A forgettable game. If we’re lucky.
Played nowhere near our best and let a mediocre side (one win all season) look
good.
I said last game
that when we win, it’s usually because we score early, settle down, play good
football, create lots of chances, blow too many of them, but nonetheless
gradually accumulate goals.
Today started
that way. Distracted by the two-week layoff, a new venue and a
And Tim almost
scored it: almost his very first goal for the club, in this his 20th
season! A goalmouth melee brought the ball to his feet, in the area. (And what
was he doing there?!) But the firm shot was blocked, and bounced around a bit
more till Peter planted it in the net: 1-0 and settled, and away we go. Create
lots of chances, miss a lot, score a few – 5-0 or 6-0, here we come.
But
no. In retrospect, the
vital failure was to score, as Graham Taylor so memorably put it, “what we call
the second goal”. When you think about it carefully, no-one has ever won 5-0 or
6-0 without it.
We came close:
most notably when I pulled the ball back from the goal line to James, in space
in front of the goal. But it was a difficult height and he hooked it wide.
As the half went on, something else was going
on besides us not scoring:
They almost
scored when Dave blasted an attempted clearance straight at our goal. The circumstance probably distracted us from
noticing that it took a really good save from Tony to turn it away for a corner
So it wasn’t
really a surprise when they scored, right on halftime. Poor marking (by me, I
regret) let a forward control the cross from a corner. He pushed it across the
area where a lone colleague stabbed it in. Lone enough to make us hope for
offside, but Eric confirms that he played him on, so 1-1 it was.
This, and the
chance for a halt-time regroup, should have stirred us into action. But we continued flat, and the gloom deepened when they scored
again just after halftime. Again I regret that I may have distracted us
by debating with our opponents why they hadn’t provided a linesman, when our
injured Phil was struggling to keep up with the last defender. Whilst this was
going on, they took a corner, and it was very smartly flicked in at the near
post:1-2.
Eric later
confessed that he thought at this point that we were going to lose, and I fear
that most of us did. Not that we gave up trying, but nothing seemed to click.
They now looked the more assured and skillful side, and although the bumps and
sticky patches on the field were there for both sides, somehow it seemed to be
us who fell foul of them.
Then Steve B got
booked for clipping the heels of an onrushing attacker (who might well have
been clear on goal otherwise). And I drew blood by elbowing a defender in the
face (quite unintentionally, though he wouldn’t accept this, even after the
game).
Dave had another
spirited attempt at blasting an own-goal, but this time was off-target.
The only
surprise about their third goal was how it came, rather than that it came at
all. A goal kick went straight to a forward in front of goal who happily
slammed it in: 1-3.
18 minutes to
go: almost exactly the time we went 1-3 down against Kissing point, before
recovering for a dramatic draw. And today we soldiered on too, but again: the
second goal syndrome – if you’re 3-1 down, you can’t get a draw without it!
And we came so
close. Peter crashed a shot against the bar, and the rebound almost fell for
us. Howard had a great shot that flew across the face of the goal. Dave and
James floated crosses over. Jon B had a good effort on goal. But the defence held firm, and the whole of the Mt Colah team was now brimming with the joy and determination
of being on the point of winning a game against the odds. The clock ran down,
and so did our spirits.
We couldn’t
argue with the result, but such was our disappointment at the end that no-one
had the will to arrange the man-of-the-match voting when Ernie had to leave.
There was a move, though, to give the points to John S for refereeing,
and to Scott for running the line (after starting the game as ref). Theirs were
certainly more ept performances than most of ours.
Thanks again to
Phil for organizing the subs.
We slip a place
to fourth. As Monash only drew, had we won we would
have been just two points behind
Eric and I got
some perspective on our disappointment on the way home, however: we spoke to a
Northbridge A player who told us that their game was abandoned after Andy
Mackie, the St Ives full-back (the one who has played in every one of KDSA’s 51 years), had a heart attack on the field. We now
know that if this is going to happen, Northbridge A are
the opponents of choice: they have a leading cardiologist, as well as a GP in
their team. They kept Andy alive for the 20 minutes before the ambulance
arrived, and a by-pass operation now seems to have fixed him up.
Makes you think.
I’ve often told my wife that dying on the football field is my aim, but age 105
is what I have in mind (so if it happens before, feel free to revive me!)
MARK BRYANT