Cybury Gooners (1) 2 - 2 (1) South London Raiders

Cybury Gooners vs South London Raiders               Sun 18th Feb 1996

at Market Rd, N London

Teams
Gooners: Ingles, King, Northcott (c), Moore, Vince, Adebowale, Rose, 
         Cooper, Skeels,  Brownjohn, Roberts
         Subs: Doherty, Dickson, Shulman

SLR: Unknown, though including the chap popularly known as Teddyw@nk

Result : Cybury Gooners        (1) 2    South London Raiders    (1) 2
Scorers: ? og 40, Skeels 90             ? 20, ? 80

Attendance: 6, including the 3 subs

Referee : Dickson

A disappointing performance on Sunday, and a rather deceptive result. In a game played in conditions which were not the easiest, Cybury created enough chances to have won easily, but spurned most of them. A blustery, at times gale force wind, made judging long passes difficult, and the problems in controlling the ball were exacerbated by the way it skidded off the wet astroturf. The spectacle was not helped by other climatic conditions which ranged from sun in the eyes, to rain, to sleet and hail.

Cybury lost the toss and kicked off the first half playing into the biting wind, but despite this managed to psuh forward to good effect and probably had slightly more of the game. The Raiders' attack mainly spent the half chasing long balls over the top to little effect, but they took advantage of the conditions by opening the scoring with a wind-assisted lob midway through the first half. Gaolkeeper Ingles rolled a pass out to left back Vince but left it a bit short, and the opposition striker nipped in and struck a shot from outside the area which exposed the stranded keeper's lack of inches, cleared him and dropped into the far corner.

Meanwhile at the other end Cybury had come close once or twice, with Skeels on the left and Cooper on the right raiding down the flanks to good effect on occasion. However, the closest they came to an early reply sprung from a defensive blunder. One of the Raiders' defenders dwelt too long on the ball just outside his own area and Brownjohn darted in to dispossess him. He then took the ball on into the area and looked up to see his co-striker Roberts unmarked in front of goal about 8 yards out. He knocked the ball square, but Roberts' first touch wasn't quite good enough, and allowed the keeper to get across and divert his shot for a corner.

It was nonetheless a great save, but Roberts had less of an excuse on another occasion when fullback Zorro drove forward down the right and delivered a lovely little cross which found Roberts unmarked about 10 yards out. His sidefooted half-volley wasn't quite accurate enough though and skidded a foot or two wide of the far post.

Another good move saw Cooper picking up the ball in the center circle, neatly slipping past one of the Raiders' non-plussed midfielders and playing a lovely 'defence splitting pass' to release Brownjohn on the left. He then made a nice run and released the one and only Skeelsy who crossed into the box where the ball eluded everyone.

The equaliser eventually did arrive a few minutes before half time. The ball came to Adebowale, who after some clever twisting and turning with three defenders around him, laid the ball down the line for Skeels to chase. Skeelsy outpaced the defenders to the ball, cut back inside and delivered a potentialy poor cross into the box. The SLR defender under no pressure whatsoever decided to head the ball straight into his own net.

Half time gave manager King the chance to rearrange the team slightly, following the observation that the Cybury midfield had not got enough of a grip on the game because they were playing too far apart. Skeels was moved into the hole behind the two strikers while Cooper moved slightly more inside to create a more compact midfield trio.

With the aid of the wind at their backs this seemed to do the trick for Cybury for the first 25 minutes of the half. The Gooners dominated possession and Ingles and his defence were barely troubled by the SLR attack, though on one occasion some confusion resulted in Ingles having to come out to block a shot, and the opposition forward was unlucky to see the ball ricochet just wide of the post.

The main problems for Cybury were at the other end where chances were being missed with depressing regularity. Brownjohn had two reasonable half chances, but couldn't decide what to do with the first as the ball came to him at waist height and ended up kneeing it well wide. Then Skeels dinked a little ball forward to him in the left side of the area, but lacking confidence on his left foot 'the Librarian' ended up stabbing it tamely at the keeper with the outside of his right.

Other breaks saw a couple of long range efforts from Adebowale screw badly wide, before eventually Cybury were very unlucky not to take the lead following another break down the middle. This time it was Cooper who connected with a lovely half-volley from just inside the 'D' which hit the inside of the post, pinged along the goal line and somehow didn't go in, missing the opposite post to go out for a goal kick.

Skeels also tarnished his hero image by missing two good chances. About 20 mins into the 2nd half, a long hopeful ball was played through for him to chase. With the ball bouncing he waited for it to come down to lob the keeper who was stranded at the edge of his box, from 25 yards. Unfortunately, he never directed the ball and it flew harmlessly past the post.

10 minutes later, with the keeper out of position, a short pass at the edge of the area by two SLR players allowed Skeels to steal in between them to hit a first time shot towards the empty goal. He managed however, looking like a puppet on a string and defying the laws of gravity, to lean so far back that he managed to put his shot 45 yards over the bar from 20 yards out. Maniacal laughter followed until some low flying aircraft were taken out by the ball. 1-0 Skeelsy. He knew exactly what he had in mind and those jets had been bothering him all game. He would have got away with it as well if it weren't for those pesky kids.

About 20 minutes before time, one of the SLR forwards pulled a muscle and limped back to take up a new position between the sticks, while the keeper replaced him in the outfield. The long break in play, and the subsequent retirement of another SLR player through injury seemed to unsettle the Gooners and they failed to press home their advantage.

It was thus no surprise when an SLR attack down the right gave them the lead again. A cross in from the wing found one of the strikers completely unmarked on the penalty spot. By his own admission this was partly down to centre half Moore, as he left the centre forward to challenge someone else, leaving his man free to go through and score, which he did at the second attempt, having fortuitously found the ball still at his feet after his first swing at it completely missed.

With only a few minutes left Cybury pressed desperately forward and eventually, in the injury time correctly played by the ref to allow for the goalkeeper change and a couple of lost balls hoofed over the fence by the increasingly desperate SLR defence, the Gooners got their reward with an equaliser from man of the moment Skeels.

With 45 seconds left, Rose played the ball out to Skeelsy who managed to beat the offside trap. He took two touches towards the box and unleashed a left foot shot from about 20 yards out from the left hand side of the box. The keeper was drawn near post and the ball sailed over his head into the far top corner of the net. 2-2, and the dispirited Raiders, after moaning about the amount of injury time (no more than 2 minutes) decided unilaterally that they'd had enough and the match ended without restarting. So in fact it was technically a win for the Gooners as the opposition walked off without the ref's permission.

At the post match press conference the Cybury manager Mark King was extremely pissed off with the team performance. "Gary missed 2 sitters. Darren missed 2 good chances. Al missed a decent chance and James hit the post with a cracking shot after some good work to get the chance" he commented. "We still refuse to pass simply, and 2 of our players will soon be taking up positions as librarians! Anyone put off by hailstones is a pussy and the only 3 players who could hold their heads up after this game were Chris, James and Pete."

His co-manager Mel Melis backed him up. "Watching the game from the sidelines was f***ing awful. I'm sorry, but it seemed we were just going throught the motions. They weren't a particularly strong side, but they made it difficult for us. The second half should have been a formality, with the wind and playing against 10 men for 25 mins. The play broke down so many times, the passing was wayward, the movement off the ball was sluggish and on occasion non-existent. With only a couple of exceptions, everyone had a poor game. I wasn't impressed!"

Captain Pete Northcott however, was less scathing. "The game featured some very sharp hail at one point in the second half. However, as skip, I can't quite leave it at that! The defence was generally fairly steady with, unfortunately, both their goals down to errors. I thought Adam was quite effective in midfield but those of us who had already played that weekend were less so... "

Another player to turn up to face reporters after the match also felt there were some positive aspects. Adam Rose commented "I'd like to think it was 'just one of those games'. We certainly created enough chances to have won easily. Also, we didn't give them any real chances apart from the goals (maybe one other). For a lot of the game, our movement was much better than usual. Gary's return helped a lot there. He took up good positions, and it was good to be able to pass from midfield to a striker with his back to goal, rather than look up to find everyone running away from me. I thought that when James played inside in the second half, we had our best passage of play."

He expounded further on tactical matters in the 2nd half. "I thought we had a good shape when Darren operated just behind the strikers, but moving wide where necessary, and got numbers forward, but we began to lose shape after about half an hour of the second half. I think that hailstorm probably unsettled people. However, that sort of performance should win matches. With a bit more sharpness in front of goal - at both ends - it will."

Centre back Matt Moore had some words of praise for the referee. "Skeelsy, who I gather was responsible for one or two misses, made up for it with a cracker from the side edge of the area, to more grumbles from the Raiders, none of whom had working watches it seemed. (I made it 3:12 KO to 3:59 which only allowed two mins for the change of keeper, plus two lost balls). Mr Dickson reffed fairly, and occasionally firmly (he was particularly firm with some brats who kept encroaching on the pitch)".

Report by Derek Brownjohn, aided and abetted by James Cooper, Mark King, Mel Melis, Matt Moore, Pete Northcott, Adam Rose, Darren Skeels and Simon Dickson.

Here's is the report from Teddyw@nk himself, sorry I mean, Rob Leslie. Remember to read this with plenty of salt at the ready. You have been warned!

GOONERS 2 (1) - SLR 2 (1)		

Market Rd  	18/2/96

SLR
Pete Christie, Ashley, Nick the Greek, Mike Christie, Pete Logie, Simon, 
Huw Neal, Rob Leslie, Jim Christie, Ray Garratt, Sean Graham.

GOONERS
11 misguided fools in cheap tops.

With 20 minutes gone, Jim Christie playing on his favoured right wing produced a text book lob to embarrass the diminutive Gooner keeper, all was set for hatful of goals. The Raider pressure continued throughout the first half although many chances were squandered as Jim's team-mates attempted to emulate his early strike. Whilst the Gooner midfield struggled for possession the Raiders squandered theirs with too many long balls to the forwards. Normally the combination of accurate balls and blistering pace up front is enough, but the wind was playing a large part in the game, certainly a larger part that the Gooners. Who for all their blustering managed to extend Pete Christie only once, showing tremendous agility for a big man he easily parried a shot near the end of the first half.

Disaster struck just before the half time break. A rare Gooner foray into Raider territory was finishing in the now familiar wasted cross, when the ball was caught by the wind, causing midfield dynamo Simon to head into his own net.

After a break of five minutes, the game restarted, the wind with the Cybury upstarts. The main beneficiary of a half time talk seemed to be the ref., obviously castigated by his 'team-mates' for being far too fair and unbiased. The Raiders were put under some pressure at the start of the half , although all the action occurred well outside their area.

With 15 minutes gone disaster struck as the marauding Ray Garratt pulled up with an injury to his leg. Ray was not finished though he bravely decided go between the sticks and allow Pete to take an on-field role. For much of the next 25 minutes the game reached a stalemate. The combination of some woeful Gooner shooting, and the fact that their defence were awarded a free kick for shouting offside. The only shot that might of needed attention from the new goalie was well left, hitting the post and going behind for a corner, Ray echoing that old maxim of an injured player, " I only go for the ones I have to". Unfortunately during this period, veteran Nick had to retire leaving the Raiders down to 10 men. A rumour circulated that Nick's youth on the North Bank may of played a part in his desire to even things up, or did he take a bung?

However with 10 minutes to go a Raider move started down the right wing, a combination of quick passes between Rob Leslie and Jim Christie baffled the opposition and left Simon to put a pin point ball onto the feet of the fleet footed Sean Graham. A deft dummy sent the goalie the wrong way and the score was 2 - 1.

A concerted effort by the Gooners followed, but not to much consequence. As the LARGE clock by the ground ticked its way to 3.55 the crowd were whistling. However the ref found time to add on from who knows where. In the fourth minute of extra-time after a Gooner attack only possible after an outragous offside was turned down had petered out, the Raider defence, who by now were worrying about making it to work on Monday, had a brief lapse in concentration. A speculative shot, taking a deflection and diverted by the wind looped in at the far post, 2 -2.

There was barely time for the kick off to be taken, when the ref blew up, he'd try to blow up between goal and kick off, but had to be advised on the rules.

A fair result, well if the Raiders were robbed in December, they were merely short changed in February.

Report by Rob "Teddyw@nk" Leslie