The long held theory that Sharpy doesn’t listen to Milesy was blown out of the water prior to this game, when evidence emerged to suggest that he hears OK, but just doesn’t understand. How else could you explain how Sharpy ended up at Belhus Park even after being told on the morning of the game that we were playing Belhus AT HOME.
Fortunately Sharyp did make it to the match, and afterwards suggested this performance could be summed up in two words; the first being “Dog”. Although it was tempting to let Sharpy write the report this week, I feel I should probably expand a bit.
If we had been offered a 1-1 draw before the match, we wouldn’t have taken it as this is a game we should have won easily. However, the suggested summary gives a pretty good account of our performance, and in hindsight a point was a bonus. We do have some excuses; we already knew Rob would be missing for this game, and the plan was for Deano to partner Milly in the centre of defence. However, Milly’s wife gave birth during the week and complications meant that Milly had somewhere much more important to be. Congratulations from us all, and we hope everything is OK with mother and baby. With Sharpy the only available striker, this meant a real re-shuffle for Milesy, and we started with the following line-up:
ppppppppppppppppTy
pJimmy Deano Stu (c) Eye-ball
pNathan Jordan Gollum Aaron
pppppppppppSharpy Scott
Sub: Parker
The game began as it was destined to go on; as a really scrappy affair. The Oaks in particular lacked composure on the ball and struggled to string more than a couple of passes together. Matters were made worse when Stu sustained an injury within the first five minutes. He tried to soldier on, but was really struggling and was unable to do anything about Belhus’ opening goal, which saw the entire back four accountable for failing to deal with a seemingly harmless move, that started with a short throw in and ended with the ball being poked home past Ty: 0-1.
Stu had to go off soon after, which meant Eye-Ball joining Deano in the centre to form a partnership that has had mixed success in the past. Parker (our only sub) had to put down his flag and make the short trip to the left back position. We weren’t the only ones with injury problems (which also included the permanently semi-crippled Gollum), with Belhus losing two players to injury in the first quarter who had to be replaced by a couple of old guys who were definitely not expecting a game.
Although the game continued in pretty much the same vain as it had started, we did improve towards the end of the half but still went in to half time a goal down.
Given the disruptions in defence it is possibly a surprise to hear that the Oaks Raggy Doll back four functioned remarkably well as a unit in the second half. Playing a high line, Belhus were caught off-side on numerous occasions, and the one instance when the referee decided to ignore the offside flag came to nothing thanks to a fine save from Ty and good chasing back from Jimmy.
With neither midfield functioning very well, and the defences winning most of the battles in the last third, this wasn’t really one for the neutral. However, we were treated to one moment of quality as Nathan leapt majestically to head home Scott’s pin-point corner, and restore a bit of the Oaks pride: 1-1.
The only other incident worth a mention is what was quite possibly the worst insult ever heard on a football pitch. Feeling aggrieved at foul being award against him, the Belhus defender promptly turned to Nathan and branded him a “leper”. Now he might have a bit of a dodgy hip, but I don’t think any limbs are going to fall off any time soon (I hope!).
Lets hope next week is an improvement, and maybe if we try and get the nets up a bit earlier we can have a few more touches of the ball before we kick off – which definitely couldn’t have made matters any worse!
Eye-Ball
Next match: Sunday 31st Jan v Young Knight @ Home
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