Old Whitgiftian AFC

City of London III 5-7 Old Whitgiftian Reserves

(Saturday, 12 January 2008)

Phan, Redley 2, Moore 2, Duncan, Sturdy

MATCH REPORT
by Nixie

NOT YET COMPLETE

Waiting for an away win is like waiting for a bus. You wait ages and then two come along at once!

Actually, I'm not sure my cholestrol enhanced pig's heart can take too many more games like this... a good game, between two very competitive sides, but one where three outside factors played a major part;
1) A very low, unusually bright sun that made it almost impossible to defend on one half of the pitch,
2) A referee who spoiled the game with some quite unbelievable refereeing decisions at key moments, when there was just no need...
3) A really poor quality pitch, the state of which I haven't seen since... well, since the last time I played here!

City of London have one of the best away records, but their form at home has been hit and miss. In our home game against them last October, we saw they were a team that liked to play the ball about and build up their attacks... and their results away from home showed they were a dangerous team.

But let's look closer at those away results! They'd lost one (against us by the odd goal) and won against Fisher, Seds and Marys... all good level, pretty well looked after grounds with a decent playing surface.

And that brings me on to their Powerleague ground at Norbury... what a shocking pitch... divets everywhere, waterlogged in others and one goal shaped leaning over like a drunk. No wonder their results have been so poor there. Very difficult to play anything other than route one football, but certainly not a ground for the football enthusiast.

CoL also had the best defensive of any team in the division. Going into this game they had conceded a pretty impressive average of only 1.3 goals per game and were obviously going to be hard to break down. Unbelievably, we went into the game with the second best defensive record, but this was almost a goal per game more than CoL... a statistic that underlines the attacking nature of the division we are in this year. We were under no illusions that thi was going to be a tough game.

Our real advantage though lay in the fact that we had been able (for the first time this season) to field a virtually unchanged side from last week. Added to this was the bonus of being able to "do the double" against a team for the second week in a row. The build up to the game went extrememly well (with the exception of Nick Moore getting stuck in traffic), we knew what we were up against and we were as prepared as we felt we could be.

1st HALF LINE-UP
HILLIER EVANS - TRUMP - KENYON - DENISON PHAN - STAFFORD-HILL (Cpt) - DUNCAN - STURDY REDLEY - MOORE

The referee arrived 5 minutes after the scheduled kick off and then having called the teams together to kick off, he disappeared to the sideline for a further 5 minutes for a coffee or something.

CoL had won the toss and had elected to kick into the sun; their not unsound reasoning being that it would be lower and harder for us in the second half. However, for a change we started brightly and had CoL pegged back right from the start. The team talk had focussed on using the wings as much as possible as this was one of the better areas of the pitch, and then encouraging Chris Stafford-Hill and Dain Duncan to get into the box to support the strikers. This tactic proved highly successful throughout the game... for both teams.

The team welcomed new boy Matt Evans into the team, who started at right back. It was the only change to the team from last week's starting line-up. Phil Trump took charge at the back alongside Kris Kenyon and they were supported by Chris Denison on the left. Vien Phan and Richard Sturdy started on the flanks, while Captain Chris and Dain controlled the centre. Nick Moore and Daren Redley looked to build on their very

Despite dominating, CoL broke the deadlock. As one of our attacks broke down, they launched the ball upfield to their tall forward. He was shackled by Kris Kenyon and Christian Denison, but he managed to put enough pressure on them to win a corner. We looked shakey for the first one, scrapping it away for another corner, and then failed to pick up their tall defender who made a run from the edge of the box and headed home. 1-0 CoL.

How? Was the first question. They had done nothing to this point and in the space of 30 seconds in our half of the pitch had taken the lead. The good thing wad that it wasn't long before we were leve. Vien Phan writes.... 1-1 Level.

We then went ahead... 2-1 Whits. Darren Redley goal. Details to follow...

Further ahead... 3-1 Whits. Dain Duncan goal. Details to follow...

Further ahead... 4-1 Whits. Darren Redley goal. Details to follow...

Further ahead... 5-1 Whits. Nick Moore goal. Details to follow...

And then the referee went a bit mad... and unfortunately for both teams, stayed like that for the rest of the game.

On about 35 minutes, CoL made a foray down our left and we conceded a free-kick about 20 yards outside the box. CoL placed the ball about 10 yards closer and despite advising the ref, we were ignored, the following kick was put over to the box and beat back across the box to Vien, who chested it down and proceeded to run it out of the box only to hear the referee blow his whistle for a penalty.

Now, I've seen referees get this sort of decision wrong before, where there is a large shout from the opposing team, the referee is nearby and genuinely believes what he saw... and it goes with the game... you win some you lose some...

... but this was... well, I'm lost for words... not one of CoL's player said a word and the referee was at least 30 yards away on the other side of the box. At first we thought we'd won a free kick or that there'd been some other infringement, but BOTH sets of players were surprised at the decision... although understandably CoL didn't protest. Awful decision... just awful.

Tim Hiller was so unlucky with the penalty. He guessed the right way but the ball just squeezed underneath him. 5-2 Whits.

This unsettled us somewhat and for the next few minutes we were on the back foot. The referee then started to get throw-ins and corner-kicks back to front and both teams didn't know what to do. When a City of London player turned to the ref and protested along the lines of "You were this bad last week and got the same decisions wrong then as well" it spoke volumes.

There was nothing dodgey about City's next goal though as they simply caught us asleep. With only a minute to go to half time, we lost the ball between defence and midfield and they broke through to score. 5-3 Whits. The whistle blew immediately afterwards. A bad time to concede a goal in any game.

View photos from this match		Photos supplied by Nixie

The half-time team talk tried to focus on many elements, but Chris Stafford-Hill summed it up best when he pointed out that the next 10 minutes were key... and that we needed to concentrate.

2nd HALF LINE-UP
HILLIER FERGUSON R - TRUMP - KENYON - DENISON (Sub ISTHIKHAR 55) PHAN (Sub FERGUSON M 50) - STAFFORD-HILL (Cpt) - DUNCAN - STURDY REDLEY - MOORE

We should have listened, as for the next 15 minutes we had a bit of a mare. We quickly conceded two fast goals, one which I'm sure would have given Tim a sleepless night or two had the end result been different... as what was a normally bread-and-butter type of save slipped through his normally very safe hands for City to equalise. 5-5 level.

The biggest factor for this had been the sun. I don't know how bad it had been for CoL, but when it was our turn, the defence found it almost impossible to see. Where before, Phil Trump and Kris Kenyon had been able to control their zones, they now found themselves getting in each others way with the ball often slipping between them. This meant that every CoL attack became a dangerous one but for some genuine team captaincy from Chris as he cajoled, encouraged, rollacked his team mates as an when it was required. We were seriously rocking at this point, but Chris and the others that came with him were determined this wasn't going to be another Marys debacle...

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... but our real salvation came from the sun. With 15 minutes remaining, it decided to do us a favour and sit behind a cloud - one was the glare and immediately our game improved as with the shackles released we once again took CoL to task.

This wasn't without incident though, as from a corner one of the team struck a shot that was met with a CoL handball in the area. The appeal went up, but the referee waved play on and the ball was bundled out for a corner. Incensed at the injustice, you could see the team take on a new determination and from the resulting corner, we went on to take the lead again.

The goal which gave the lead back to Whits was one to remember. Darren Redley was fouled five yards outside the box to the left hand side. Richard Sturdy stepped up and curled the ball with his left foot around the wall into the left hand side of the goal, past the stranded keeper. A sublime free kick, that was greeted with joyous celebrations from the touchline. 6-5 Whits.

After that it was academic. CoL who had been very disciplined to this point started arguing with each other and those that didn't wanted to have a piece of Chris. He was having none of it though, even when one of their players came charging into our half before the re-kick to confront him.

The sixth goal had been the killer... and CoL mentally gave up the ghost after that. Nick Moore went on to score our 7th and give us a better margin, when a well worked move ended with him side-footing the ball into the corner of the net from about 6 yards out. 7-5 Whits. Job done!

The game finished a few minutes later... but like I said, I don't think I can ake many more games like this.

 

MAN OF THE MATCH RESULT

Pos	Player	Ref	1st	2nd	Total
1st	CHRIS STAFFORD-HILL	-	8	1	17
2nd	Darren Redley	-	2	4	8
3rd	Richard Sturdy	-	1	3	5
4th	Dain Duncan	-	1	2	4
5th	Christian Denison	-	1	1	3
6th	Nick Moore	-	1	-	2
7th	Phil Trump	-	-	2	2
8th	Kris Kenyon	-	-	1	1

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