|
Hachioji Park, Sun 4th Feb. A game which on paper should have been relatively easy. A game that wasn’t and yet a game that saw the Vags play some of the silkiest fluid football that has probably ever been seen in Vagland. Very strange.
First off, hats off to Shane who kept running the full 80 minutes and really made a game of it despite only being level for a short time in the entire match.
Richard’s totally low key non-existent pre-match talk had the desired effect and Vags started off comfortably and after a fairly scrappy 10 minutes began to assert themselves a bit…..with Carlos new and Steve also making his debut, in the ‘one to tell my grandkids’ hallowed Vags kit, finding shape and what everyone else was doing made for a strange first half.
Once things had settled a bit, Muzzy gave the Vags a surreal ‘we have gone ahead’ feeling with a Romario toe poke from 15 yards after the initial exchanges. Graham almost convinced me of his 7 a-side brilliance when taking the ‘wrong option’ and firing a fantastic effort from an acute angle pinging off the post.
The unusual feeling got better when an unbelievable throw from Lyndsey ‘apples in the corner if anybody wants’ Hughes landed right on the famed neck muscles of Mr T Sparkes who promptly dispatched it past the goalie.
Everything going fine……….and……….hefted ball into the box……dodgy header, dodgy catch…..drop….oops 2-1.
And then back to what should have been reality….Alex comes on. Carlos picks up a ball deep in Vags territory, crisp driven pass to the half way line, chested and knocked in one movement by Maz, touched to Simon who plays it through to Alex who destroys the defence for pace and knocks it past the keeper. End to end and brilliant.
So Vags go on to dominate? Well not exactly. Shane finish well just before half time 3-2 and then early in the second half peg it back. Fair play but game on.
The Vags, even having lost a couple of goals were playing excellent sweeping football at times, last season seemed a distant memory. Alex’s pace was causing mayhem, Steve just got more and more into the game, Gary Q began to dominate the defence and Carlos started to spray a few 40 yard passes around. Special note goes out to Maz though who has the ability to lift things when they get ropey. It wasn’t a showy game for him, but the moment it went to 3-3 he picked things up and within a few minutes we were back in front again…..Alex once more being put through to finish tidally. From then on Vags seemed comfortable and Alex persistently skinned their defence, Francis offering nice link play at times. Things should have been over when Alex notched his 7th goal in 2 games but Shane kept plugging away and more. During the entire match they harried and really kept at it until the end. 10 minutes to go they got a somewhat dodgy free kick (in a match that was impeccably refereed). Going for the rather strange option (at this level) of laying it back for a 30 yard strike it was hit brilliantly and Taylor responded to with a BIG flying one-handed parry and the game thereafter followed its natural course.
Oh, and Ged got booked. (the previous sentence is copied and I just paste every report).
A strange game. The strongest squad we have had this season…..the best football we have played this season – lovely 5 or 6 passes from end to end 7 or 8 times during the game and yet it wasn’t too comfortable..
A bit of Simon and Maz’s bite will be needed to take things to the next stage.
Report by Steve Taw
|