A game of two halves...
27th November 2008 20:43 | by Timothy StoreyWycliffe Hall 2-4 St Hugh's College 3rd
After a desperate and failed effort to pull in some 1st team footballers it was a makeshift looking Wycliffe side which took the pitch. Field-Marshall Shelley, Loh, Dudley and Nyirongo were all making their Wycliffe debuts.
To my utter amazement, by heeding Leady’s advice and keeping a very secure shape, this makeshift unit were quick to look like a team. Wycliffe entirely dominated the first half from start to finish. St. Hugh’s had one shot which sailed into the trees whilst down the other end Wycliffe were tabernacled in the opposition’s half and had about 15 clear cut opportunities. It was one-way traffic.
Despite all this pressure the first goal came from a corner. Slade knocked a great ball across from the right and Loh attacked it strongly at the far post, kneeing a volley home from 6 yards. 14 minutes gone. 1-0.
Wycliffe continued to push forward and again out lack of finishing and composure in front of goal let us down. We are often guilty of having a shot before we really set our body up right and needless to say, totally off balance and askew, the ball sails high, wide and handsome!
Desperate for that second goal which would have given us a good cushion at half time Wycliffe continued to pile on the pressure up front whilst the compactness of our play in midfield and defence was excellent. The goal eluded us again though and it was half time. 1-0.
Yes, the lead should have been greater but hey, with our makeshift outfit a lead was very creditable.
Storey obviously hasn’t read Bill Shankly recently. The great Liverpool manager of yesteryear famously said, “Never change a winning team.” Storey made not one change, but three! Again to my amazement a team, which now looked much stronger on paper, utterly fell apart. Our shape was awful, the sun was low and right in our eyes (which sounds like a terrible excuse but was nearly impossible to be facing into which we need to remember in the future) and the wheels were coming off.
St. Hugh’s won a corner which they swung in straight onto a totally unmarked head. Alan Hansen would have had a field day crucifying the “absolutely shocking and disgraceful marking in the Wycliffe defence”. But Alan Hansen wasn’t there so we carried on. 1-1.
St. Hugh’s were rampant now and Wycliffe couldn’t get the ball. Five minutes later their striker received the ball 30 yards from goal turned Storey inside and out, cut back in and curled the ball, superbly into the corner of the net. 1-2.
Wycliffe had gone from being completely dominant to being second to every ball. Leady was as good as ever though and he scored a quite magnificent goal (just as his wife turned up) with a left-footed bending chip from 25 yards which soared over the keeper and dropped into the net. Brilliant. 2-2.
We were still in it with 20 minutes to go. All to play for. Sadly though it wasn’t a day of Thanksgiving for poor old Doug (deputising for Dingall in the Wycliffe goal). He dropped two through-balls into the path of the Hugh’s striker who seemed to gratefully accept these two free gifts and readily rolled both chances into an empty net. Christian love and kindness is not dead! 2-3. And almost immediately 2-4.
Whilst these were two very costly errors the blame doesn’t only lie with Doug. We were the poorest we’ve been all season in the second half and we have a lot of work to do on shape, finishing, passing and our first touch. We must score more goals as a team and not rely so heavily on Leady’s goals from midfield. As well this there are more Wycliffe names on the injured list than there are written in the book of life. We MUST get fit.
We are still second in the league though and must pick ourselves up before next week’s top of the table clash with St. Catz.
On a lighter note…..
To add injury to insult Gregory limped off with a hamstring injury, Lower retired ill and Slade took the most fearsome blow to his, errrr, “nether-region” that this correspondent has ever seen.
At the end of the game, on this Thanksgiving day, Slade (still bent double and wheezing) carefully counted the footballs back into the plastic bag, allegedly he’s still carefully counting the balls in his ‘other’ bag… unfortunately, he’s still not got past one and they’ll not be much thanksgiving in the Slade household until he does!
“For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men hammering footballs at one’s gonads!" (Matthew 19:12, Common Room Version)
Thanks as always to Fletch, Father Firth, Ruthless, Libby, Mandy and Timbo who supported us very vocally. Wycliffe trudged off with the popular children’s song ringing in their ears. “Lower Lower, Lower Lower Lower Lower, Lower Lower, stamp St. Hugh’s lower.”
Fortunately St. Catz fits in the scansion too!
