Cybury Gooners vs Accrington Stanley Bowles Sun 10th Mar 1996
at Regents Park, London
Teams
Gooners: Ingles, King, Northcott (c), Adebowale, Doherty, Rose,
Dick, Cooper, Melis, Brownjohn, Shulman
Subs: Skeels (Doherty 65), Palmer (Shulman 80)
ASB: Pieris, Sherwin, Kemp, Orsmond, Williams, Easton, Pemble,
Papps, Vadon, Mangion, Morgan, in no particular order, + a scummer
Result : Cybury Gooners (1) 1 Accrington Stanley Bowles (1) 4
Scorers: Brownjohn 30 Williams 15,46, Kemp 65, Orsmond 78
Attendance: approx 5
Referee : ?
In the second Internet London derby at Regent's Park last Sunday, the Cybury Gooners crashed to defeat against a skilful and committed QPR mailing list team, the Accrington Stanley Bowles. It was a distressingly inept performance on a bumpy pitch which had less grass than a small time pot pusher. The state of the pitch was no excuse though because the opposition coped admirably, and with the more skilful players and greater desire thoroughly deserved their victory.
The state of disarray amongst the Gooners became apparent soon after kickoff. One of the ASB midfielders waltzed unopposed through the Cybury defence down the left and crossed into the middle to find one of his unmarked forwards. Unfortunately the ball took an nasty bobble and the ball crashed against the top of the crossbar.
For a team who had trained together only twice previously, ASB displayed remarkable cohesion and took a firm grip on the game with some skilful running and interpassing between their midfield and forward line. On the other side, Cybury's performance was best characterised by midfielder James Cooper. Imagine a foreigner with a hangover, who doesn't speak or read any English getting off the train at Waterloo, having a rough idea where he wants to go but not having a f*****g clue about how to go about it. The sight of this poor lost soul in the middle of the packed concourse would be something akin to Cooper's pathetic performance on Sunday.
It was thus no surprise when the Rangers' representatives took the lead. Once again a ball in from wide on the right picked out an unmarked forward in the area, and he had a simple job of slotting home from a few yards out.
In contrast, at the other end the Cybury strikers made a mockery of the term. The vocally challenged Derek Brownjohn cocked up one of the few scoring chances the bumbling Gooners somehow found falling their way. Chasing a hoof forward, he engineered an opportunity by pushing an opposition defender in the back as the ball bounced. This left him with an easy chance to volley home from 6 yards, but he forgot the first rule of football and took his eye off the ball, which ended up some distance wide of the corner flag.
The play of co-striker Julian Shulman meanwhile reminded watching spectators of the similarity between Bergkamp and ... Beavis, and definitely gave the appearance of the latter rather than the former, huh huh huh. Unfortunately everyone else was playing Butt-Head to his Beavis.
However eventually, about half an hour into the match Cybury somehow fashioned an equaliser which owed more to luck than skill or judgement. Brownjohn again chased a ball down the middle which I think was probably shinned forward by Malcolm Dick. As the keeper came out to meet him he was seized by a blind panic and wildly swung his right boot in the vague direction of the ball. By sheer good fortune it connected, but appeared to be bobbling wide of the post.
Lady Luck smiled beneficiently on the boys in red and white though, because the ball took a sudden diversion as it bounced against one of the numerous ruts in the pitch, and rebounded back into play off the post. Brownjohn was in the act of turning away to appeal to the ref for a non-existent corner, so was amazed and bemused to discover the ball cannoning off the instep of his left foot (which is generally used fewer times in a football match than a tart's chastity belt in an orgy) and into the unguarded net.
Unbelievably the scores were still level at half time, and indeed the Gooners almost took the lead on one occasion, which would have made the scoreline a travesty. Adam Rose made a valiant attempt to leather the ball into the top left hand corner but sliced it badly and ended up narrowly missing the opposite angle.
During the break Zorro King attempted to rally his unmotivated troops, "You're playing like f***ing S***s!". His exhortations for more effort, louder communication and better passing apparently fell on deaf ears though, because ASB regained the lead straight from the kickoff as the Gooners performed a creditable impression of the Keystone Cops.
It started at the kickoff itself as Butt-Head Brownjohn and Beavis Shulman both attempted to take it at the same time. This resulted in a hurried pass by the former to Rose who was no longer in the accustomed position, and one of the ASB strikers quickly nipped in to gain possession. The ball was then moved quickly forward down the right and crossed into the 6 yard box. With the Cybury defence standing like statues and watching, the opposition striker had a simple job of tapping home from two yards.
Cybury's normally solid defence now started falling to pieces and even Captain Pete Northcott was unable to marshall things effectively. He had prepared well for the afternoon game - by warming up with a hard, competitive 90 minute outing... that morning! His ageing, creaking limbs were not up to dealing with the carthorse-ensemble that was ASB's forward line - and the Corporal Jones-style "Don't Panic!" screams did not engender great composure amongst his defensive colleagues.
The skipper's main contribution to the game consisted of ambling forward for set pieces, not getting on the end of them, and then ambling back. He failed, even, to win his usual share of heading duels at the back. Only 5 months younger than Nigel Winterburn, similar feelings of "Over the Hill" were experienced by the (un)massed support.
The QPR representatives were thus able to take advantage of yet more slapdash play in the demoralized Gooners' ranks and rattled in two more goals to help the scoreline reflect the game more realistically. For the third goal, Chief Keystone Cop, Guardian of the Nets Ingles called to leftback Puller Melis to leave a weak shot for him to collect. He then flapped ineffectually at the ball as it trundled in slow motion past him into the net. His claims that it took a nasty bobble just as he was about to pick it up were received with some suspicion by his disgruntled teammates. You wouldn't see a Premiership goalkeeper conceding a goal like that, would you?
Melis had been a passenger for most of the first half, but took encouragement when the ball was slammed into his testicles at 400mph, thus stopping the ball from going for a throw. His teammates patted him on the back saying "Nice tackle", when "bruised tackle" might have been more appropriate.
His shots in the second half were steadily getting nearer the goal. The first went backwards, towards half way. The second showed Rob Andrew like accuracy, pinpointing the corner flag and giving away a throw. The third was a magnificent drop goal attempt which sailed thirty yards over the bar and the fourth sort of vaguely went near the net. Had the match lasted 4 hours, he would most certainly have scored.
Even the introduction of topscorer Darren Skeels (who broke down twice that day, once on the way to the game, and again in tears while watching it from the sidelines) midway through the 2nd half failed to revive Cybury's fortunes, and when ASB claimed their fourth with a cracking shot from just inside the area it was no more than they deserved. It was a real Sunday parks football performance from the Cybury Gooners, and it is to be hoped will not be repeated.
In a post match interview, an unnamed spectator with one arm round an amply proportioned brunette, a beer in the other and a fag in his mouth said, "Skeels was a breath of fresh air in an unusually stagnant Cybury side and came close to scoring towards the end of the game. However, a player of his capacity cannot be expected to play on a pitch like that"
Report compiled by Derek Brownjohn with contributions from James Cooper, Mel Melis, Pete Northcott, Julian Shulman and Darren Skeels, and permission from the boss.