The Team: Graham(G), Morris, Macdonald, Waite, Mazza, Ledbury, Glover, Lewis, Wrigley, Shiono, Harbusch. Sub: Firth

A bright sunny day saw us heading off to Anderlecht, the first time in months that we have played on successive Saturdays, to face the runaway leaders of Division 6c – unbeaten all season. Having only lost 2-1 in the home game, we had no great concerns – not even after we saw that their shirts were advertising a local undertaker! The dressing room mood was given a boost with the unexpected appearance of several fans – including the legendary Ken Veitch and Adrian Dale. Alas both of them ineligible to play because of the normal ABSSA delay in clearing players cards. Indeed, we could have done with them after substitute Steve Mazza reported a leg injury problem and Paul Firth was not there in time for the kick-off. (He went to the wrong ground, it seems, having also leant his mobile phone to his brother.) At one stage there was actually a serious possibility of Veitchie reffing the game, raising the remarkable prospect of yellows cards being shown with the outside of the boot! In the end, a proper ref was found and Veitchie & Dobbin were left “hoping” that we’d go down 5-0 soon enough so that we’d have nothing to lose by bringing on unregistered players. Maybe we should have taken them seriously!

Our intention was to start with a 3-1-4-2 formation with Mazza, Waite & MacDonald at the back, and Brian Morris picking up their very useful drifting striker, with Lewis and Wrigley up & down the flanks. With them winning the toss and playing downhill with the wind, the game plan seemed to be OK for at least 30 seconds. The first half remains somewhat of a blur to me now, as we seemed to be chasing shadows much of the time. While it didn’t help that an injured Mazza was trying to mark the quickest player that we’ve come up across all season, they were better, keener & faster than us in virtually all areas of the pitch. Above all, they were happy to suck us all in, win the ball in midfield and then hit us on the break, usually via the fast winger, with not just 1 or 2, but 3 or 4 of them breaking, too. The first goal was such a break, leaving their striker one on one with Jim in goal. For once, the Reverend didn’t have a prayer. The second was a penalty, where Mazza actually did well to get close enough to the man to foul him. The third was a break down the wing where the cross was pinpoint to one of the 4 guys in the middle. With Firthie having now made it, we thought that it was only fair on Mazza to let him off the hook, and so we made a tactical switch putting Wrigley on the fast winger and bring Paul into left midfield. Although they had a few more chances, this change certainly stabilized us at the back and we were even able to take the game to them a bit, probing on both left & right sides. Harbusch managed to create one shooting opportunity, and the best “chance” of the half came from a clever Glover free kick chipped over the wall to Ledbury, which the ref wrongly pulled up for offside.

Anyway, with the slope and wind in the second half we remained confident that we could at least pull back a goal or two. From the restart, we managed to get much more into the game, with Lewis immediately causing them difficulties on the right, and Sammy and Frank also posing them problems. Yes, they really weren’t as strong at the back when we started to attack. With 5-10 minutes gone & us starting to have a significant share of the game, they promptly scored. A break down our left, saw a simple cross to the near post met by their striker. 0-4. Ten minutes later it was 0-5, and then 0-6 after one of their giants headed in a corner from 5 yards. Despite the calls of “bring us on now” from Dale & Veitch on the sidelines, we were actually playing our best football of the game – with Harbusch and Ledbury having carved out good chances, and Lewis causing their left back all sorts of problems. To our credit, we managed to keep going, and Frank managed to score an excellent goal, lobbing the goalkeeper after an interception. Stewart Glover then scored with a thunderous toe-poke from 20 yards – to the extent that they started time-wasting by kicking the ball away! Alas, it was too late by that stage, but the game finished with us putting them under more pressure.

All in all, it was not as bad a performance as the score suggests. For those of us at the back – previously proud of one of the best defensive records in the league – it was an object lesson in how to pull us all over the place and some excellent finishing. To our credit they didn’t actually create many chances in the second half, and Morris, MacDonald & Wrigley arguably had the better of their tricky customers when the slope was on our side. I think Jim only had to make 2 saves in the whole game. More importantly, the front 6 all had an excellent second half, and we probably created more chances than we had in the last 3 games put together – and this against the team that is the runaway leader of our division. It all bodes well for next week’s game – against the 2nd place team!

Finally, a word of thanks to Adrian, Ken & their mate, who provided excellent vocal support from the sidelines. Who knows, maybe their players cards will be through by the next time they come over!

MOM: Waite