Cybury Gooners 1 (0) ALS 1 (0) Mark Williams 88 Steve Matthews 50 1. Tony Fullman 1. Fraser Frizelle 2. Mark King 2. Neil Snoxell (subd) 3. Mike Doherty 3. Mel Melis (c) (subd) 4. Malcolm Dick 4. Sav Melis 5. Alan Adebowale 5. Mike Newing 6. Pete Northcott (c) 6. Andy Niblett 7. Simon Dickson 7. Gary Menezes 8. Julian Shulman (subd) 8. John Dolan 9. Matt Powell 9. Pete Marrache (subd) 10.Mark Williams 10. Iain Dolan 11.Adam Rose (subd) 11. Steve Matthews Subs: D.Brownjohn, M.Melis Subs : M.Evans, G.Leadbetter ALS man of the Match : Sav Melis Cybury Man of the Match : Alan Adebowale
A weakened Cybury side battled hard and got a well deserved draw against an ALS team trying out a new formation with a sweeper and strict man to man marking. The first half saw chances fall to Dickson (who shot over when clean through), Powell, (just missing a cross on the far post) and Rose (who stumbled at the last minute before being tackled). Cybury missed the goalscoring presence of the injured Derek Brownjohn (on the bench), and absentees Gary Roberts and Darren Skeels (boozing, smoking and sharking in Germany), and for all their efforts, the makeshift Cybury forward line was kept out with relative ease. As ALS began to settle in their new formation, chances dried up for Cybury, and the impressive sweeper Sav and his defenders shut the door to the Cybury forwards.
At the other end, Iain Dolan, making a welcome return for ALS looked out of form (in the past ALS' most dangerous forward). He was well marshalled by Alan Adebowale, who stuck close and won the ball with excellent timing. ALS had few chances in the first half, but their passing and movement was improving all the time, and by now all the defenders knew what the fuck they were meant to be doing in the five man defence so alien to them.
The second half started well for ALS with a goal. Matthews striking home at the near post from 6 yards out. The debutant keeper Fullman had no chance. That's 2 in 2 games vs Cybury for West Ham fan Matthews.
As the second half progressed it was looking more and more like Cybury would lose, as ALS tackled hard in defence of their goal. Niblett and S.Melis also brought the ball forward as much as possible, filling the gap in midfield. Cybury had the benefit of the breeze in the second half too, but this proved to be of little benefit as ALS passed well and kept the ball on the ground (for a change).
Bright spots for Cybury was the central midfield pairing of Dick and Williams, Malcolm D playing the midfield anchor role and Williams in a more advanced position. Both are not afraid to stick the boot in and both have good control and positional sense. They worked hard against the three pronged midfield of J.Dolan, Menezes and Matthews.
Cybury brought on their subs, Brownjohn and M.Melis (the latter doing a quick shirt change) coming on for Shulman and the spritely Rose. The last 20 minutes was more of the same, very few shots from either side and more frustration for Cybury.
But with 2 minutes to go, the ball broke to Williams and from fully 30 yards, struck a screamer into the roof of the net. Soon after that, the match was over. Overall, a draw was the fairest result.
Report by Mel "Judas II the sequel" Melis
TEAM: Tony F.; Mark K, Pete N, Al A, Mike D; Malcolm; Simon D, Mark W, Adam R; Matt P, Julian S. Subs: Derek B for JS, 'Judas' Melis for Adam(?), about 70 mins Cybury goalscorer: Mark Williams, 85 mins-ish
After the goalfest of the previous encounter, it was a much more Arsenal-like performance by the Cybury boys in a tight,gritty friendly which we dominated for long periods without really managing to convert the pressure into goals.
The evening began disastrously for myself and Pete Northcott, as Traffic Armageddon almost made us arrive late. But, we made it with only 10 minutes to spare, and immediately took the field for the second Cybury fixture. A few changes had to be made to the previously published line-up, with Julian Shulman and Matt Powell starting up front in place of Derek & Gary, although Derek did come on towards the end.
The difference in coherency was immediately obvious, with good understandings developing across the back and up the two wings. On the left, Adam Rose made a lot of promising runs from deep, and I found myself getting a lot of possession on the right (ta Mark). The centre of midfield was much tighter than last time, with Mark and Malcolm holding it all up well, but not managing to get forward so much. Matt and Julian had a hard time getting any joy from a close marking defence, with Pete and Al doing an equally effective job at the back for us. I think Mike Doherty had a good game, but since he was on the opposite side of the pitch for the whole game, and I didn't have any contact lenses on, I couldn't see him.
We almost got caught out in the first couple of minutes, my fault I'm afraid, but the chance was wasted... which said it all. ALS couldn't have had more than 3 or 4 shots of any sort all night, and although we had infinitely more possession, we couldn't do much better. I know I should have at least hit the target when I got some space in the box and found myself bearing down on the keeper, but my shot spun the wrong side of the top corner - to many (unnecessary) cries of "Bergkamp!" S;D Later I had another shot into the side netting, and Derek had a couple of decent cracks when he came on, but really it just didn't happen.
We went in 0-0 at half time: a totally fair scoreline. Then, within a couple of minutes of the restart, ALS took a shock lead. A pretty hectic goalmouth scramble resulted from an unfortunate miskick in our own 6-yard box, and some lucky poacher managed to stick it in. I don't think we could believe it... we were playing them off the park, and yet we were 1-0 down. There was a noticeable but brief increase in commitment from the Gooners, but the game gradually became all too tight once more.
Midway through the 2nd half, Derek came on up front, and Mel switched sides... (which forced me to mark the Scottish chap with whom I had had a fair old tussle in the last game. And pretty quickly we were at it again - joint responsibility I suppose.) But Derek gave us a bit of pace and spirit up front, and the service started to get through a bit better, although we were probably asking a bit too much of him most of the time. Sorry Derek.
I knew we'd get an equaliser, but when it came, it was a beauty - classic Arsenal stuff. With no more than 5 mins to go, Mark Williams let fly from 25 or 30 yards, and the keeper couldn't stop it hitting the back of the net. I couldn't help a scream of relief: we certainly deserved it, but all too often that's not enough. We kept pushing to get a winner, but it wasn't to be. The call of "Time gentlemen please!" served as a final whistle, and we made our ways home with a draw, and a performance to be reasonably proud of.
We did almost everything right all evening - very solid defensive play, good build-up, and a lot of jinking little runs here and there. But for all our domination we should have had twice or three times the number of shots on goal. The next game is on SUNDAY 8 OCTOBER, at the Civil Service Sports Grounds in Chiswick, against a bunch of mates of mine. I don't think there's any doubt that we'll win it - but I'll be a lot happier if we can get a slightly more productive front line together for it. The game against the 'internet hotspurs' is getting closer all the time. I just hope they know what they're letting themselves in for... heh heh heh.
Report by Simon "Lee" Dickson
Teams
Cybury: Fullman?, King, Northcott, Adebowale, Docherty, Dick, Dickson,
Williams, Rose, Shulman, Powell
Subs: Brownjohn (Shulman 70), Melis (Rose 70)
ALS: Dunno, I'm sure Mel can fill us in.
Result : ALS (0) 1 Cybury Gooners (0) 1
Scorers: Pony tailed bloke 50 Williams 88
Bookings: None, but one or two flare ups mainly involving Dickson and
a Glaswegian Hun
Att : 1 (Off-duty copper who arrived midway through the 2nd half)
Referee : by consensus
First of all, apologies for the lack of a match report on the West Ham game. I managed to miss the entire first half after we got stuck in a traffic jam on the North Circular for two hours. I was away on Monday anyway, so the long term memory loss induced by reaching my age would probably have precluded it anyhow.
But I digress. Back to last night. Simon has already give a reasonable version of events, so I'll just fill in and embellish where I see fit. The team was not quite as printed in your match programme, with the main changes up front. Gary Roberts failed to turn up. Brownjohn did but wimped out of playing the whole match, claiming a back injury sustained in a game last week. Another consequence of reaching my age - physical decrepitness frequently rears it's ugly head.
Cybury certainly dominated the opening minutes of the match, though without creating much in the way of real chances. ALS were fielding a significantly stronger team than in the previous fixture and playing five at the back which restricted the Gooners' stand-in strikers Matt Powell and Julian Shulman to no more than fleeting opportunities.
There were several good moves from Cybury in the first half, particularly down the right, with Mark King, Mark Williams and Simon Dickson all combining well to get across one or two dangerous crosses. Malcolm Dick was tackling tigerishly in midfield, while Adam Rose and Mike Docherty were finding a lot of space on the left. On a couple of occasions Adam had a half chance, but unluckily screwed his shots wide of the far post.
As the half wore on though, the game became more even, and ALS caused a scare in the Cybury defence. An uncharacterstic slip by 'The Boss' King let in an ALS forward who was promptly upended by the outrushing keeper just outside the box wide on the left. The keeper redeemed himself though, palming the dangerously inswinging free kick out from under his bar and the danger was cleared.
Towards the end of the half ALS began to put some more dangerous moves together, but any real chances were quickly snuffed out by Cybury's two defensive pillars, Pete Northcott and Alan Adebowale, both of them putting in outstanding performances reminiscent of Adams and Bould.
At the other end though, the Gooners were creating probably the better chances. A ball bouncing dangerously in the area broke to Simon and left him with only the keeper to beat. He took his time and carefully sliced the ball over from about 8 yards, a la Bergkamp last Saturday. Mark W then produced a beautifully flighted diagonal cross from the left which big Matt just failed to get his head to, perhaps put off by the keeper flapping ineffectually at the ball. Julian too had his moments, unluckily pulling a couple of shots wide of the post.
With the strong breeze at our backs in the second half, Cybury had more trouble coming to terms with the conditions. Through balls put over for the forwards to chase tended to just skip away, and given that we were chasing the game for much of the half, it was a tough job. About five minutes after the break, a bit of a scramble in the Cybury area ended when the ball broke to one of the ALS midfielders and from about five yards out he couldn't really miss.
However, the Gooners kept plugging away and began increasingly to dominate possession as ALS settled for trying to keep their lead. About 20 minutes from time, after extensively warmups and exersizes, I could resist the temptation no longer and decided to risk the back. Julian came off, and at the same time Mel swapped sides and replaced Adam.
And, err, I did, well, not a lot really. I did run about quite a lot to be fair, and the back held up and is only slightly stiff this morning. The last ten minutes was virtually one way traffic as we laid seige to the ALS goal, though they did have a couple of chances to wrap the game up on the break.
Alan moved up front in a last desperate attempt to bolster our attack while Malcolm moved back to cover for him. Simon came very close to equalising, following up some good work down the right with a stinging shot from an angle which went into the side netting. The deserved equaliser finally came, in traditional Arsenal fashion about two minutes from time. Mark W picked up the ball about 30 yards out and smashed in an absolute screamer which the keeper made a brave effort to keep out but succeeded only in singeing his fingers.
All out attack for the final two minutes, ably stretched by the, umm, unbiased timekeeper Julian, failed to produce the winner we strove for. All in all, not a bad performance against a stronger team than last time. Still unbeaten, so let's hope to keep it up for our next fixture in two and a half weeks.
Report by Derek Brownjohn
Under extremely tricky conditions the boyz done good. If playing on astro isn't hard enough when it's windy it's worse. A stirling performance against a team that in my opinion were better than us on paper. Early on als caused us a few problems with our midfield seemingly unable to get to grips with theirs. Too often a deep als midfield run was not tracked back resulting in unnneccessary pressure on the ever reliable petesball northcott and unflappable big al. (sorry lads i was knackerd/couldn't be arsed) mark knig at right back seemed to be the starting point of most of our attacking moves, especially in the first half. If anyone remebers how oleary used to play the ball down the right touchline, ie points curls a beauty into the corner, that was mark king last night. he even managed to be old and slow like him too (thats a joke boss). At left back mike D was absolutely outstanding, my man of the match easily. the als right winger was absolutely shat on from a great height. i remember only one occassion wher he managed to get past mike and even then our very own nige (well nige a few years back anyway) recovered to make the tackle. one moment that especially springs to mind was close to full time, we were 1-0 down and they had a break..2 on 1... mike calmly strides upfield with the ball following a real tony adams last ditch effort. superb. Someone mnetioned malcolm was tigerish i'd say more friggin mental... anyone who slides as often as that on astro is a few screws short of being julian dicks....perhaps it's to do with the surname i don't know. on the wings adam and simon worked up and down all night making fine runs infield for the through ball both getting into very good positons on a number of occassions but just lacked the killer touch infront of goal. up front we played with two traditonal english centre forwards. ie big not exceptionally quick. both were magnificent, holding the ball up and touching off intelligently before spinning off the marker to make the run behind the centrebacks, clearly both had been given alan smith videos last chrimbo. matt was unlucky not to score on a couple of occassions wher he intelligemtly pulled to the back post to fairly closely by the narrowest of margins to get a clean contact on the ball, one after good work by king and a depp cross from simon. shulman was unfortunate not to score after waltzing through the als defence early in the game. all in all a tidy performance, defensively fairly sound....this is the number one priority for us obviously......and still unbeaten.....and still the likes of gary and the hedonist (skeels) to come back into the squad. roll on the scum.
Report by Mark Williams