Match reports - November 24, 2007

NPL 1 1st XI 2 A win is a win, and after three defeats and a drew in the last four outings, anything is welcome. But against a side rotted at the bottom, without a win, and whose goal difference was minus 32, we could and should have done much better than this. After a dismal opening ten minutes,Gav Adair gave us the lead, Eds Copleston doubled it and we then dominated the half and should have had countless more. But NPL hit back after the break although we held on to take all three points.

Ladies 1 Croydon 2 On a bitterly cold Saturday morning we were fired up to play second-placed Croydon at TD. We went out hard and probably had slightly more possession throughout the first 20 minutes having some good scoring opportunities and a penalty corner just lifted over the bar by Mrs Mott. They too had some good opportunities and a couple of penalty corners making our defence of Ros, Rosie, Tux and Muriel work hard and forcing a couple of good saves from Katy. Unfortunately a debatable umpiring decision (sorry Armo - i'm sure you'll get your own back in your match report!), gave Croydon a penalty stroke - to be fair from and where I was standing it looked that way too. Croydon converted with an excellent flick that gave Katy little chance. Two minutes later a mix-up defending gave Croydon their second goal.

At half-time we knew it could easily be 2-2 at least and kept our heads up and played hard. Lots of running as always from the forwards of Caz, May and Nina. Within minutes we were attacking their circle with some great team work and movement by all. Before long Nikki had put the ball in the back of the goal and Armo had failed to see it hit her foot on the way in. Unfortunately Martin and the rest of the team didn't and the goal was quite rightly disallowed. Croydon continued to push for more goals and won more corners which we defended well. Eventually a goal came. Nikki slammed the ball past Croydon’s keeper after a penalty corner didn't go quite as planned. It didn't matter as we scored anyway! For the last 20 minutes we kept pushing hard and had some more close calls looking like we could easily equalise but just couldn't seem to finish. We won the second half but the damage had been done in the first. A good but unlucky performance by us, but an enjoyable game against a good and fair team. Jackie Joyce


3rd XI 0 Sanderstead 1 (Click here for photos) We failed to capitalise on a good win last week with a 0-1 loss at home. Before the match report commences, for the record, there were three qualified umpires playing for the us and two more on the sideline. We understand and appreciate the time, dedication and difficulties that being an umpire can entail and do not wish to detract from this in this report. We also appreciate the need to train new umpires as well and therefore endeavour to do so. Saying that, the opposition umpire was so inconsistent, power crazed and ineffective that we were always playing 12 men on the field, and in the closing moments of the game an opposition player felt he could get away with running 10 metres off the ball into the OC captain from behind. Not only is this dangerous it is a disgraceful display of umpiring delivery that this player only received a yellow card.

More importantly, the game. We started with strong optimism and pushed back on a still-to-be-bedded TD pitch. Although a little disjointed to being with, we began to find some consistency and movement from the ball. Stu and Jock once again held the back four in structure and ordered the central midfield well. Chris Bents and Armitage were holding the ball well and distributing to the flanks with the wind backs moving the ball up the line effectively. The first indications of problems occurred when a decision went the other way and without prior warning to the team or captain, the umpire responded by a shocked "what!" statement with the ball being moved up 10 metres. This was then repeated again and again, with almost every penalty being moved up the pitch. So often was the umpire’s fist raised in the air that he seemed to be auditioning for a part in a recreation of a Nuremburg rally. Any queries were greeted with a shout of “learn the rules”.

The opposition moved the ball fluidly in midfield and created some threatening attacks. Of particular note was their young right wing who will be a useful player for several years. The game continued openly until the umpire had an altercation with one of the supporters after he had called back a quickly-taken free hit in the middle of the pitch because he wanted it taken one meter – yes, one meter – further back. The supporter said "that's right Stu, move it back the full eight inches". The umpire immediately reversed the decision and, almost inevitably, also moved it back up the pitch ten meters – actually about 15 which made his original pettiness even more absurd. Two minutes later, the OC captain was called over to the sideline to be told that the supporter was being offensive, the captain went to the supporter and as doing so, the umpire stated that the supporter was questioning his every decision and being rude. The supporter (ironically Level 1 qualified) responded and it came down to the captain telling both the umpire and supporter to shut up although the umpire said he was going to have the supporter banned from the club! We would all like to know how he is going to do that!

Never-the-less, the game continued and some good play from both sides eventually led to a short corner which they capitalised from and a clean shot into the bottom right corner proved the only goal of the game. The remainder of the half showed some good play with Bruce and Chaz threatening up the flanks and Preston looking dangerous up front.

Half-time came and the team knew that consistent and structured play would deliver and some excellent attacks from Dave L, CD and Chris led to some good opportunities. Decisions were becoming more unpredictable, stick tackles and body checks were allowed with impunity and the game grew ever more fractious. As if to underline his incompetence, by this time the umpire was running up and down the middle of the pitch blowing decisions everywhere and on occasions getting in the way of the play.

We still pressed well and created chances but full credit to the Sanderstead who had an excellent game, keeping several attempts out as Chaz, Preston, Bruce and Dave all goalless.

Niggles grew as the half progressed whileTim had a great display of composure and confidence through-out the game kept two potentially crucial attacks at bay. As the game came to its conclusion, the aforementioned cowardly body-hit occurred. We will take the opportunity to say that other than that hit, the opposition were enjoyable to play against, an end-to-end game. We look forward to playing them later in the season but do request a different umpire.

Man-of-the-match, Tim Judd and you can make your own conclusions who d;@! of the day was.

At this point we should reiterate that these reports are not the view of the club and are purely personal reflections on matches!

View from the sideline While echoing Armo's general sentiments, and congraulating the side on not losing their collective cools, it was not so much that the official in question didn't know the rules - he knew enough - but that he didn't have a clue how to apply them. So a cynical body check or violent stick-tackle just got a standard hit and no warning - and that applied to both sides - the mildest of questioning was severely punished. The sole reason the game started getting fractious towards the end was that lack of any control. Full marks to Jackie for keeping things flowing at the other end despite her colleague increasing taking a central midfield role and attempting to officiate the entire pitch.