07/02: Vets1 0 - 0 British United (away)

Vets 1 vs. British United 0 - 0

Team:Sejersen, Waite, Morris, Wrigley, Ledbury, Hoskins, Bentham, Dehombreux, Bannon, Gutierrez, Harbusch

Subs:Eriksen

Goals:Lewis, Eriksen, Gutierrez

MOM:Sejersen

After 9 wins on the trot and Vets 1 going for a record breaking 10 wins in a row, the lads were buoyant on the trip to Mechelen to meet the auld enemy British United. With Georgio coming out of retirement especially to ref the game and the grass pitch only showing a few signs of the recent bad weather, the stage was set for a dogged encounter. Indeed, the crowd (Pete Tremant) saw a decent quality Vets 1 game – even if there was a rather limited amount of goalmouth action.

With Lewis, White and Yearsley unavailable, selection saw Mikey G. and Frank form the front 2, the midfield 5 with Deano and Jez on the wings, and Brain M and Paul Wrigley marking at the back – leaving the versatile Eriksen on the bench. We started brightly, doing our best to maintain the passing game that has brought so much success. Freddie, Carl and Ian soon managed to take over the midfield – even if our superior possession did not materialise into chances in front of goal. Defensively, we seemed as solid as ever with Paul man-marking their dangerman all over the pitch. To coin a phrase, Wrigley stuck to his man like gum. Apart from a couple of near goalmouth scrambles from free kicks, the clearest chance we had fell to Bentham – after good work from Mikey and Frank, but the Gnottingham gnasher snatched at his shot and it went well wide. On the disciplinary side, the encounter between Bentham – and well-known adversary Rommel – was less colourful than previous exchanges, apart from a few sparks, but even that petered out when the United man had to limp off early in the second half.

Half time deliberations agreed on the need to “up it 10%” in the second half. The only problem was that we didn’t really discuss how or where to “up it”. As a result, the second half saw more of the same, with Hoskins in particular doing very well shielding the ball and keeping possession, but very little penetration of a very firm BU back four. In pressing forward and playing most of the match in their half, we left ourselves open to counter attacks. On one such occasion, their centre forward escaped from Wrigley’s attention for the only time of the game and forced Tommy into a fingertip save (even if it was probably going wide already). We then created our best chance of the game when Mike managed to take a long ball from the back past their defence to the by-line and pulled it back perfectly for the onrushing Hoskins on the penalty spot. Unfortunately, Ian didn’t catch it right and sent the ball a couple of metres wide with the outside of his right foot. In the hopes of upping the tempo, Captain Carl made a tactical substitution, pushing Roger into midfield in place of Freddie and putting Johann into sweeper. This did little to change the game, however. Perhaps our only remaining attack of any great note was a wonderful run from Dean on the left wing – covering more than half the pitch – but, somewhat symptomatically, he was unable to escape the attentions of his opposite number, and literally ran himself into the ground. Towards the end, with legs tiring on the heavy grass pitch, we even came under a certain amount of pressure – facing 2 free kicks from not far outside the box. Both were on target, and the second one forced a diving save from Tommy Sejersen in goal. While we’ve come to expect that sort of thing from him over the years, the opposition were particularly impressed with it.

And so the match finished 0-0. A very workman-like performance from both teams, and, to give them credit, the first time all season that we haven’t really forced the opposition keeper into making a serious save. The point widens the gap to leaders ITT in the table, but with the 3rd and 4th place teams losing, we have actually strengthened our standing in 2nd place. Role on Mireille Wemmel next week, back on the Rosiàres Astroturf.

MOM was a close affair with Tommy winning, ahead of Paul Wrigley and Ian Hoskins.