Lane Cove West 1, Greenwich 0
14 July 2007, Blackman
We can now see that last week’s defeat was merely a temporary interruption in our run of winning without conceding a goal: we’ve now done that in three of our last four games.
But today was not pretty. We were again hesitant against opponents that we should have swept aside easily: fortunately they weren’t up to capitalizing on our weaknesses.
One of which was just lack of numbers: our squad of 19 today yielded just 11 players, and we were lucky that Paul Mattes was available to play for us: and very well he played too.
We made our usual slow start, but after about ten minutes, extended our record of scoring in every game. As Bob said afterwards, it was him in the Stanley Matthews role. Which makes me Stan Mortensen, I think. (Younger readers may need to be told that this is a reference, in particular, to the 1953 FA Cup Final. Blackpool were 3-1 down against Bolton – sorry, Howard – before Stanley Matthews ploughed a furrow down the right wing, sending over a series of crosses from which the other Stan M scored a hat-trick & they won 4-3. Not that Bob or I remember it personally, but it was certainly still the talk of football albums when I was a boy. Whatever happened to football albums? And players called Stan?).
Anyway, as a few weeks ago (except today at the car park end) great work by Bob on the right gave him space to launch a telling cross to the far post. This time, though, I was not all alone, but attended by two defenders, and I lost it; or so I thought until it hit my head (that’s how good a cross it was) and there it was – between the posts and under the bar (but not in the net as they weren’t put up till halftime).
At this point, the odds would have been on us settling down to a comfortable win (against a team who had beaten no-one all year except us); with long odds against the actual outcome – a game devoid, not only of more goals, but largely of incident as well. But it’s a funny game; and, in this instance, I fear, a dull one, too.
John S queries whether his four shots on goal in the first half don’t constititute incidents. The official ruling is no; but between them they might actually amount to one incident. Actually, they were each enterprising first-time attempts, mostly from slick build-ups. But they none of them truly threatened.
Apart from that, not much happened in the first half, although Paul & I managed to collide heavily in a rare moment of mutual non-hesitation.
More of the same followed in the second half. Or didn’t, depending on how you look at it.
James had a really good run and shot from the left which the keeper just pushed beyond the far post. And subs came on & went off & the sun moved across the sky a bit. Oh, and a dog came on the pitch, and had to be led away: it was all compelling stuff.
Bit of a worry towards the end: our opponents chose to bring on two of their (high-flying) A team, including the Mr Spock look-alike. Commendably, we did not respond in kind, although several of our As had arrived early in case of need. But our original twelve were enough to quell any potential trouble; which still amounted to very little: we couldn’t recall that Greenwich had a serious shot all day.
So there were no loud expressions of regret from the stands when Scott blew the final whistle.
Playing badly but still winning is often said to be the mark of a good side. But it’s also the mark of a side with poor opponents! We should certainly have done better, and have already paid one price: we’ve now moved down to 5th (as others played make-up games on Sunday). Had we scored two more, we’d still be 4th.
Bob was (yet again) man-of-the match for another fine performance. Jon B was second for snuffing out even the stirrings of attacks by our opponents. And Matt was third for his usual energetic exploits.
Special mention of Tim, who, I think, has played really well and consistently for the past few games.
Thanks to Scott for refereeing sensibly, and to Jon Parkes for running the line. Likewise to me & Tony at 3pm (& I apologize again to Tony for overruling his non-off-side call). Also to Ernie for organizing the subs, to Tim for the beers, to Paul for playing for us & to several other As for being ready to.
MARK BRYANT