Cybury Gooners vs Clubcall Sun 24th Mar 1996
at Market Road, N London
Teams
Gooners: Ingles, King, Northcott (c), Fullman, Vince, Adebowale,
Cooper, Palmer, Melis, Powell, Skeels
Subs: Roberts (Skeels h-t)
Clubcall: ? including Phil Carling and a big Scouser who was a dead
ringer for that actor who always plays the token black
scouse heavy on TV, and was their best player.
Result : Cybury Gooners (1) 3 ClubCall (1) 4
Scorers: Melis 35,80, Adebowale 70 ? 20, ? 60, ? 75, big Scouser 89
Attendance: 3 and a half
Referee : Shulman/Brownjohn
Cybury's dramatic slump in form continues, as the Gooners contrived to lose this game to a last minute goal which went in with the aid of a deflection. In an attempt to arrest the slide, Manager Mark King controversially dropped ace striker Derek Brownjohn who responded by going into a sulk and refusing to get changed, claiming he was suffering from a knee injury.
There were a number of other absentees and late arrivals, which forced Zorro into several changes to his carefully prepared game plan. With the late arrival of Gary Roberts, Darren Skeels partnered Matt Powell up front in a frequently changed Cybury lineup. Skeels was carrying a foot injury from a game he played that morning in which he went off injured. With the absence of a late pre-match fitness check, Manager King decided to gamble on an unfit striker.
Powell had the fun of being jostled around in a number of possible positions. First he was on the bench, then the newly bearded manager informed him he might be starting in some kind of defensive position. In the changing room he was informed he was definitely going to play as centre-half in a 5 man defence. Then just before kick-off he found he was up front in a 4-4-2 formation instead.
The expected Market Road weather didn't quite live up to expectations. The freezing cold, strong blustery wind was there as normal, but there was no hail or snow during the game. The first half ref was appropriately dressed for the occasion in his army coat, goose stepping around the pitch and threatening to execute anyone who disagreed with his decisions. The whereabouts of one Darren Skeels is now unknown after questioning an offside decision given against him. The ref's response at the time was "I vill be doing the questioning around here, ja".
The match started quite lively and with ClubCall initially playing with a flat back four, an early through ball which bounced through to the keeper, gave an insight into the pace of Skeels. Making a diagonal run, the defenders kept up until the final ball came through. From that point, Clubcall moved their experienced centre half, Mick from Brookside, into a sweeper position. The only real chances Skeels had from that point he wasted.
First, from a long through ball from Adebowale, Skeels chased the ball to the edge of the area only to see his lob over the keeper woefully misdirected. A couple of similar instances followed, but time and time again, ClubCall's 5 man defence tidied up any long balls. The only clear chance Skeels had was when he beat the offside trap in the box, took the ball on his chest only for Hitler Shulman to blow his whistle for offside before Skeels had a chance to bury it.
Clubcall went ahead against the run of play and the wind, when one of the strikers was allowed to get free just outside the area on the left. He fired in a well struck shot that keeper Chris Ingles nonetheless seemed to have covered. However, showing a genteelness not normally associated with members of the Met, the Keystone Cop's attempt to usher the ball past the post, came to grief. While waving it politely through, he was aghast to discover it swerving violently into the net, doing some damage to one of his fingers on it's way past.
When questioned about the incident Inspector Ingles reported "I was standing facing an easterly direction wearing a replica kit of one David Seaman (well know Yorkshireman and England goal keeper) observing a group of 21 middle aged youths playing a game with a spherical white object I now know to be a size 5 football. One of the middle aged gents was running in a westerly direction approaching me at high speed (I would estimate to be in excess of the speed limit for a pedestrian)"
"This middle aged gent, an IC3 of doubtful appearance, was wearing a black and white striped shirt (unbelievably he was not carring a sack with SWAG on his back), he is now know to me as "big Mick the scouser". On approaching him he let his right booted foot strike the football, the ball was speeding towards me, I dived for cover, unfortunately the ball hit my hand causing a reddening and bruising."
Fortunately, Cybury soon equalised with a goal of stunning quality, when a perfectly judged 40 yard lobbed cross from Mel Melis dropped over the flailing keeper and into the net. The secret training sessions Melis and Powell had been having paid off at last. The latter's cry of "Melis!" meaning "The keeper's off his line, lob him and me and Skeelsy will barge him over the line if it doesn't go in" led to the first Cybury goal.
Skeels went close with a couple of near post headers from King corners, and another chance went begging at the end of the first half when Skeels received the ball on the right, turned the defender and fed the ball through to Al Adebowale. Al, with all the time to line up one of his pile drivers that we saw in the second half, chose to lay the ball back to Skeels but the pass was overhit and the ball ran through to the goalkeeper.
Just before the final whistle another high ball for Skeels to chase resulted in Skeels pushing Mick from Brookside into his own keeper in order to deceive the keeper and allow the ball to run for an easy tap in. All that resulted though was Mick getting winded and then Adolf blew for half time.
Generally a few dodgy decisions from Julian 'Adolf' Schulmann who was sportingly acting as ref, including one when he blew for a hand ball from Skeels which didn't even hit his chest, let alone his hand, culminated into a frustrating first half for Cybury's top scorer.
At half time, Skeels came off the pitch as he no longer had any movement in his right foot (the one he doesn't use for standing when he shoots) and Gary Roberts took his place. Roberts had eventually arrived midway through the first half, claiming his girlfriend had led him astray. He also blamed her for some faulty mapreading which had got them lost on the way to the ground.
With the wind behind them in the second half, and replacement ref Librarian Brownjohn hobbling around way behind the play giving a few "home" decisions, Cybury should have gone on to win the match comfortably. It was not to be though, as Clubcall threw big Mick up front and adapted better to playing into the wind.
They went ahead from a corner when the wind was used to good effect, as the ball was swung in to the far post where a free header was tucked neatly away. However, Cybury pulled it back again when more evidence of Melis and Powell's secret sessions became obvious when a clever interchange of passes between them at a free-kick gave Melis the chance to set up Adebowale for a net buster from 25 yards.
Powell then set up the chance for Cybury to take the lead with a pass from the left hand side of the penalty area which fell to James Cooper who managed to miss by about 6 inches. But it was eventually Clubcall who took the lead again, when the big Scouser poached another goal against the run of play.
As Cybury pressed desperately forward in search of another equaliser, Powell was soon again in the thick of the action. The Clubcall keeper discovered he could open his hand and managed to get a finger to Nick Palmer's cross from the right that was destined to be Powell's first headed goal for Cybury. At the other end he contributed to the confusion that frequently reigned in Cybury's defence when he managed to completely fool Mark King into letting a corner hit the post by yelling "Leave!" at Tony Fullman to leave the man Powell was marking.
Eventually, a few minutes from time Cybury did grab their 3rd equalising goal. Some good approach work from Roberts set up Melis on the edge of the area, and he cracked in a left foot drive which bulleted past the keeper from 20 yards.
Keeper Ingles then redeemed himself and kept the scores level with a superb diving save to fingertip a long range effort round the post, before, with just seconds to go before the final peep of the ref's whistle, a Cybury match at Market Rd yet again produced a last minute goal. Unfortunately this time it was for the opposition.
Clubcall's big Scouser picked up the ball in midfield and proceeded to waltz his way past at least three tackles to leave himself free in the area. He then hesitated before producing a shot which the keeper, with his newly enlarged finger, easily had covered. Unfortunately Keith Vince came flying across in a valiant and desperate attempt to block, but succeeded only in diverting the shot just inside the near post, with poor old Inspector Ingles completely wrong footed.
After the match, manager Mark King was despondent. "I can't believe we didn't win, let alone avoid defeat. They adapted to playing into the wind much better than we did, although tiredness probably came into it. We still tackle like fannies as well. We have to improve on the consist- ency of team selection. On Sunday, second half, we were missing 7 players who could have got on the pitch, and without some of those players, it seems we can't compete with even ordinary teams like Clubcall, let alone other list sides."
"In the 20 minutes leading up to kick-off we had to change the team and formation from that picked 2 days earlier, 3 players dropping out Sunday morning, and 1 injuring himself playing that morning. I fail to see how we can possibly do ourselves justice in these circumstances. We've lost our Dick for a month, and now Cooper is away for the whole Summer. I have noticed heads beginning to drop and players becoming frustrated at the performances of late, mainly because I'm one of them!"
Report compiled from contributions by Matt Powell, Darren Skeels, Julian Shulman, Mark King and Chris Ingles. Put together into some semblance of order by Derek Brownjohn.