St Clere’s U21 0 – 3 Aveley Academicals (Essex Junior Cup 2nd round)

Writing a story is pretty simple; you just need a beginning, a middle and an end.  However, to write a good story you need to add some additional ingredients: some tension; a cliff hanger; an unexpected twist.  As this game didn’t have any of these, I’m not even going to try and turn it into an epic.  Basically, in the beginning the referee blew his whistle to start the game, in the middle the Accies dominated against weaker opposition (who made it easier for us by only have ten men) and scored three goals, and at the end the whistle once again blew to signal our advancement into the 3^rd round of the Essex Junior Cup.

In a break from tradition, I’m going to start with the Goal Scoring Chart, because it really tells the story of this game.  For a start it doesn’t mention the opposition at all, which is fine as they’re not part of this story (actually I’m not sure they’d even get a collective mention on the credits). For most of the 90 minutes they were just obstacles who we had to crawl under, round and through on route to the goal.  That might sound a little harsh on a young side, who may have been lambs to the slaughter with eleven players, but with only ten it was like they had been slow cooked to perfection and smothered in ketchup.  It also names 20 players, of which 19 were there (I think we can excuse Dale), including 3 who were either injured or ineligible to play.  This is absolutely fantastic, and even though it’s not shown on the chart, attendance does count towards position for those who don’t trouble the goals and assists columns.   Add some considerable additional support (at least 4 fans) and we had possibly our biggest (and definitely most vocal) support since the cup final of 2012.

With Tony pulling up in the warm-up, this did make acting manager Liam’s job a little easier, although he could still only make three subs out of the four available and fell on his sword for the team.

Subs: Luke C., Liam, Martin, Bobby

So in a game that presented far more opportunities to progress up the table than I can ever hope to remember, who were the biggest winners and losers I hear you cry? 

The winners

Undoubtedly the biggest winner of the day was Foggy. A perfect hat-trick and a third MoTM performance of the season moved Captain Fantastic up nine places to the top of the leader board, and meant he has already surpassed his previous best tally of 2 goals in 2014/15.  No one exploited the one man advantage better, as Foggy followed the space and ran the show for most of the match.  His first goal followed a great bit of keep ball, which was synonymous of the opening 10 minutes, and ended with Scott passing the ball to Foggy on the edge of the area, who then floated it with his left foot over the keeper and into the top corner.

Foggy’s second was from a throw in by Lee on the left.  The ball was launched in flat and through a crowd of bodies, Foggy arrived late to dive and head the ball into the net.  The perfect hat-trick was then completed with an unstoppable right footed penalty – struck low to the keeper’s right – after another throw in from Lee was handled by the defender in the box.

Now I know Dale finds it hard to believe that Foggy scored one goal, let alone a perfect hat-trick.  Therefore to remove any shadow of a doubt, I have got hold of the following artist’s impression of the second goal:

Even more unbelievable is that we should have seen the front flip celebration (although slightly degraded by the use of hands) twice more either side of the penalty.  First Foggy was put through by Luke A., but with the perfect hat-trick on his mind, the skipper tried to lift the ball over the keeper with the outside of his right, when the left would have been a much better option.  He was also put through by Lee, and with the goal at his mercy poked the ball wide. 

The other big mover in the rankings was Scott, whose assist for the opener was his first mark on the table.  However, it could have been so much better if he hadn’t aimed for the goal on the far side of the 3G pitch rather than the one that was six yards in front of him, when Lee put it on a plate with a selfless cross when he could have gone alone.  In fact, that goal would have moved him up a whopping 16 places to 4^th. However, to rub salt into the wounds, the DoTD award he received for this miss prevented him from mover one extra place above Sharpy.

The losers (or those who lost out)

The worst thing about people missing chances, is that they take innocent team mates down with them.  Those to suffer most were Lee and Luke A., who played a number of killer final balls that were wasted.  Sometimes a little more selfishness wouldn’t have been frowned upon, in particular when Lee squared for Scott (who was possibly trying to get himself a job as placekicker at the upcoming NFL game at Twickenham), and when Martin played the ball to Luke C. (who’d obviously inflicted some atrocity on the linesman in a former life) who was flagged offside.  The goal was at Martin’s mercy and with the score at 3-0 nobody would have minded him going for glory.  Lee and Luke C. also had great chances one-on-one (both time set up by Luke A.), but both found the keeper too big an obstacle to avoid.

Martin also had a good chance to open his account for the Accies, but the keeper saved well after Eye-Ball had headed the ball into his path in the area.  Craig had a rasping shot that was well saved by the keeper via a deflection, and James played the ball of the first half for Mike who was finding a lot of joy down the channels, but couldn’t quite get round the keeper and last defender.

And the things the stats just don’t show:

Rob being a defensive rock, and giving the striker a torrid time as he was first to pretty much everything, and always came away with the ball.

Lewis having so little to do with his hands, that he ended the game sporting open toed boots that are a must for all sweeper keepers.

James going from the sublime (his through ball) to the ridiculous in the space of five minutes, as he didn’t even come close to troubling the corner flag with a shot from the right.  The most disappointing thing was that the ref didn’t give a five metre line-out.

Tony weeping on the side line as he watched all the chances that went begging, or the balls that those playing in the number nine position couldn’t quite get on the end of.

Scott being a true gentleman by giving up his shirt, and in doing so depriving us of the amusement of watching Bobby harangue the ref in an XXL shirt.

Luke receiving a lecture from H about discipline after he kicked the ball way in frustration having been flagged offside for the umpteenth time, despite being in a perfect position on the left to gaze lovingly into the linesman’s eyes – perhaps it wasn’t his flag he was raising.

Captain Foggy and Vice-Vice-Captain Blakey (or was it Bublé?) being stopped dead in their tracks: the first by his considerably bigger opposing captain, and the second by a trip following a mazy run from defence.  Both incidences were greeted with much joy and amusement by the adoring fans, and fortunately one of them must have been composed enough to have the camera rolling:

There is almost certainly a lot of stuff I’ve missed, and although it could be argued that we should have shown more of a killer instinct, and certainly that we will need to be far more clinical in the weeks to come, it was actually refreshing to be able to relax and enjoy the game without the pressure of the final result being in any doubt.

The next round will be an away trip to either Prettygate (Colchester) or Latchingdon (Chelmsford) and is certain to be a much tougher game, but with the same amount of belief, team spirit and support there is no reason we can’t get even further in this competition.

Eye-Ball

Next game: Sunday 30^th October @ Home v Mossops.