucky the referee did not see a sly kick at an attacker off the ball, but unlucky that Phil did see it and he was duly substituted at half time.  Mike came on at left back and did very well.

 

 

 

Miles had replaced Oskar halfway through the first half, and Connor, Oskar and Miles were rotated throughout the game, until

Taylor came on.  It is a matter of constant wonder to me, how these three players do not take teams apart.  They all have size, speed and skill, but for whatever reason, they always look as though they have something better to do.  Fortunately, Keith has found an answer.  He will be bringing a special spray with him to the next game, which he will put down the shorts of anyone who fails to put in the right level of commitment.  I understand that it is medically impossible to stand still with this spray on.  You have been warned!

 

 

 

Phil’s half time talk would not have made comfortable listening for many of the team, as only the midfield four were exempt from the hairdryer treatment, but it seemed to have the desired effect, as we immediately went out and outplayed them again.  The midfield were at the heart of everything, with all four covering lots of ground, playing pretty football going forward and tackling well going back.  We scored twice in fairly quick succession through Harry and Tom, both beating the keeper over his head from tightish angles.  But unfortunately, we never learned our lesson at the back and they scored two identical goals, with through balls where their main striker managed not to be offside and outpaced the defenders too easily.

 

 

 

Goals this week for Connor, Oskar, Harry and Tom.  Honourable mentions for Robert, Cian and Tom in midfield, but deserved MoM was Harry, who worked as hard as anyone on the pitch.  The CRAP award goes to

Harrison for trying to kick an opponent.- with the ball nowhere in sight.

 

 

 

Winning the league is still in our hands.  But our strikers need to find some attitude (or we need some different strikers) and our defence needs to defend better. 

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