Year: 2015

EBOG Reserves 2 – 1 Merton Reserves

Saturday 7^th March 2015

Attendance: c.10

As has become Team Handsome routine for north London away trips, Saturday started at Giraffe at Kings Cross where a wonderful session of coffee, snacks and compliment exchanges was enjoyed by all. Richard Moore elected to turn up without wearing any Merton attire and received his first strike of the day. Willy T, having travelled down from his north London home to receive some compliments, then enjoyed a relatively hassle-free trip back up the Northern line with the rest of the team save for the now-standard attention the team receives from the female half of the general public.

Shortly before reaching the EBOG clubhouse, after a reasonably long walk from the tube, Richard Moore decided he couldn’t wait to get to the toilets and relieved himself in some nearby bushes. An EBOG spectator stopped his car to express his displeasure at this turn of events. Strike two.

Fast forward to game time. The cliché ‘a game of two halves’ is thrown around a lot but this one really was. The first half being approximately 45 minutes and the second half roughly the same. The referee for the day really was a phenomenal time keeper – nothing more, nothing less.

At Handsome HQ we’re more than happy to come up with a range of excuses when we don’t win. The pitch was really terrible and unfortunately conducive to a long ball game which really isn’t what the current Handsomes are all about. We set up as a 3-5-2 which has worked well for us in the past but, on this pitch, a 5-0-5 might have worked better. Most of the early chances fell to Merton but the lottery of the bounce and some less than ideal finishing meant we didn’t capitalise.

Richard Moore was the victim of the first of 3 stonewall penalty shouts that Merton had turned down by the referee. The challenge itself being a wild, stud-up lunge taking man, ball and then more man. Richard unfortunately had to go off and was taken to the Handsomes’ favourite north London hospital earning strike three (and a predator on his return from injury) in the process. Ryan or Liam Stevens came on to replace Richard.

Merton hit the post and blasted over from 2 yards in a goal mouth scramble from a corner but EBOG were the only team to score in the first half with a long ball finished well with a lob over the onrushing DQ.

Constant pressure from Merton in the second half again wasn’t rewarded. We hit the underside of the bar through big Jase from another corner and missed numerous other chances. Willy T was clearly fouled twice in the box. Firstly getting a free-kick on the edge of the box instead of a penalty and secondly, unfathomably, getting a yellow card for diving.

With about 20 minutes to go EBOG got their second from a fortunate floated free-kick that went straight in. Nothing that stand-in keeper DQ could have done about that.

Eventually Merton scored with about 10 minutes to go. Yet another corner that came back out to Rayner who crossed again for Ryan or Liam Stevens to head home well. Further pressure came to nothing though – Willy T, Rayner and Cookie all failing to do anything from 4 free-kicks, each one about 25 yards out.

Overall some good individual performances in difficult conditions but just not quite enough. CrUsher and Wilgo dominated their opposing central midfielders, Egg and Cookie did well at the back (Egg managing to complete at least 3 of his c.50 attempted passes) and Conor, on the right, did well to hold his own against a rather competitive lunatic playing at left back.

Stand out performers though were Ryan or Liam Stevens running the show in the second half in midfield and Joe Griffin marshalling the back 3. They went home with the topless portrait of Wilgo and Egg.

[Show slideshow]

Team: Angus, Tom Rowe, Rat, Browner, Will Lowe, Tilley, Woody, Dan Whiteman, Vanny, Ackers, Bosher  Subs: Femi, Denis

A disappointing 5-2 loss for the 1’s this week, who again had to shuffle the line-up due to unavailability and suspensions.

After the initial jostling, the opposition opened the scoring from a counter attack 10 minutes into the first half. Poor midfield tracking and static defending allowed their winger to find himself with just Angus to beat, and calmly slotted home to give Winchmore Hill an early lead.

A controversial free-kick then doubled the visitors lead just 5 minutes later.  Whilst Angus was setting his wall, their striker hit the ball early into the open goal from 25 yards out. Despite Merton’s prolonged protests the goal was allowed to stand, and a somewhat embarrassed Winchmore Hill striker trotted back to the halfway line for the re-start.

The terrible decision rallied Merton, with the lads coming close to immediately pulling one back when Bosher was denied by the fingertips of the W.H. keeper following some smart build up play and a defence splitting pass. Both sides continued to battle evenly for the next 20 minutes, creating half-chances along the way. Tommy Rowe contained and continued to kick their left winger, comfortably the best player on the pitch. Ackers battled and held onto the ball up top, whilst at the back Rat marshalled many a long ball, with Will Low putting in a reassuringly solid shift at left back.

With Merton looking most likely to score the next goal, a lack of concentration when defending a corner allowed two free Winchmore hill players to combine, the latter deflecting the ball past Angus from close range. Merton were 3-0 down and facing an uphill battle when the Ref, clearly hoping to rectifying his earlier mistake, continued his bad form when giving Merton a lifeline just before half time. Despite Bosh’s shot quite visibly (and audibly!) striking the centre half square in the face, the Ref awarded Merton a penalty, which Acker’s proceeded to calmly slot home. A buoyed Merton went into the break 3-1 down.

The battle continued after the break with Merton edging closer to a comeback. The opposing keeper was never truly tested however, and with 25 minutes to go another free kick from the visitors proved Merton’s downfall. This time, the flight of a cross-come-shot from the left touchline deceived everyone including the keeper, sailing into the top corner to restore the visitors 3 goal advantage.

This was short-lived, as good work from Vanny and (a recently introduced) Femi down the right led to Merton’s second, with Femi’s cross met by Dan Whiteman whose bullet header disappeared into the top corner. Merton rallied further and continued to push forward in numbers with the lads feeling a result could be attained. Despite a few half chances no goal came, but the over-commitment allowed Winchmore Hill one further chance on the break and they proceeded to put the game firmly to bed with 5 minutes to go. 5-2.

The result, a second disappointing losses on the bounce. With a massive cup final this coming weekend the lads will need not need any more motivation to get back to winning ways.

Dan Whiteman

Another good day of football with the second Trophy Event of the year hosted by Carshalton.  The boys drew 0 -0 in their first game versus Wandgas, the winners of the tournament, after victory was prevented by the post in the dying seconds.

The second game versus Carshalton Athletic Blues was yet again a tight one, with our team taking the lead but subsequently going down 2 -1.  The team managed to re-establish the equilibrium with a great team effort, closing the score to 2 – 2.

In the third and last game versus Westside the boys displayed the good passing football we got accustomed to and a sound 4 – 0 was the end result of the game.  However, Westside were a very good side but saw their attempts to score saved by brilliant goalkeeping.

Many thanks to the parents and to Carshalton for hosting the games.

This week’s results: 1st lost 5-2 at home to Winchmore Hill. Let’s hope the guys perform better next week in the Surrey/Kent cup Final against honorable artillery Company being played at Polytechnic ground. 15.00 kick off for those who want to go along and show their supporting hopefully bring hope some silverware to the Hood.

The 2s lost 2-1 away to EBOG, with one of their players Richard Moore being carted away to A&E with suspect broken leg.

The 3s, with the ref not showing and Lee Lenihan steeping in as the man with the whistle beat Old Wilsonians 7-3 a good result having been 2 null down.

The 4s game away to alleyns was postponed, maybe the sun wasnt shining over that way??

5’s didn’t have a fixture.

The 6s drew 3-3 at home against Civil Service 8s, some good football played by the team and some cracking goals.

“DO WE HAVE ENOUGH PLAYERS GAFF?”…
…along with “do we have a keeper?” was the build-up to this game.
Once we established who was playing and that Kevin ‘The Cat’ Locke was going to cover the goal for the first 45 mins, we made the journey across South London to the quaint area of Hayes Hill, well compared to Wembley anywhere else is ‘quaint’!! Even travelling to Old Wilsonians didn’t stop the drama of getting to the game, players established how they were arriving….well everyone apart from Nuno who had travelled to Tooting to go wake up Ruben, but to be told by the latter that he won’t be playing as he didn’t want to get up! This prompted frantic messages and calls from Nuno as he panicked to get to the ground from Tooting 2 hours before the game.
Onto the game, finding out that we had to travel the short walk to the back pitches which looked like they were someone’s back garden and they hadn’t opened the gates for anyone to play, we found that there was a slight slope to the pitch and winning the toss was important to establish we played down the slope in the second half.
The first half started evenly but once Old Wilsonians started to take advntage of the slope, we found oursleves struggling to hold onto the ball and make consecutive passes, instead panicking to clear it. The centre midfield of Matt and Ram suffered neck ache as the ball kept pinging around and over them as the ball spent more time being hoofed up in the air then either team risking to bring the ball down and attempt a pass.
Old Wilsonians started to increase their attempts on goal, but nothing to worry Kevin as he swept/slipped/ate everything thrown to him and Spencer and Darren clearing everything else before it reached the penalty area. Steve then decided to ask a romantic question to the ref, who did not take kindly to his approach and we could only assume he was not interested. With the whole team telling him to ‘shut up’ and take the rejection, he was not giving up on asking again and with risking getting his name taken, but not out of choice by the ref, I don’t think he wanted it that much. Fair to say that was his only contribution to the game!
With about 30mins gone, Merton finally had their first attempt on goal with their first passing move. Ram controlled the ball in the centre circle and passed it out to Harry at right back, with a look up he pinged a great ball down the channel which Nuno ran onto, he pulled the ball back to the left edge of the penalty area where Matt ran onto and narrowly missed the target.
This gave Merton belief that we could take an important lead into the half before the advantage of the slope in the second half and this came a few minutes later where a blatant shove in the back of their number 5 by Ram, (I admit it) led to Jay knocking it back to Matt just outside the area and with his eyes lighting up to add to his 3 goals for the season duly smashed into the mid-drift of Ram and fortunately ran across the penalty area to the unmarked Nuno who made no mistake and slotted it passed the keeper.
With talk of trying to take control of the ball at half-time and take advantage of the slope, the next decision was to decide who was going to takeover in goal and just falling short of deciding by rock, paper, scissors – Harry donned the gloves and looked every part a keeper (unfortunately no pics were taken to justify this).
Half-time subs were Nikhil replacing Ram in centre midfield with Kevin playing at left back with Baz operating the right side of defence.
The second half continued the same way as the first half ended….scrappy! With no team able to take control of the game, it became a bit of a tense game as a goal to the oppo would have given them the confidence to have gone on to win the game. With 60 mins gone, Adam replaced Darren at the heart of defence and carried on where Darren left off.
With the ball finding our strikers more regularly, the new chant for the second half was ‘NUNO…PASS!!! All to avail, as everytime he had the ball to feet and the chanting became louder and louder, the more he rebelled and tried to take their defence on single-handed. This week, along with ensuring Nuno has the postcode for the match on Saturday morning, we are going to send him post codes for every player on the pitch so he can locate them!
Comedy moment of the game came when one of the oppo players hoofed the ball up in the darkening sky and goalwards…with Harry looking like he was praying to Allah, the ball was falling pretty much on the goal-line, this led to a discussion between the back four guessing if it will be a goal or not. Spencer could not bare to look and fell to his knees to give his own version of praying to Allah, Harry kept focus and caught the ball under the bar.
The game was pretty much wrapped up midway in the second half as a shot on goal was parried by their keeper, but as he tried to pounce on the bouncing ball, his teammate decided to try and help him out by trying to clear the ball but was closer to taking the keepers head off and the ball rolled away which Nuno went round the keeper and knocked in at the opposite corner. This was his last contribution as he was subsequently substituted for Ram with nikhil moving upfront.
Merton saw out the last 10-15mins without any harm and ran out winners, more through hard work and perserverance than good football.
LINEUP (4-4-2)
Kevin (GK), Baz, Harry, Chris & Darren, Steve, Matt & Ram, Jay, Nuno & Ryan Subs: Adam & Nikhil

On the back of a fine run of form, the 2s headed to Chiswick to take on promotion rivals Polytechnic. Wilgo had a strong outfield ten at his disposal with some young club players helping out to give us three on the bench. Notable absentees were Craig Usher, midfield stalwart, and the dangerous Femi Arogundade, still recovering from a knock. With Sherbs hunting whales in Mexico, we tried not to blubber too much about the lack of a keeper and when Wilgo threw down the gauntlets, DQ stepped in to pick them up.
As the match kicked off, the Chiswick wind was blowing sharply across the pitch, but Merton started strongly, the Polytechnic backline immediately finding themselves under considerable pressure. Taylor’s marauding runs prompted by Thomas’s probing passes were backed up by some strong running from midfield, Wilgo leading by example. Two or three decent half-chances came and went before Taylor burst through and struck firmly past the Polytechnic custodian. The goal had been coming and was due reward for a great first half. The good work was, in true Merton style, almost immediately undone, when we failed to deal with a teasing set piece which ended up in a back post huddle and the ball deflecting away to safety off the outside of a post. But that was as tense as it got for DQ before half-time.
Polytechnic are a good team and an improvement in their play duly arrived after the break. That said, in the early stages of the second half, we had a couple of very promising counters which could have resulted in the game being put to bed. The build-up play was excellent, but we just couldn’t find the final pass. Polytechnic sensed they were still very much in it and began to apply pressure. A series of free kicks and corners penned us in and eventually the opposition broke through with a low shot, DQ having no chance (the writer of this article confesses that he can’t really remember the goal, but considers the above description ‘close enough’ for publication). It was very tough on the hard-working Merton defence who excelled throughout the contest, lead by captain Marc Wilson, who just seemed to be everywhere.
Buoyed by their goal, Polytechnic were in the ascendency by the end of the game and we found ourselves hanging on a bit. Merton hearts were in mouths when a low shot flashed past the post in the final seconds, but on the balance of the whole game, a draw was a fair result.
We retired to the bar, where Marc Wilson wasn’t presented with the MMH trophy even though he won it. The miscreant who had left the trophy at home placated the baying crowd with a Predator, but it was tough on Marc whose performance more than merited holding it aloft with pride.

As the score line suggests this was a pretty dreadful display by us. Nottsborough had a very good forward but he didn’t score any of their goals and we should’ve been able to defend the crosses he put into the box. We didn’t and were 4-0 by half time. Three of the goals were identikit back post headers which we should’ve learnt from each time. We regrouped at half time and most people raised their games. Not that hard given how poor the first half was! We scored twice but still managed to score an own goal and ANOTHER back post header to compound our misery. The most annoying aspect of the day was that they looked fitter and more committed than us and it’s very rare that’s the case. A bad day we need to put behind us, look forward to the cup final, and learn from to ensure we get the points we need to stay up. Thanks to Darcy and Tony who stepped up from the 3s and Cookie who went in goal for the last 20 minutes.

TEAM: Ryan Tomlin (GK), Cookie, Browner, Rat, Jonesy, Al G, Snooks, Darcy, Vanny, Bosher, Dan Whiteman. Subs: Alex Hope, Tony

Merton FC U-11s’ made hard work of beating lowlySCR Colts.
Numerous chances went begging and both post and bar were hit before Merton finally took the lead. Kieran picked up the ball on the right hand side and using his electric pace and surged past 2 defenders before rifling the ball into the roof of the net with his right foot. Illane, Deveonte and Thomas all had shots well saved, leaving the score at 1-0 at the break.
Further chances were missed at the start of the second half and this seemed to give SCR renewed hope and they equalised from close range following a defensive mix up. Rather than deflate the team, this seemed to inspire Merton and they retook the lead with a brilliant individual effort from Devonte, he waltzed past 3 players before slotting the ball past the on-rushing goalkeeper.
The 3 points were clinched when Nikoy intercepted a goal-kick and rifled the ball into the corner.
Man of the Match: Thomas Meredith for his excellent passing and link up play

MERTON FC U8S 3-1 SHEEN LIONS U8S
A sunny but chilly morning in sheen saw two closely matched teams battling away on a muddy pitch.
Both teams played a tight 1st quarter which Merton just edged to lead 1-0 with a well taken goal. In the second quarter it was great defending by both teams resulting in no goals the third quarter saw Merton play back to there passing best which saw them score a second goal with a great move and superb top corner finish.Great all round defending again saw the game out at 2-0 to Merton.
Man of the Match: Miller with an all round
energetic display.

FACT FILE

TEAM: 3XI / 4XI

POSITION: Right Back/Right Midfield

BIRTH DATE: 20/02/1980

BIRTH PLACE: Ecuador

CLUBS: Tigres JV (South American league in London)

RAPID FIRE

Player of the season (so far): Eden Hazard

Childhood Team: FC Barcelona

Favourite team outside the UK: LDU Quito (Ecuadorian team that played 2008 FIFA Club World Cup Final)

Childhood Hero: Diego Maradona

Favourite Food: Spanish Tapas

Favourite Drink: Sparkling Water

Favourite Band: Muse

INTERVIEW WITH RICARDO IGLESIAS

1. Tell us who is Ricardo outside of the club. What do you do, how would you describe yourself?

I consider myself a friendly person, committed to the beautiful game of Football and a proud new father of a 11 month baby called Ethan who hopefully would join Merton in a few years. I do work as an Account Manager for a Cleaning and Security company in London.

2. How did you end up at Merton FC?

Through a work client Peter Heyne who was involved in training at Merton FC in 2009.

3. What was your best moment in your MFC career till now?

I would say my first goal scored for Merton but to be honest I hardly remember it now, there is a bit of a best moment in every game I play for the club as I enjoy playing for Merton.

4. If you could play for a professional team, which would be it and why?

Crystal Palace, I live near the Stadium and I have gone to a few matches the atmosphere there is fantastic and although I always liked Manchester United I would feel honoured to play for the Eagles.

5. Do you have any pre-match rituals or superstitions?

Just a prayer before the match for a free injury match, and the victory of course lol.

6. Lastly, share us your thoughts for the rest of the season.

Pick up points in all games as possible and also hoping that more players commit with the club to have full squads through out the teams.