6s vs Civil Service 14.02.15

The date was Valentines Day, and the sixes of Merton were in no mood to show the opposition any love.

After a long and eventful journey to the home of the Civil Service, it was surprising that all the players were on time.  More of a surprise was that Harry was there first!!

After the pitch that saw the demise of our cup run last week, it was great to see the sight of some green grass and no puddles.  At least we couldn’t blame the playing surface this week!

Anyway, with kick off fast approaching, Steve gave his team talk and made sure the lads were focused on the game and not on whether they were going to get a sexy valentines surprise from their Mrs when they got home!

The team lined up as follows:

Martin (Merton’s number 1!) in goal, a back four of Paul, Dazza, Steve (Gaffer) and Smithy (c). The midfield saw the return of the mighty Ram and Rob in the centre with Ryan and Harry on the wings, up top was new boy Nikhill and Nuno.  Subs were Jonny O and Ruben.

Anyway after losing the toss AGAIN! We were kicking off and from the start it seemed that the majority of the team had forgotten how to kick a ball!!

After a good 15 minutes of miskicks and misplaced passes and not being to be able to get out of our half, it was unsurprising that Civil Service took the lead, all be it under fortuitous circumstances.  A cross from there left caught out Martin and lobbed over him into the back of the net.  Was this the start of another Merton thumping!!

Well after roughly 25 minutes, it looked like the writing was on the wall as Civil Service doubled their lead!  Merton still having not started the game properly, failed to clear their lines and a weak shot was sent in, which was going wide and with Martin forgetting he could his hands, miscontrolled the ball and it managed to go in the back of the net!!  2 – 0 to Civil Service and things were not looking good!!!

Now a turning point for the Mighty Sixes, instead of the usual heads going down and Smithy throwing his toys out of the pram!  The team decided to roll their sleeves up and get stuck in and try to make a game of it!!  Now the misplaced passes were finding their targets and Merton were playing some decent stuff!!

Roughly with 10 minutes to play in the half, the ball was played into the Civil Service box and Ruben, on as a sub, controlled the ball and rolled the ball back to Ram who hit a screamer of a left footed shot into the corner of the net!!  His first goal of hopefully many for his new club and was fully deserved.  Maybe there was some hope for Merton to get something out of this game!!

As the half was approaching its conclusion, it was now Merton playing the better football.

It was literally the last kick of the half when Merton got there fully deserved equaliser!!

After a lovely scramble in the Civil Service box, which resulted in a Civil Service player handling the ball off the line, the ball was finally poked in by Nuno!!  Great celebrations from the Merton players followed and there was no time left in the half for Civil Service to reply!!  2-2 at half time and the come back was complete.

The ref said he would of given a penalty if we hadn’t scored which would have probably resulted in a red card for the civil service, it would have been a nice change for us to be playing against 10 man for once, not the other way round, but it wasn’t to be!!

The half time team talk was complete and with light refreshments we were ready to push on for the victory.

The second half started and again it was an even contest, with both teams having chances and Martin making some great saves.  He even managed to save a lobbed shot from his own defender, whereby Steve who got “his little toe” to a clearance and from a fully 30 yards, nearly had a disaster!!

Merton did have a chance whereby we broke and with Ryan playing in Smithy, who was under a bit pressure managed to scare the corner flag with an outside of the boot shot!!

As the half wore on the mighty Merton legs were tiring and the younger Civil Service team was taking more risks.

Eventually there pressure told and quick break meant there new striker had a one on one and slotted it in the corner, making it 3-2 to Civil Service!!

Again credit to the Mighty Merton 6’s, their heads never dropped and nearly found an equaliser, whereby Nuno skilfully took on there defence and had one on one chance cleared off the line!!  We all thought it was in but the ref could not see if it had crossed the line, our celebrations were short lived.  To be fair to the ref, he had a really good and fair game and there was no way he could see it from where he was.

I think that deep down we knew that was our chance and with the game ending Civil Service broke and Martin made a wonderful tackle outside his box, but unfortunately the ball bounced kindly to there player and he lobbed the ball into an empty net!  4 – 2 to civil service

The ref then blew the final whistle and Civil Service knew they had fought hard for victory.  4-2 was flattering scoreline as Merton never gave up and was always in the game, but once again another defeat!!

Lets hope we can take this performance forward into the next game as we proved to ourselves we are a good team when we get going!!!

MATCH RATINGS:

Martin 7 (never let his mistake get to him and made some great saves!)

Paul 8 (made numerous runs up the line and put his foot in for the cause)

Steve 7 (almost scored an OWN GOAL!, was solid throughout)

Dazza 7 (great performance until fatigue set it!!)

Smithy 7 (again im writing this!!! Had a disaster for 15 mins but then stepped up and had one his better games!)

Harry 6 (not one of his better performances, was playing in a new position so to be fair needed to get upto speed quickly! It takes a man to admit a bad performance and that’s what Harry said, so fair play to him!

Rob 7 (solid in the middle of midfield then centre back, brought a calm head to a panicking defence!)

Ram 8 (had a great game, and scored with a great finish – great lad to have in the team and has settled in nicely!)

Nikhill 7 (another new lad and settled into Merton life straight away, a nice bloke and had a good game.  Hopefully this result doesn’t put him off!!)

Nuno 7 (Good game from Nuno, caused there defence problems and scored so all round a good day!)

Ruben 7 (good game from coming off the bench, set up a goal and put a real shift in!)

Jonny O 6 (good game from Jonny, nearly scored with a 30 yarder and even showed some skill by completely mugging there midfielder!)

I think that’s it, see you all next week at Bank of England!!!!!!!

Oh there was one more thing…… you didn’t think I would forget… the MVP!!

This week, I think the whole team played well, but I think this player had his best game in a Merton shirt.  Step up Ryan!!!  Had a great game down the wing and pushed forward when he could and protected the great Smithy well!!  Put in numerous tackles and made some great passes, most of all never gave up!  Have a can of coke on me!!